FGI NEWS – ISSUE 05: COMPLEXITY
“When it stops changing, it is dead.”
Dr. Matthias Nöllke is the author of numerous book on management, including the book “So
managt die Natur” (Nature's management techniques). We with him about living systems,
evolutionary thinking, the career ladder for dwarf mongooses and why diversity is better than
perfection.
What can managers learn from the most successful enterprise of all time, nature, in particular in regard to
handling complexity?
Nature provides us with a myriad of models – and not just in the animal kingdom. Plants have extremely complex
tasks to master as well.
Let’s look at three examples: Large flocks of birds and schools of fish are not guided by specific lead animals.
Instead, these groups guide themselves. Each animal in them acts on the basis of local information, thus
influencing the behavior of the animals around it. Very simple rules give rise to highly complex and extremely
efficient patterns that would be impossible for a central control unit to organize. Parasites serve as the second
example. Although quite primitive, these organisms have the power to influence very complex life forms at
breathtaking speed. In fact, some parasites invade the brains of their hosts and seize command of them.
The third example is cooperation. Vastly different life forms cooperate with each other – without reaching
complicated agreements or “understanding” one another. Together, they achieve feats of unbelievable complexity.
This begins on the level of microorganisms. Various bacteria come together to form a “biofilm”, build supply
channels and create their own mechanisms for protection against enemies.
Can you explain the concept of “organization as a living system” in brief?
Organizations are traditionally viewed as a type of machine. Management’s task is to control these machines from
the outside. The idea of “organization as a living system” seeks to replace this rigid, mechanistic concept with a
dynamic model characterized by self-organization. Managers are not separate from the corporate machine they
command; they are part of a living system. When they change it, they change themselves, because a living
system is never static. When it stops changing, it is dead.
So change is the elixir of life?
Yes, to a certain extent that is true. However, too much change can be just as deadly as stagnation. Living
systems require inner balance, otherwise they will die. But this state of equilibrium is a dynamic one, meaning that
continual renewal is necessary in order to maintain balance and keep the system functional.
What are the goals of living systems?
Living systems have just one goal – to survive. Everything else is of secondary importance. The idea is not to
generate maximum “profit”, to acquire the most resources, to continue growing indefinitely or to eliminate the
competition – these are nothing more than survival tactics at most.
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Then what constitutes successful leadership in a living system?
Successful leadership helps keep a living system “healthy” and “functional”. This may occur in vastly different
ways, depending on the type of system in question. Successful leadership in a living system is adaptive and does
not orient itself to supposedly fail-proof recipes.
“Managers would rather live with a problem they can´t solve than with a solution they don´t fully understand.” Is
that true?
That is a quote from Eric Bonabeau, one of the inventors of the concept of “swarm intelligence”. Although that
statement is a bit brusque, it is based on an important truth: One can initiate solutions without understanding
interrelationships; one can leverage self-organization processes without exercising direct control.
So you believe that organizations and leaders can learn from evolution. How so?
Firstly, one should point out that evolutionary thinking has gained immensely in popularity over the past several
years. In fact, some are even referring to it as a “new paradigm” for thinking about business and society. It is thus
a little ironic that there is discussion of banning evolutionary science from schools in the United States at the
same time.
Whatever the case, I believe that evolutionary thinking can help us achieve a better understanding of many things,
not just the economy. We must recognize that we cannot control future developments, that we are dependent on
our own development and the development of others. We live in co-evolution with numerous other “species”: Our
customers are developing, they respond when we change something, just as do our cooperation partners, our
competitors, the public, etc. In turn, our organization is likewise embedded in the actions of many others. None of
these can be planned or predicted. Once we have understood this and accepted the uncertainty it brings, new
options for taking action and setting impulses open up to us.
“Survival of the fittest” therefore means survival of the most adaptable, not survival of the strongest?
The phrase “survival of the fittest” was coined by the British social philosopher Herbert Spencer. He did in fact
conceive of something akin to survival of those best able to assert themselves. Spencer is regarded as the father
of “social Darwinism”, which has rightfully earned an extremely bad reputation.
Darwin borrowed the phrase from Spencer and used it to refer to survival of those organisms best adapted to their
environments. He thus highlights the fact that, in the long term, small advantages can have dramatic impacts. A
small advantage helps an organism in setting a few more offspring in the world. Over the course of time, this
effect multiplies exponentially: The descendents of the organism that was only slightly better adapted gradually
displace all others.
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Today, evolutionary biology takes a more differentiated view with the effects of co-evolution (developmental
progress made by one organism causing changes in another). Different, perhaps even opposing “roles” that are
adaptive and promising can be seen within the members of one species: If everything went as it was supposed to
in a troop of monkeys, all of the young animals would carry the genes of the alpha monkey. Happily, however,
there are charming imposters who are nice to the females and discretely make sure that their characteristics are
also passed on to future generations. Last but not least, the idea of “survival of the fittest” is contested by the
presence of organisms that are by no means well adjusted. Their level of adjustment is enough to ensure survival
and a sufficient number of descendents, however, and that is all that counts. There is no prize for “best
adaptation”. Diversity is better than perfection. Optimal adaptation can even be downright dangerous when living
conditions change, which happens frequently.
What does the term fitness landscape mean?
The fitness landscape is a rather complex metaphor stemming from biologist Stuart Kauffman. To put it very
briefly, the idea is to trace the evolution of one species as a path through the fitness landscape. The higher a
certain point is located in this fitness landscape, the better adapted the species in question. This can quickly
become problematic when the species becomes trapped on a “local peak” while appearing to be continually
improving its characteristics. There is no direct path upward from a local peak. Like a hiker who wants to reach an
even higher mountain, the species must therefore first descend, i.e. decline, in order to continue along its path.
This decline, leading to an improvement in the long-term future, can only be carried out by the outsiders and
fringe members of the group. It takes them through the “valley of death”, meaning that there is a risk that this
decline may ultimately lead to extinction.
When applied to the corporate world, this means it is also possible for companies to get stuck on a “local peak”.
Further optimization only heightens this effect. In order to make real progress, to reach an even higher peak, the
company must first transverse “the valley of death”, i.e. radically change itself. This must occur even though there
is a danger that the company may not survive the change.
Ii is well known that nature revolves around eating or being eaten: What is the most complex hunting strategy you
know in nature?
Animals that hunt in groups, e.g. wolves, hyenas and even dolphins, often use highly complex hunting strategies.
Dolphins are perhaps the most interesting. They form extremely variable teams that not only go hunting together,
they also attack other dolphins when necessary. In no other species has one group been known to recruit a
second in order to attack a third. But let’s return to the hunting strategy of this marine mammal, which is by no
means as gentle as it appears. A group of perhaps 15 dolphins is capable of roughing up a huge school of
sardines. They encircle the school, perfectly coordinating their movements among themselves. One wrong move
would permit the school to slip away en masse. The most interesting part is that the dolphins drive the sardines to
the surface of the ocean, attracting the attention of sea birds, which also hunt them. This maneuver serves to
provide the dolphins with a signal that attracts other dolphins to partake in the feast.
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Would you say that animals are better complexity managers?
It would be a total misunderstanding to assume that the animal kingdom deals better with complexity than we
humans do. Our everyday life is already extremely complex and we handle this complexity well because we are
familiar with it. So familiar, in fact, that we don’t even realize how successfully we are at “managing” complexity –
without even thinking about it. The problem is that this doesn’t help us when we are faced with other highly
complex tasks. In such cases, we may turn to an entirely unsuitable strategy in an attempt to get complexity
“under control”, to plan and “manage” it – efforts which frequently go dramatically wrong. With this mind, examples
from the animal kingdom can demonstrate how to deal with complexity that is impossible to fully comprehend. A
termite mound is an architectural miracle consisting of billions of individual activities that the termites neither plan
nor coordinate.
In conclusion: What is your favorite manager in nature?
There are many examples that I like. Such as dwarf mongooses, which are small, cat-like carnivores resembling
martens. They live together in groups of up to thirty animals. Infighting to establish rank is virtually unknown, due
in part to the fact that the dwarf mongoose career ladder goes in one direction only – downward. The youngest
animals in need of the most protection occupy the highest places in the hierarchy. The older and stronger the
dwarf mongooses become, the harder their lives and the more challenging their tasks. There are two other special
features as well: The group is led by an alpha female. When an animal from the group becomes sick or injured,
the alpha female nurses it herself. In contrast, other animal communities often expel a member after injury. Dwarf
mongooses have a very good reason for displaying this selflessness: They must live under extremely harsh
conditions and can’t afford to lose a single member of the group.
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