The Art of Complexity
An exhibition by Julian Burton at the London School of Economics until 31/10/03 at,
The Atrium, Old building, Houghton street, London, WC2

[Other pictures and essays relating to change and leadership]
[Visual output from a recent conference on complexity and healthcare]

Emergent change is spontaneous and unpredictable. New ideas, behavioural change and performance improvement arise through the improvisation inherent in authentic, honest and grounded conversations. Do traditional change management practices enable this type of interaction? How can we stimulate the sort of conversations in which creative behavioural change emerges?

1
Two approaches to change
60x42cm watercolour print

How can we get the sort of change we are looking for?

This picture contrasts two ways of thinking about change in organisations.The dominant approach uses the abstract vocabularies of technical fixes, rational planning and predicting outcomes. Change is something other people have to do, somewhere else, another time. The implicit assumption behind this perspective is that if leaders design and apply the right "lever for change", people will change their behaviour, i.e. do what they are told. The second approach assumes that coercion doesn't work. The locus of change being within human relationships, and the primary process being informal and spontaneous conversation; in the vocabulary of humaness, openess and honesty. Behavioural change can then be seen to emerge out this type of conversation, which becomes the fertile soil out of which co-evolving relationships grow.

2
The calculated risk
2002, 60x42cm watercolour print

How can we plan innovation?

A common problem for organisations is the need to stimulate creativity and innovation. The habitual reaction ‘how do we plan innovation?' is to go to great lengths to control the creative process, iron out any uncertainties, avoid conflict at all costs and stay firmly within the comfort zone. An alternative approach, suggested by complexity theory, is to create the conditions or enabling environment for creativity and innovative ideas to emerge. This may include creating a culture that encourages diversity and exploration of the space of possibilities –not all ideas will be implemented or be successful, but unless many are tried then successful ideas will not be found. A precondition for this to happen is a safe space for people to speak openly and honestly about what is going on for them and what they imagine they want to happen.

3
A normal day at the office
60x42cm watercolour print

what themes are you dealing with ?


Visual Dialogue is a facilitation process that identifies and captures issues and concerns in pictures that are then used to generate grounded, open and honest discussion. This can be a way to understanding the deeper problems and issues facing the organization. The process can reveal sensitive issues and tensions that are normally difficult to talk about. Representing them visually offers a safe way to discuss difficult subjects. This often stimulates very meaningful and constructive dialogue, enabling people to speak of the concerns they are struggling with, and in naming the difficult issues they are faced with, they can start to address them. Often teams that are under pressure to deliver quickly have no time or space to voice these concerns. This can mean that leaders don’t get the reality checks they need to make the right decisions. The consequence of not speaking up when it is needed means that energy and resources are wasted, resulting in inefficient team work.

4
Self organisation
60x42cm watercolour print

Where does new order come from?

Self-organisation: The spontaneous appearance of orderly structure and coherent pattern

In human, social contexts, self-organisation means that the relationships and conversations within a group organise themselves without any one person being in control. The group decides what to do, when to do it and how, without external direction. No one person dominates the group by closing down others' honest opinions. Conflict is courageously surfaced as a source of diversity and not avoided. This enables the sort of spontaneous and improvised conversations in which new, shared meaning can be created and nurtured; i.e. organised coherently. The new order, or gestalt that emerges from this type of interaction creates energy, creativity and commitment desired. New order may be seen as the creation of new, more coherent and satisfying patterns of experience, knowledge and behaviour at work.

5
A serious piece of change
60x42cm watercolour print

How do we think about change?

I recently heard a change management consultant say of a client project, "this could be a serious piece of change". These words inspired me to paint this picture. What did they mean? How could "change" be seen as an external object, a singular noun? For me, change is a process we experience not something we "do" to an object. It is something that happens in the space between us, in the way we relate, in the words we use with each other, in the constant flux of half formed meanings, intentions and expectations. To change the way we think, and talk, about change we need to get back to the real meaning of words and retrieve the purpose of language. We speak to create, maintain and develop valuable relationships. Meaningful conversation is the fertile soil from which new ideas, actions and behaviour emerge.

6
The illusion of control
60x42cm watercolour print

How can leaders get valid feedback in a culture of fear ?

The dominant assumption explored here is that the performance of individuals in a large organisation can be "driven up" using numerical data, indicators and targets. Often there is no space for people to challenge this approach or make sense of it. Performance is contextual, and appraisals that rely on ticking boxes often miss the realities of work. Without honest challenge, the lack of clarity can cause much unarticulated confusion. Yet silence becomes the norm and honest opinion goes unvoiced. Dissent is stifled and the real issues become taboo subjects. Performance is "driven up" by public humiliation of "failed leaders" and energy is wasted trying to cook the books. These patterns of behaviour seem to be counterproductive if real progress and reform are desired.

7
Emergence
60x42cm watercolour print

Emergence: to arise naturally, the unpredictable or uncontrollable appearance of new phenomena.
Emergency: an unforeseen or sudden occurrence demanding immediate action

Many people I meet working in large organisations are wrestling with the idea of how to "facilitate emergence" or lead "emergent change". Precisely what is it that we want to "arise naturally"? I often wonder what, in my personal experience, reflects this term? When I am silently struggling to make sense of a complex situation in which I need to act it helps me to discuss it with someone. By expressing the contradictions and dilemmas at hand, socialising what I think and feel to a trusted friend, I can engage with the dilemmas in a different, often more powerful, way. Things make more sense when I speak of them to another, naming them can suddenly give me a more powerful grip on the situation in front of me, making me feel more energised and inspired. This to me means having clarity on where I am and what I need to do next. In my opinion facilitating emergence is nothing more complex or theoretical than creating the conditions for honest and meaningful conversations..

8
The Dis-organisation
60x42cm watercolour print

What do you think causes dis-organisation?

The biggest barrier to change is the way we talk about it. The language of change has lost its power, becoming exhausted; diluted by constant misuse. When sterile intellectual abstractions, generalisations and jargon are used to "communicate" change in a one way direction they often fail to effect any change, what words do we have left to work with? When generalisations are used, we start down a slippery slope, focusing attention on abstract ideas. Unspecific or vague words don’t have the energy or meaning needed to inspire the action needed to make change. When this creates a contradiction between what is said and what is needed, we lose the link between thought and action, between word and experience. At the heart of all successful organisational change are the honest and grounded conversations in which people speak more humanly, in ways that inspires creativity, commitment and action.

9
Partnership
60x42cm print

Creating change through partnership
There are different types of partnership. What matters most is that there is clarity about its purpose. Here a distinction is made between, competition, cooperation, and co-evolution. Each requires different behaviours to acheive its ends. Objectives are either individual or collective. From left to right represents the extent to which the purpose and the behaviourneeded to achieve it can be know in advance. To the left, objectives are recognisable and the way to acheive them understood. To the right the future can be anticipated but not predicted. Achieving objectives will depend on triggering changes in other partners. [source; Working with whole Systems; Pratt, Gordon, Plamping, 1998]

10
Complexity and strategy
60x42cm print

The realities of change
What type of change can we effect?Traditional models of change management are often inadequate in making the turbulent business environment coherent. The assumptions that underpin the planned change approach are now being questioned. Complexity offers a new language that helps make more sense of current experiences of change in organisations. Emergent change is an alternative approach. How can the these two approaches be integrated?

One way of thinking about organisations is that they exist to support their members by coordinating activities for mutual benefit. An organisation exchanges resources with its environment to survive and thrive. The behaviour of an organisation is driven by and emerges from a complex system of social activities. This system is constituted by dynamic networks of formal and informal relationships between individuals, established, maintained and developed through language. The essential process in the network is conversation.

Changing the conversation
The conversations that really create performance improvement begin when people get specific about how they feel about a current issue of concern and share what is really going on for them. This works best when people talk honestly about their own experience in their own words - about the concerns that are most important to them now, about what is really going on for them. Only when there is honesty about specifics in team meetings can people make sense of what is going on for each other at work and begin to encourage action in themselves and others. I believe that a crucial role of any leader is to create a safe space that gives people an opportunity to speak openly and honestly about their own experience is the key to change.

The power of visual art
Pictures are a powerful way to open up discussion on difficult subjects. They can reflect a reality that people are not normally willing to talk about, and create a safe space to discuss them. Drawing out the "Big Picture" helps teams to discuss what really matters. By gathering different perspectives on complex and difficult challenges and unifying them into a single picture creates something that people can gather round and discuss. A concrete and tangible picture provides a powerful catalyst that a team can focus its attention on, putting the real issues out on the table. It prompts them to discuss issues in a more constructive way, helping them to come to some shared understanding. and creates something that they can all agree to.

Using Visual Dialogue to change the conversation
Visual Dialogue is a process in which pictures are used to encourage people to speak more specifically and personally about their experience at work. This naturally promotes shared understanding which is the first step towards the creative and concrete responses that are needed to make a difference. The purpose of these pictures is to trigger conversations in which people can talk honestly and specifically about their big picture. These pictures and diagrams are examples of the sort visual catalysts which I use as a facilitator in organisations to stimulate grounded and honest discussion. This process usually has the effect of eliciting personal descriptions of experience that ground the conversation in an empowering and stimulating way.

The language of change
My experience is that many conversations on change are smothered in abstractions, generalisations and theories. The language used is distant and vague. Real issues and concerns are avoided and go unvoiced. This can have the effect that leaders don’t get the reality checks they need to make the right decisions, which means that energy and resources are wasted. The road to Inefficiency begins when the ideas we talk about become disconnected from our experience. If this connection isn't made, it can result in confusion, a lack of clarity and little or no action. Yet the difficult but important subjects are avoided, or made safe and unthreatening by generalisations in which the truth gets hidden away and lost. This way of speaking is so ingrained that we are barely aware that we do it.

What is the biggest barrier to change?
Change isn't working because the language of change isn't doing its job. It has been exhausted and lost its power -- diluted and exhausted by constant misuse. Poor communication is currently a major barrier to successful change learning and development. silence is the norm and dissent is stifled, which doesn’t help the reform process. When Jargon and abstractions go unchallenged they contribute to the lack of clarity, confusion and distress that can inhibit service delivery and improvement. The quality and strength of working relationships and informal networks are a function of the language used. When we use abstract generalisations to explain serious issues, we start down a slippery slope, focusing attention on abstract ideas that have weak meaning and intention. The next thing that happens is that we lose the link between thought and action, between word and experience, leading to the type of meaninglessness that inhibits behavioural change.

Sharing common ground
The language and status games played in formal communications and meetings do not invite honest challenge or clarification. Fear of challenging inhibits the conversations that need to happen for behavioural change and performance improvement. At the heart of all successful organisational change are the sort of conversations that lead to the clarity of shared meaning that create the context for new and creative actions. In this type of conversation, people speak in a more grounded language, being more open and honest about each others experience which naturally promotes shared understanding. As people learn more about each other they develop the better working relationships in which they speak more specifically about what needs to happen, which can result in the behaviours that lead to improving performance..