When change feels endemic, your path is unclear, and uncertainty is everywhere, that's complexity.

It might be many things, but let me tell you it doesn’t have to be some mysterious, opaque, or jargon-laden field. It also doesn’t need to be a cop-out or excuse when you face a difficult, thorny situation.

Complexity tends to elicit strong reactions from people -- and many aren't helpful for leaders looking to take action rather than get wrapped up in the "overwhelm" that these situations often present.

You can’t design for complexity if you don’t understand what it means, how it’s represented, or how it’s used. I’m going to go into five of the unhelpful reactions I see when complexity comes up in health systems. We end by placing where design comes in.

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Five Unhelpful Reactions to Complexity

What are some of these unhelpful reactions?

1) Avoid getting into the specifics and suggesting simple strategies that don't fit the context, but create an illusion of control. Nice, neat, and wrong. Complexity doesn't allow us much control, but it does offer us opportunities to influence things. Embedded in this is the push to design “solutions for complex problems”. Complex problems aren’t solved, but they might be addressed. What makes a problem complex is that it’s not stable, it’s dynamic, and it’s multifaceted. We might be able to do healthy, influential things within a complex context, but we don’t solve the problem. However, we can transform it. We can act wisely and design strategies, products, and services that work with complexity.

2) Go the opposite direction -- throw your hands up and say "it's complex" and use that as an excuse to stand pat. Many problems are thorny, difficult, systemic, and challenging, but have areas where we can make real progress. For example, housing the unhoused involves complexity, but the fundamentals of providing a space for people to sleep, be safe, and inhabit are not. Don't let complexity in some parts of a system stop you from taking meaningful action on the parts that aren't.

3) Throw around models, theories, and lots of complexity concepts without giving time, care, and attention to what they mean in practice and how they're used. Complexity has examples from theory, science, and practice to support it. Like most fields, there are people who've approached it thoughtfully and can communicate with people outside that field with an intent to serve. There are also those who grandstand, pontificate, and drown people in jargon that serve to confuse, not lead. There are too many “experts” in systems thinking, complexity, and related fields to count who’ll proclaim that they know what’s best, admonish people for not using the “right” concepts or theories, and claim they know how complex systems work from afar. These aren’t the people you want to listen to. Complexity work, if it teaches us anything, is humility. Be humble, curious, and attentive, and you’ll do OK.

4) Create maps without a sense of a destination. Don't fall for the trap of mapping your systems without understanding what's included in the maps, how they're structured, and what it all means. A map is meant to guide you -- if it can't do that, it's a terrible map. Mapping is a useful tool to illustrate relationships, activities, and potential pathways for outcomes and influence. They aren’t neutral, either. Every map takes a position. What matters is whether the position is useful and helps you get where you want to go (e.g., deliver a better service, treat more people, improve processes, or promote health).

5) Treat the model as reality. A great model (visual) that explains something well might be useful for generating discussion and conversation -- and lead to some wise actions -- but they're still just representations. Do the work and ask about what's missing, what's good enough, and what's essential. A pretty picture is nice, but only if it serves your efforts. Want loads of “likes” on LinkedIn or social media? Just do a model that describes what people want to see. These are illustrative, but if they aren’t helping guide you, explain what’s happening in useful terms, and offer insight, they are just pictures.

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Where Strategic Design Comes In

Strategic design is a means to find, frame, and create a pathway forward through complexity. It doesn't solve it or make it go away. Instead, it works with the principles and qualities that make complex systems what they are and matches them with approaches that fit the way people are. It's designed for people who work in systems that they shape, not for the systems that shape the people.

Strategic design brings together systems perspectives, such as complexity, and works with them from a strategy-oriented perspective. It helps you articulate the goals (what you’re looking to achieve), identify the constraints (system issues), and frame it around the people and living systems at the core of what you’re doing. Most design disciplines seek to create a product or service with only passing attention to the systems in which we find ourselves. Systemic design focuses on shaping entire systems. Strategy, on its own, is about plans without the systems, humans, or design orientation that make it usable.

Understanding complexity is a key to making a meaningful difference in shaping organizations, promoting health, and achieving the impact we seek. It's worth the time to learn and to avoid the traps it introduces those looking to undertake real systems thinking.

Thanks for reading. Best wishes in designing more wisely with complexity.

If you’re tired of the blabber about complexity and want something straightforward and practical, let’s talk about how I can help you.

Images from: Giulia Squillace used under license