The world is becoming increasingly complex and fast-moving. Correspondingly, the randomness, magnitude and frequency of shock events are increasing, making it difficult for organisations to respond with agility.
Organisation members generally believe they can control their organisations because they think they understand how their actions cause people to behave. If an executive thinks they understand the cause of behaviour, they can change how people behave.
However, the acceleration of the world has caught people out. A rapidly increasing number of executives find they cannot cope with shock events. Many organisations are failing as a consequence.
We must examine the prevailing understanding of causation among the executive community to understand why.
Complexity Links
- Overview
- Causation in Organisations
- The Illusion of Control
- What is Complexity Science
The Conventional View
There is a tendency for people to think organisations work through a mechanical cause-and-effect process with the scientific rigour of Physics. Technically, this cause-and-effect perspective is the scientific doctrine called Empiricism. The process of establishing cause and effect is called the Scientific Method.
The Scientific Method – experiments, observations and statistical analysis, seeks to identify ‘constant conjunctions of events’. These are situations where one event repeatedly follows from the occurrence of another event.
When scientists identify a constant conjunction through experimentation, they derive a general law applicable to all situations where the constant conjunction occurs.
Because constant conjunctions in the physical world are so robust, they serve as a proxy for causation. The first event is said to cause the second event.
If a moving billiards ball collides with a stationary ball, the stationary ball will move. No matter how many times a moving and a stationary billiards ball collide, the outcome will always be the same.
