Simplicity on the Other Side of Complexity

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Simplicity on the Other Side of Complexity

• An Introduction to Complexity
• Science and Management

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I. Introductions and Purpose

• Introductions
• Faculty
• Staff
• Special Guests

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Our Purpose

• To build understanding of confidence in using
  complexity principles and practices

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Who Is In The Room?Connection Before Content

• Find a strange attractor
• Exercise or Exorcism?

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II. How This Workshop Will Be Different

• Structured Improvisation
• Many activities may seem paradoxical structured
  with simple rules that draw out insight familiar
  and fundamentally different
• We will rely on emergence as well as formal
  methods
• We intend to have serious fun (and surprises) as
  we learn!
• We will work at three levels throughout the day
  transferring information, skill building, and
  mental model shifting

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The Illuminating, Profound Poetry of Complexity

• Language can be used for poetry or prose. In a
  poem, the meaning of words is far more dense.
  That is, each word may carry several meanings
  and a sentence as a whole may carry an enormous
  density of interlocking meanings together they
  illuminate the whole from multiple perspectives.
• The more dense and embedded -- the more breadth
  and depth -- the more profound a poem can become.
• Like poetry, this complexity course strings
  together many patterns in words, images
  experience. Within the embedded patterns or
  fractals, we hope you will find simplicity
  illuminated and linked directly to multiple
  levels of your experience.
• We hope for illumination both in the larger
  patterns in which your work is embedded (our
  ecology economy) and the smaller patterns that
  are embedded in it (day-to-day activities).

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Creative Illumination

• The poets eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
• Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to
  heaven,
• And, as imagination bodies forth
• The forms of things unknown, the poets pen
• Turns them into shapes, and gives to airy nothing
• A local habitation and name.
• William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Nights Dream

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Bridging PolaritiesWe will move from Either/Or
to Yes, And Thinking
Paradox frames the door to life. Charles Johnson
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Workshop Agenda Rules

• See Agenda for details
• Lunch break times will be set as we go
• Take responsibility for your own learning vote
  with your feet during interactive sessions
• Expect to be provoked, challenged and surprised
  -- complexity turns convention on its head
• Please turn off cellular phone and beepers
• Try to keep your stuff collected. We will be
  moving about the room
• Phones and bathrooms are...

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How We Will Measure Success

• See Handout

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III. Seeing Through A Complexity Lens
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Inspiration from Complex Adaptive Systems

• Definition A collection of individual agents,
  who have the freedom to act in unpredictable
  ways, and whose actions are interconnected such
  that one agents actions changes the context for
  other agents.
• Examples termite colonies, stock markets, the
  Internet, gardens, human beings, groups of people

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DefiningComplex Adaptive Systems

• Alternative CAS definition by Ralph Stacey
• CASs consist of a network of agents that
  interact with each other according to a set of
  rules that require them to examine and respond to
  each others behavior to improve their behavior
  and thus the behavior of the system they
  comprise.

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Attributes of Complex Adaptive Systems

• Elements of the system change themselves (they
  adapt)
• Complex behaviors can emerge from a few simple
  rules that are applied locally
• Emergence of novelty creativity is a natural
  state
• Order emerges without central control
• Non-linearity small changes can have BIG effects
• Systems are embedded in systems their
  interdependency matters
• Not predictable in detail forecasting is an
  inexact, yet boundable, art
• Co-evolution of life proceeds through constant
  tension balance
• Adapted from Paul Plsek

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Interdependent Attributes
Adaptable Elements
Natural Emergence Creativity
Simple Rules
Order w/o Central Control
Embedded Systems
Co-Evolution
Not Predicable in Detail
Non-Linearity
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Why Now?

• More of our world is connected, complex and
  interdependent than ever before
• Entities that embrace these principles and
  practices seem to adapt and grow and,
  institutions that dont, are not functioning well
  at all
• New complexity science directly challenges
  pervasive Newtonian machine-age thinking
• Advances in biology CASs are informing science
  technology advances in other fields
• Time and space have been compressed (the lags
  gaps have disappeared)

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Complexity Lens Reflection

• We are finely tuned complex adaptive systems,
  especially when we are working at our highest
  intelligence purpose.
• Describe a time or experience when a
  collaborative effort created or encouraged
  something surprising. It should be something you
  are proud to have been a part of a difference
  that made a difference. It can be a very small,
  subtle thing. It could be from your current
  workplace or a past effort of any kind.
• See the Workbook Handout

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When Complexity Practices Are Useful

• When you are frustrated with current and past
  approaches
• When challenges are wicked and messy
• When you want to start something new
• When there is little agreement or certainty about
  how to respond
• See the Zone of Complexity in Ralph Staceys
  diagram

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Stacey DiagramKnow When Your Challenges Are In
the Zone of Complexity
Far from
Chaotic Seek Patterns
Agreement
Zone of Complexity
Simple Plan, control
Close to
Far from
Certainty
Close to
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Stacey DiagramKnow When Your Challenges Are In
the Zone of Complexity
Far from
Chaotic Seek Patterns
Agreement
Complex Swarm
Complicated
Simple Plan, control
Close to
Far from
Certainty
Close to
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What Approaches Are Useful in the Zone?
Chaos Seek Patterns

Far from
Creative Adaptability
CAS Metaphors, Good Enough Vision, Minimum
Specs, Seeking Out Paradox, Multiple Actions,
Chunking, Generative Relationships, Informal
Networks, Tuning To Your System Natural
Attractors, Swarmware
Agreement
Simple Plan, control
Close to
Certainty
Far from
Close to
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Simple Complex Approaches

• Simple
• Plan then act
• Create explicit plans
• Look for agreement a clear outcome
• Limit type of actions
• Drive implementation set targets

• Complex
• Act-learn-plan at the same time
• Look for divergence
• Use multiple actions min specs
• Tune to the edge
• Build on what emerges grows

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Leadership TasksIn A Professional Bureaucracy

• role defining job and task descriptions
• tight structuring use chain of command
• simplifying prioritize or limit simple actions
• socializing seek homogeneous values ideas
• decision making find the best choice
• knowing decide tell others what to do
• controlling tightly managed execution
• planning via forecasting plan then roll out
• staying the course align maintain focus

Adapted from Ruth Anderson Reuben McDaniel, JR.
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Leadership TasksComplex Adaptive System

• relationship building work with patterns of
  interaction
• loose coupling informal communities of
  practice
• complicating add more degrees of freedom
• diversifying draw out exploit difference
• sense making collective interpretation/meaning
• learning act/learn/plan at the same time
• improvising intuition guiding action w/min
  specs
• thinking about the future imagine surprises
• noticing emergent direction build on what works

Adapted from Ruth Anderson Reuben McDaniel, JR.
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Leadership Tasks
Adapted from Ruth Anderson Reuben McDaniel, JR.
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How Does Simplicity Emerge from CASs?

• Given the right circumstances, from no more than
  dreams, determination, and the liberty to try,
  ordinary people consistently do extraordinary
  things. To lead is to create those
  circumstances. Dee Hock, Visa Founder
• Nobody knows exactly how it works, but we can
  give it what it needs to grow... prepare
  fertilize soil with collaborative technology
  seed with change agents protect new growth
  water the right plant in the right place weed
  prune what does not grow harvest when ripe.
  Peter Trudy Johnson-Lenz, Awakening Technologies

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• Farmers dont grow crops. They create the
  conditions for crops to grow.
• Gareth Morgan

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Simplicity on the Other Side of Complexity

• IV. Scientific Origins Emerging Insights

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Scientific Origins
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Surprising Convergence of Disciplines
Chemistry
Computer Science
Biology
Mathematics
Psychology
Sociology
Physics
Economics
Meteorology
Ecology
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Before Complexity

• Scientists believed the future was knowable given
  enough data points
• Dissecting discrete parts would reveal how
  everything -- the whole system -- works
• Phenomena can be reduced to simple cause effect
  relationships
• The role of scientists, technology, leaders was
  to predict and control the future
• Increasing levels of control over nature would
  improve our quality of life

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Newton the Machine Metaphor

• In science
• the search for the basic building blocks
• In management
• The whole is no more or no less than the sum of
  parts, so focus on the parts (e.g. functions,
  disciplines)
• Organizations and people are implicitly viewed as
  machines (or machine parts)

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Tom Petzinger Wall Street Journal

• Even as it was toppled from unassailability in
  science, Newtonian mechanics remained firmly
  lodged as the mental model of management, from
  the first stirrings of the industrial revolution
  right through the advent of modern-day M.B.A.
  studies.
• As biologists and other pioneers began to
  realize, it could not explain the self renewing
  processes of life.

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Roots Of Complexity

• Santa Fe Institute
• Physics-chaos theory
• Math-fractal geometry
• Meteorology-butterfly effect
• Biology-complex adaptive systems

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• From Physics Envy To Biology Envy

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Surprising Convergence We Stand on the
Shoulders of Giants
Chemistry Ilya Prigogine, Order Out of Chaos
Sociology Robert Axelrod, Complexity of
Cooperation
Physiology Ary Goldberger, Cardiac Research
Complex Adaptive Systems ((( Murray Gell-Mann
))) The Quark the Jaguar ((( Stuart Kaufmann
))) At Home in the Universe ((( John Holland
))) Emergence ((( Brian Arthur ))) Increasing
Returns
Physics-Ecology Fritjof Capra, Web of Life
Physics David Bohm, Wholeness the Implicate
Order
Socio-Biology E.O. Wilson Consilience
Meteorology Edward Lorenz, The Butterfly Effect
Computer Science Christopher Langton
Philosophy Ken Wilbur, Integral Science Religion
Genetics R.C. Lewontin, Biology as Ideology
Ecology James Lovelock, Gaia Hypothesis
Mathematics Mandlebrot, Fractals
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More Giants

• Complexity applied to organizations

Strategy/Leadership Ralph Stacey
Market Strategy Kevin Kelly
Leadership Gareth Morgan
Complex Adaptive Systems
Management Brenda Zimmerman
Leadership Meg Wheatley
Strategy S. Brown K. Eisenhardt
Innovation Everett Rogers
Sustainability Paul Hawken/James Moore
Planning Henry Mintzberg
Learning Etienne Wegner
Management Jeffery Goldstein
Organzing Structure Dee Hock
Org Development David Cooperrider
Knowledge Ikujiro Nonaka
Org Dynamics Roger Lewin/Birute Regine
People Practices Jeffery Pfeffer
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Complexity In Practice

• Dee Hock -- managed the banking commons
  balanced competition/cooperation while leading
  VISA (Birth of the Chaordic Age)
• Arie de Geus -- brought a natural system lens to
  Royal Dutch Shell scenario planning (The Living
  Company)
• Orpheus Chamber Symphony -- a leaderless group
• Tom Petzinger -- WSJ stories The New Pioneers
• Roger Lewin Birute Regine -- The Soul at Work
• Irv Dardiks Heart Waves -- applied to health and
  chronic disease (clinical trials are underway)

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Emerging Insights
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Key Attributes

• Elements of the system change themselves (they
  adapt)
• Complex behaviors can emerge from a few simple
  rules that are applied locally
• Emergence of novelty creativity is a natural
  state
• Order emerges without central control
• Non-linearity small changes can have BIG effects
• Systems are embedded in systems their
  interdependency matters
• Not predictable in detail forecasting is an
  inexact, yet boundable, art
• Co-evolution of life proceeds through constant
  tension balance

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Key Attributes
Adaptable Elements
Natural Emergence Creativity
Simple Rules
Order w/o Central Control
Embedded Systems
Not Predictable in Detail
Co-Evolution
Non-Linearity
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Simple Rules in Practice

• Living systems follow simple rules
• Craig Reynolds Boids simulation uses minimum
  rules of interaction
• Gareth Morgans min specs
• Simple rules include Must dos or Never dos

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Example Reynolds Steering Rules

• Maintain a minimum distance from other boids and
  objects
• Match speed of neighboring boids
• Move toward the center of mass of flock-mates in
  your area
• Complex flocking emerges!

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Living Systems Are Non-Linear

• Not predictable in long-term
• Future not just unknown but unknowable
• Small events may trigger huge effects
• Huge efforts may have negligible effects

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Examples Of Non-Linearity

• Rosa Parks refusal to yield her seat
• Weather, hurricanes
• A statement or word used by Alan Greenspan

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The 15 Principle

• Learning how to flow with tune to change in
  complex systems
• W. Edwards Deming suggested that everyone -- from
  the CEO to the front line worker -- has influence
  over 15 of their system. The other 85 is
  beyond their discretionary control.
• Recognize that you have 15 discretionary
  influence it may sound small but you can use it
  to make a difference that makes a difference.

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Simple Rules AttractorsAuto-Pilot Rules....
New Pattern Emerging
Search for simple rules, subtle patterns or
rhythms that attract natural energy in your
system.
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How Does an Attractor Pattern Shift or Flip?

• A system chooses to be disturbed
• the disturbance gets amplified
• it creates instability
• the system falls apart
• it flips or shifts to a new attractor (e.g. new
  simple rules)
• by searching for organizing around new meaning
• Source Margaret Wheatley

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How To Disturb Amplify

• Allow new information into the system
• Work with organizational boundaries
• Connect systems to environment
• Question differences
• Challenge assumptions
• Take advantage of chance and serendipity
• Adapted from Jeffrey Goldstein, The Unshackled
  Organization

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Chunking Building on what works from the ground
up

• The only way to make a successful complex system
  is to begin with a simple system that works.
  Complex systems are not instantly installed...
  they are assembled incrementally from pieces that
  can operate independently.
• The interdependent parts share control and act
  locally in parallel. A central command slows
  things down in a distributed network. Source
  Kevin Kelly

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Lessons From Physiology

• Healthy Heart OR Dying Heart

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Heart Rate Dynamics
?
?
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Heart Rate Dynamics
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Dynamic Adaptability
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Application Heart Wave Cycles

• Cyclic Exercise Health
• A series of activation-relaxation cycles
• Pulse rate rises falls to generate a sequence
  of heart rate waves
• The timing, intensity and rhythm of one cycle
  is related to the previous cycle
• Conventional Exercise Health
• Continuous, prolonged
• Elevated, extended pulse rate
• Interval training
• Increasing, sequenced pulse rate

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A New Definition of Health
That state of wholeness in which the individual
is poised for maximal adaptability. It is a
state characterized by a dynamic tension
resulting from the interplay of interactive
forces at many different scales.
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Nine Interdependent Principles
Good Enough Vision
Clockware/ Swarmware
Complexity Lens

Chunking
Tune To The Edge
Competition/ Cooperation
Seek Paradox
Shadow System
Multiple Actions
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Nine Emerging Connected Principles

• View your system through the lens of complexity
• Build a good enough vision, use a min specs
  approach
• When life is far from certain, lead with
  clockware and swarmware in tandem

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More Principles...

• Uncover and work with paradox tension
• Tune your place to the edge
• Go for multiple actions at the fringes, let
  direction arise

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More Principles...

• Listen to the shadow system
• Grow complex systems by chunking
• Mix competition and cooperation

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Reflection Interdependent Principles
Good Enough Vision
Complexity Lens
Clockware/ Swarmware
Chunking
Tune To The Edge
Competition/ Cooperation
Seek Paradox
Shadow System
Multiple Actions
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Kevin Kellys 10 Rules for the New Economy
Relationship Tech
Opportunities Before Efficiencies
No Harmony, All Flux
From Places to Spaces
Embrace the Swarm
Let Go at the Top
Increasing Returns
Feed the Web First
Plenitude, not Scarcity
Follow the Free
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Simplicity on the Other Side of Complexity

• V. Stories that Illustrate Complexity Principles
  in Practice

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Stories We Will Explore

• Improving Admissions by Tuning to Patients
• Growing a Sustainable, Green Carpet Business
• Add your favorite stories from Edgeware,
  Edgeplace, The New Pioneers, The Soul at Work,

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Traditional Storytelling
Heroic Individual Actions Luke Skywalker (The
Force)
Guru-Guide Obi Wan Kenobi Yoda
Trickster Darth Vader
Blocking Force Imperial Forces (The Dark Side)
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Storytelling Through a Complexity Lens
Heroic Individual Actions New Attractor Pattern
Guru-Guide Adaptive Principles-At-Play
Trickster Waves of Emergence Serendipity
Blocking Force Autopilot Attractor (Self-Fulfill
ing Prophecy)
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New Attractor Pattern gt Notice how new patterns
emerge in far-from-equilibrium conditions
Adaptive Principles gt Discern complexity
practices-in-action
Waves of Emergence gt Expect novelty surprise
that dampens or amplifies change
Autopilot Attractor (Self-Fulfilling
Prophecy) gt Uncover subtle/simple rules embedded
in current patterns of behavior
? Keith McCandless, 1999
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Improving Flow by Tuning to Patients

• Who is involved nurses, physicians,
  administrators, ancillary departments
• Focus Improving patient flow through in a
  hospital based outpatient unit in Utah (LDS)
• Results 50 increase in volume without plant
  expansion, reduced expense, dramatically improved
  patient satisfaction
• Source The New Pioneers, by Tom Petzinger, Jr.
  (pages 87-90)

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New Attractor Pattern Notice how new patterns
emerge in far-from-equilibrium conditions gt Do
what is right for the patient! gt Frustration
commitment to change
Waves of Emergence Expect novelty surprise that
dampens or amplifies change gt Patients can walk
to surgery! gt All stakeholders benefit when
patient is the focus gt Common-sense AND radical
at the same time
Adaptive Principles Discern complexity
practices-in-action gt Seek paradox gt Tune to the
edge gt Good-enough vision gt Simple rules
Autopilot Attractor Uncover subtle/simple rules
embedded in current patterns of behavior gt Do
what the surgeons want and, dont question it! gt
Acceptance of The operation is a success, the
patient is pissed!
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Growing a Sustainable, Green Carpet Business

• Who is involved Executive (Ray Anderson) and
  managers at the Interface flooring company
  suppliers customers
• Focus Extreme (and green) reduction in resource
  use through developing sustainable production and
  business practices
• Results Immediate waste reductions won favor
  among investors tens of millions of dollars went
  to the bottom line market differentiation
• Source The New Pioneers, by Tom Petzinger, Jr.
  (pages 246-253)

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New Attractor Pattern Notice how new patterns
emerge in far-from-equilibrium conditions gt Early
1990s recession Rays soul searching Ecology
of Commerce gt Pesky customers asking about
recycled materials grow by cleaning up!
Adaptive Principles Discern complexity
practices-in-action gt Systems-in-systems
interdependency gt Good-enough vision gt Simple
rules
Waves of Emergence Expect novelty surprise that
dampens or amplifies change gt Some suppliers got
on board gt Evergreen leasing gt All beauty
starts with nature customers noticed
Autopilot Attractor Uncover subtle/simple rules
embedded in current patterns of behavior gt Sell
flexibility buy supplies cheap and, grow by
acquisition gt Manage internal production --
ignore how your suppliers produce their goods and
how your customers dispose of your product
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New Attractor Pattern gt Notice how new patterns
emerge in far-from-equilibrium conditions
Adaptive Principles gt Discern complexity
practices-in-action
Waves of Emergence gt Expect novelty surprise
that dampens or amplifies change
Autopilot Attractor (Self-Fulfilling
Prophecy) gt Uncover subtle/simple rules embedded
in current patterns of behavior
? Keith McCandless, 1999
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Material and Ideas Contributed by

• Kevin Dooley, PhD Glenda Eoyang Ralph Stacey,
  PhD Ary Goldberger, MD Brenda Zimmerman, PhD
  Jeffrey Goldstein, PhD Gareth Morgan, PhD Curt
  Lindberg Paul Plsek and, a vibrant community of
  complexity pioneers
• Composed and developed for VHA Inc. by Keith
  McCandless in Seattle (keithmccandless_at_earthlink.n
  et)