My exploration of complexity thinking and how it enables leaders and collectives to make better decisions is taking me back to where I started. I started in organisational development and innovation. Then I shifted into larger economic systems like innovation systems, local economies, value chains or regions. For the last four years I have been working mainly on organisational development in meso organisations involved in technology development and innovation promotion. So I have come full circle, but I sense that I am now better able to synthesize and use my experience and ideas. Now I will focus on the role of individuals in changing economic systems.
Marcus Jenal and I wrote last year about Systemic Change. In our reading the wealth of literature on economic evolution we were were deeply impressed by the work of Eric Beinhocker. In particular, the idea that economic development demands a co-evolution of:
- Physical technologies – are methods and processes for transforming matter, energy and information from one state into another in pursuit of a goal or goals; they enable people to create products and services that are worth trading. A physical technology is not only the physical object itself, but both the design of the thing and the instructions and techniques to make and use it. The ability to learn how to use, make and adapt the physical objects is critical.
- Social technologies – are methods, designs and arrangements for organising people in pursuit of a goal or goals; they smooth the way for cooperation and trading products and services. For example, the ability to organise people into hierarchies, such as companies or other organisations, which can allocate resources to specialised functions and which can learn is a social technology.
- Business plans – are developed by enterprises and other organisations that are competing for resources, acceptance and buy-in in the economy. Business plans play the critical role of melding physical and social technologies together under a strategy and then operationally expressing the resulting design in the real world. From an evolutionary perspective, the purpose of business plans is to discover what is profitable, efficient or even possible in a given economic context. You could call this an economic technology.
I realized last week that I have spent at least five years of my career immersed in each of these three co-evolutions, but with the others not completely forgotten. From a physical technology perspective, I have always been involved in promoting trans disciplinary research, promoting innovation systems and helping innovators become more effective. I have spent a number of years supporting entrepreneurship, developing supply chains and promoting value chains. From a social technology perspective I have been working on management education, business consulting, assisting with change processes and facilitating search and discovery process within and between organisations.
Now I am taking this to a next level. I will for the next few months focus intentionally on the role of individual leaders in the co-evolutionary process. The co-evolution is fractal. I started at the highest level, the level of open systems, innovation systems, local economies and industries. Then I shifted to meso organisations, development organisations and universities, where I often focused on teams and how they use their resources in a systemic way to improve the networks they form part of.
The focus on individuals will be formal this time, where in the past this was informal, almost a by-product of my process consulting and advisory work. To equip me for this role I had to refresh my organisational and coaching skills. I have also participated in an advanced coaching programme in order to facilitate this shift in focus. Lastly, to enable this process I have exited many contracts, or not renewed contracts as they came to a close. This will enable me to dive deep. I will focus my coaching praxis on leadership support, innovation support and institution building, but with the role of the starting point. This will require many new business practices, and many new clients. I will try my best to frequently reflect here on my learning.
