« How Much Is Enough? | Main | The 3-D's of Change »

December 17, 2006

Complicated vs. Complex: Hitting Moving Targets with Moving Parts

Coordination is the essential architecture of execution. It converts things that are merely cooperative into things that are made for each other. But don't take our word for it -- ever try to hit a pitch?

To hit a moving target, you aim for the impact point, not for the target. But to do that, there are two things to be done.

One, select the impact point (!) ...
Two, align with the target's trajectory. And that alignment requires that you:
- Predict the trajectory, and...
- Calibrate your attitude for engagement.

What is "attitude"? Effectively, it's the "Strike Zone" of your stance. It comes from the coordination that we've just called alignment to the trajectory.

Ordinarily, the lingo of baseball thinks of the strike zone as something the pitcher has to aim for; but in our case the important thing is that the batter creates a zone in which the batter is more able and more likely to strike the ball. We notice that the batter does this through his "stance": the combination of body posture, attention, and decision.

You can see the batter's attitude when he's standing at the plate, and the attitude generates his strike zone.
In particular, we can see the batter aligning his feet, knees, shoulders, arms, head, and so forth... All those parts are always there, but they don't mean much until the batter decides how they will be "together" for the heat of the moment of the swing... Before the swing, the attitude creates the potential -- the effective position versus the target; in effect, the attitude is the potential.

Potential is what we want, so let's break it down again, from the overall attitude to the elemental parts. Top down:
- Atttitude is, in effect, the timing, range and coverage area to which parts are together committed.
- Commitment is the state and fit, or condition, established of the parts, for the duty
- Condition is the presentation of the elements - i.e., the the quality of the coincidence of the parts.

To start out, the batter brings all the parts, but the parts do not simply present themselves; instead, the batter brings them in a certain way to the occasion this time, beginning the coordination that develops fully on up through commitment into attitude.

Our common language for describing that hierarchy of coordination reflects that we already know it: bottom up, we look at the batter and can say things like "he's brought his best stuff today", or "he's really putting it all together now", or "it's obvious that he really wants it"... in other words, we know that his overall readiness involves his technique, condition and commitment. And when we see him having a bad day, we might know that it's (respectively) because of injury or fatigue, poor choices, or lack of desire.

Said even superficially, the combination of condition and commitment sounds like an obvious formula for explaining the difference between probable and improbable success. It's what we already know from experience. So as managers, where there is a need to enhance that probability, we trust that it's important to know what they really look like, what makes them work. But what do they really look like?

At the core of the matter, the parts you bring to the occasion don't just make things happen because they are there together. Their combination might be merely complicated, or it might be valuably complex. When "complicated", the parts are there, but their coordination is low, leaving the value of their combination uncertain for the anticipated moment that matters. When "complex", their coordination is high, as their respective characteristics are all oriented to the cause in a consistent and focused way.

We know that complication can be a show-stopper; but sometimes it's just unavoidable, so typically we try to minimize it or make the best of it. This might be necessary, but it's not enough. More importantly, some effects are not possible through "simplicity" -- it might take a complex formula to get the right result. Increasingly, we need complexity.

In complication, the coordination of the coincidence of the parts looks different than in complexity. As seen in the comparison below, the possible value of the parts has been taken to a higher level of benefit in complexity than in complication -- and in managing execution, we want to aim for having the benefits to call on as our resources in the heat of the moment:

While even in complicated circumstances the parts can offer some benefits, they are not as potent as the parts are found to be in driving the value of complexity.

In complexity, as shown in the following illustration (click to enlarge), the parts will drive more. It amounts to an important overall difference:
- in complicated circumstances, including the parts still leaves variability that may or may not be useful.
- in complex circumstances, involving the parts generates agility that is probably useful.

The formulas for doing that are not offered here. While one can argue that the illustration is not proof of anything in itself, it is reflective of the difference in characteristics as surveyed in cases where complexity has been found behind good execution, versus complication being discovered behind poor execution.

To improve on complication in our situations, our problem is to look at the condition and commitment of whatever "parts" or elements we've brought to it, and change them so that we have a valuable complexity instead. By improving the quality of their availability and potency, we get a better strike zone...

Posted by Malcolm Ryder at December 17, 2006 6:34 AM

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.malcolmryder.com/cgi-bin/mt-tb.cgi/300

Comments

Post a comment