LEADING IN COMPLEX ORGANIZATIONS
by Seth Kahan


Many of the organizations I work with are complex.This means they
have one or more of the three attributes which make leadership
particularly difficult:

1• Geographic distribution - employees, customers, and partners
are spread around the country, region, or the globe. Each
physical location creates separation, challenging alignment.

2• Multi-disciplinary - staff members have differing professional
backgrounds, seeing the world in fundamentally different ways.
For example, medical doctors, space scientists, and
macro-economists each have different mental models for how
things work.

3• Multi-cultural - when people are from different ethnic
backgrounds, they have different core values, use different body
language, think and express themselves in unique ways.

Each of these attributes creates complexity, challenging the impact
of leadership and causing confusion within the ranks. Check the
boxes in this table to describe your work environment.

	one	two	three or more
cultures
geographic locations
professional disciplines

If all your checks are in 1st column, then moving things forward is a
matter of gaining shared understanding. You can count on a
consistency between agreements and behavior.

If you are primarily in the 2nd column, your success depends on
significant coordination and translation. High performance
coordination is the skillful and effective use of structure. Effective
translation means taking the time to convert one group’s point-of-view to messages that are easy for the other group to understand.Quality translation preserves both feelings and intentions.

If you find yourself in the 3rd column, you are in a non-linear
environment.This means that relationships are not straight-forward.
This kind of workplace can wreak havoc with you if you expect to
apply a cause-and-effect approach. For success you will need to
balance (1) a clear intention about what needs to be done with (2)
the ability to embrace multiple points-of-view, especially when they
conflict.

To develop a clear intention, define the overall change you are seeking
to achieve. This is your preferred future state. With it, you can
identify the areas you need to address in order to achieve success.
Your environment will shift, and even change radically in a complex
organization.Your intention, however, will remain constant and serve
as a compass when you need it.

Embracing different perspectives is a leadership competency that is
challenging, yet it can be learned. It involves accepting different ways
of looking at the world, and allowing them to co-exist even when they
appear to conflict.

One of my favorite metaphors for this is the beach-ball. Imagine you
are opposite me and we are looking at the same beach-ball which
is exactly between us.We are both perfectly still and so is the ball.
You might describe what you are seeing as a white circle. I might
describe it as a red circle. Neither of us is wrong. However, we are
both incomplete. As soon as one of us moves, or the ball moves, we
immediately see a third dimension. It is not a circle, but a ball! The
added dimension reconciles our different, accurate, and incomplete
descriptions.

In complex work environments, leaders are constantly challenged
to hold onto their compass – their intentions – and to reconcile
differing points-of-view by finding solutions that embrace many
perspectives.

Copyright 2007 Seth Kahan. Reprint with attribution allowed.
I hope you enjoyed this article in the Visionary Leadership series.Send me an email to receive future issues as they are released: Seth@SethKahan.com