Untangling Organisational Complexity: An Introduction

Working on problems, and in particular tricky and difficult ‘organisational problems’ is an incredibly rewarding endeavour. Moments of pure frustration may punctuate the path, but not every problem will find a neat solution that unfolds in real time. Oftentimes, it’s more nuanced, like the many fragments across a stained glass window that only create beauty and work together when seen from further away. But stick with it, and you’ll learn something new at each step of the journey— lessons to apply to the next challenge.

The heart of your learning journey centres on the “what” you have at your disposal: processes, technology, people, and their relationships. Sometimes, these elements work together. A new technology automates a process. The automation frees people to fix more complex problems—problems that require a human relationship touch People solving new problems unlock solutions like remastered keys.

Other times, however, the relationships between these elements prove to be the treacle that gummed everything up in the first place, locking in legacy technology and freezing practises in time. The frustrated people working in the process contribute by stifling every effort to unravel and eradicate the issue.

There is a better approach. Rather than allowing process issues to fester, engage the people in the process and the technology teams that support them in a systematic retrofit that identifies the problems and collaboratively seeks a solution.

Process: Mapping the Steps to Clarity

Most organisations create plenty of processes—some necessary, some optimal, and many often more tangled than others. It might feel like you’re wading through a maelstrom of paper planes, navigating a labyrinth of forms, a gauntlet of approvals, and an endless relay race of hand-offs, but mapping them out is critical to visualise and simplify the mess eliminating the multitude of obstacles, tasks and steps all the way along the journey.

• Start with a bird’s-eye view: Identify the significant steps and document how they connect.
• Dive deeper: Pinpoint where hand-offs happen, which stages interact with other processes, and where potential bottlenecks pop up.
• Visualise everything: Use diagrams or visualisation tools to eliminate guesswork about process flaws and help people see where even subtle hang-ups and previously hidden inefficiencies might exist.

Don’t let the Treacle trump your Technology

Technology can be a brilliant enabler, but no amount of new gadgets, updated apps or network improvements can help if we pave the superhighway of good intentions with a sticky paper-mâché of process and implementations covered in treacle.

Businesses sometimes allow teams to choose their tools. More often than not, people inherit tools. Sometimes, they inherit more tools than they need, but because the work has become gummed together through the wrappings around the technology, it becomes difficult to extract the optimal configuration. And because technology is often function-fit rather than contextual for a particular function, it can introduce complexities that might not exist in the processes it is intended to support.

Here are a few thoughts on ensuring technology becomes a partner rather than an adversary.

• Lay it all out: Sketch the various applications, systems, and even simple digital forms supporting processes.
• Identify ownership: Determine who’s responsible for each piece of the tech puzzle and how well owners cooperate and collaborate (there are people to integrate, not just the tech).
• Plan the future: It doesn’t matter if an organisation seeks incremental changes, digital transformation, or a modernising overhaul; change requires a plan. Consider how to migrate, integrate, or upgrade in a way that supports the business rather than working against it. The plans become an architecture for change and require their management. Don’t think that because a plan has been adopted, it will be implemented. A plan involves diligence, management, nurturing, and adaptation to meet its goals, even if the details change to fit circumstances as they unfold.

People: The soft-firing synapses of change success

Even with every ‘i’ dotted in the process maps and every server, laptop, sensor, application and router meticulously tracked, there’s another piece of the puzzle: people. Importantly, people’s disaffection, or affection, their emotions and behaviours, some of which are gut reactions to a new change, some have been marinated for years, often held tightly, or as subtext, without peers ever realising the cause of resistance or passive-aggressive animosity. We might see right through these ingrained habits like glass, missing them entirely because they’ve become part of the scenery.

Social context is also essential. People work in teams and in functions with interactions between like synapses firing across the machine. They work as networks and hierarchies. It isn’t enough to address individual issues or identify those who can lead, inspire or innovate—it is also critical to recognize social capital, the relationships between the neurons, the people and the weight of the connections.

Social capital is the currency of change. Any good leader who wants to create a positive path forward must work with people not as single individuals but as members of a community, a network, or a team.

• Recognise emotions: Resistance to change, stubbornness for the status quo, fear of losing control, or simply not wanting to rock the boat can stall even the most brilliant plans. Leaders need to…
• Understand perceptions of power: Who are the magnetic ones that help attract people around to accept change, or if not included, repel and resist it? Mapping relationships are often more important than mapping processes or technology—and also more complicated and sensitive, as people will have deep feelings about how they are represented.
• Invite collaboration: Bring people into the conversation from the start so they feel part of the solution and get their fingerprints onto it, making it feel more like ‘theirs’ and not just on the receiving end.
• Foster transparency: Use precise language and visuals that shine a light on both the symptoms (the everyday pains) and the deeper causes (the root issues).

The Architecture of Change: Painting the Stained Glass

Process, technology, and people combine to create systems, run them, maintain them, and change them. Those actions often seem mutually exclusive. To those within the system, change often feels like damage, a failure of maintenance rather than an improvement or necessity driven by shifting circumstances.

I often think about stained glass windows when I’m working with organisations to architect change. Stained glass window fragments require precise planning to fit in their frames and to tell their stories. They require several types of craftspeople to create and install them. They transform lead and glass, colours and paint and patterns. In the end, the beauty of stained glass emanates more from the exploitation of light transmitted through glass and the light-adaptive behaviour of human vision than from any of the glass-colouring techniques.

A successful [transformation] requires leaders to bring together all of these elements and craft a series of changes, procurements, reassignments and other activities firing together in complex relations that together will result in a new version of the business, one that must be seen by people, and understood, much as a stained glass window must be experienced to be appreciated. In action, this journey could be:

1. Share your findings: Present a straightforward breakdown of the symptoms (what’s going wrong), the causes (why it’s happening), and the impacts (how it affects the organisation).
2. Offer solutions and workarounds: Highlight quick fixes for immediate relief while outlining the more considerable, long-term changes to ensure the problem doesn’t creep back.
3. Celebrate clarity: The point of this stained-glass view is not just to reveal the flaws but to illuminate the possibilities in all the fragments working together. A clear, shared understanding helps everyone—from the boardroom to the front lines–pull in the same direction.

Conclusion

Tackling organisational problems isn’t always straightforward, but with perseverance, a willingness to explore each and a dash of colourful metaphor, you can transform something murky into something beautifully transparent to all. By keeping an eye on the process, the tech, and—most importantly—the human dimension, you’re equipped to chart a path through the treacle, marinate in new solutions (instead of behaviours or old habits), and eventually bask in the light shining through your new stained-glass window.

So, whether you’re knee-deep in legacy systems or trying to redesign a stubborn process that has outstayed its welcome, remember that clarity, collaboration, and empathy will guide the way. Each problem you solve, or even partially solve, adds to your toolkit and colours in a bit more of your own window. The more tools you gather, the more rewarding your next challenge will be.