Are your people equipped to operate freely and smartly in an emergent order system? Here’s how you can tell, and what you can do.
In past editions, we’ve seen illustrations of the inherent order that lies within an apparently chaotic system. We saw that the inherent order may seem to disappear, but it eventually reemerges—showing that it was always there, just not visible for a while. Watching the recent Euro 2024 football and some international rugby, I saw this principle being demonstrated by the spectators in the stadia.
Before the game, the spectators arrive irregularly and appear to behave haphazardly—and again at halftime. However, during play, and especially when a key moment happens, all the supporters react in unison. Some cheer, some groan, but all together and all at once. That reaction reveals the inherent order, which is their common support for their team, and which did not go away, but was simply less visible during the quiet periods of play or the halftime break.
What’s worth noting is that the behaviour of those supporters is not inherent in their personal makeup. No personality test or medical examination will tell you that they are going to leap with joy at the moment that a goal gets scored. In fact, despite their individual differences, they are likely to all act predictably at that exact moment. That highly predictable common behaviour belongs to and is guided by something else. It’s guided by one single, very simple principle that they all agree on: winning by scoring points.
To be clear, nobody tells them how to react. There is no spectator guidebook. They don’t wait for the stadium announcer. That might be the case if North Korea were playing, but for the rest of the world, it happens spontaneously and naturally, based on something they all understand, agree on and which matters to them.
What can we glean from this analogy? Well, we pay so much attention to selecting the right people, and improving our systems and chains of command, all in the hope of developing and improving their behaviours. Often, however, in a world of emergent systems with uncertain outcomes, we’re missing the key ingredient: a single guiding principle that drives the inherent order in the system.
In a world of emergent systems with uncertain outcomes, we’re often missing the key ingredient: a single guiding principle that drives the inherent order in the system
As far back as 2013—an aeon ago, given the current pace of things—a global survey of CEOs revealed that people factors, for the first time ever, had surpassed technological factors as the critical determinant of future business success. Importantly, the most desirable people factor was not skill levels or IQ, but collaboration potential—a term that was given a particular meaning.
The CEOs were anticipating the convergence of technologies, where a Volvo, for example, might need to talk via an Apple smartphone to the house it was parked in overnight so that it could be recharged, or its software updated. They were looking for people who could go out into the field and collaborate across industries without reference to a manual, or processes and procedures. They wanted people who could absorb the company’s values and strategic priorities and make good collaborative decisions based on that.
Those findings also marked a tipping point in the shift away from a world ordered and controlled by processes and procedures (and systems created by IT) to a world run by guiding principles. From designed order to emergent order systems. To use our earlier analogy, it was like the stadium went from hosting a saluting crowd of North Korean football spectators to seeing Mexican waves performed by beret-wearing French fans.
So the check point here is to ask, do your people know what guiding values and strategic principles they ought to be following, and have they bought in to those principles? Or are they only drilled in processes and procedures? What is the organizational culture, and do you need to influence that towards a more emergent order approach? And what is your leadership style?
On that last one, your leadership style, when I was still developing my expertise in this area, I found myself trying to explain it a client. They helped me by coming up with what is now the famous “red wall” example. Here it is. Let’s say you want a wall painted red and you send your person into the field to buy paint. Of course, when they get to the paint store, they are faced with many options and the paint specialist asks them, “Well, what matters most? The colour match? How fast the paint dries? Or must the paint be waterproof?” Does your person know the answer? Or do they not even know which wall you’re painting? In which case, do they now need to call or text you, and follow the process because you’re in a meeting?
Sometimes, the belief that we need to control and limit the flow of information—for a host of reasons, some strategic, some personal—means that we don’t share our thinking, our values, our priorities with our people. That means they can’t make good decisions—or any decisions—on the job or in the field. If you’re guilty of that, it’s time to get with the (uncertain) times!
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The Uncertain Times
Subscribe to this inspiring and thought-provoking newsletter in which Neil shares a practical philosophy and foundational mindset for leading through uncertain times. Here’s an excerpt:
Every leader feels the pressure of having to know, of having to have all the answers. They lie awake at night fretting. They present a brave face to their team. They grab at articles like this and scan them for answers. Decision-making frameworks. More acronyms to cram into that tiny space already so full of information and worry. Finding none, but suspecting there may be something of interest, they save for later.
Here’s what you need to know instead. But beware. It’s not a technical answer, wrapped up in an acronym. We have enough of those. Some are already in the donation box. Ready for it?
