Media

Really looking forward to this event on Thursday, there are so many interesting angles to explore together with so many brilliant folks.

When systems get complex, working alone feels efficient. Decisive. Clean. Controlled. After all, the problems are always with other people.. right?

Nearly six months have passed since I was given the wonderful opportunity to be part of the first ComplexitySalon, and I've found myself constantly returning to the ideas sparked in those rooms.

Is it time to rethink leadership and management? Many leaders work under the illusion that they can control what goes on but in reality organisations are messy, and unpredictable. So what does this Complexity really means for how organisations function, how leaders make decisions, and how people navigate uncertainty. One person who has challenged the neat models and tidy solutions we often reach for – instead opens up more real, human, and sometimes uncomfortable conversations about leadership, change, and organisational life is Professor Chris Mowles

Video recording of the event "The Experience of Polarisation"

Here are some observations I made from the discussion we had throughout the AI and the Art of Management day organised by ComplexitySalon in Sydney on 25th August. The day was governed by Chatham House rules, so I have generalised. I have not attempted a complete summary of what was a very rich day, and some of these remarks carry my own interpretation.

I have written before about how I was invited by a colleague to complete a questionnaire for her 360 degree appraisal of her competence as a leader. The questionnaire was long, so I have aggregated the questions, but here are the sorts of things that I was asked to evaluate.

Move fast and break things — this is the poster that one of the Tech Giant CEOs is supposed to have in his office. The invitation to ignore social conventions, perhaps even to avoid consulting people and talking things through, is a signature of managers in a hurry. The idea is that thinking, talking, can disrupt progress and slow everything down.

The term mindset, a collection of beliefs and/or attitudes, has evolved to mean any fixed group of ideas that has come to govern behaviour of an individual or a group. The term conveys cognitivist assumptions that attitudes and beliefs are confined inside an individual’s head. More, that a mindset can be changed with a particular programme of interventions of a behavioural kind.