In a New York Times column published March 2 of this year Thomas Friedman observed that: "The three largest forces on the planet - technology, globalization and climate change - are in simultaneous nonlinear acceleration. Climate change is intensifying. Technology is making everything faster and amplifying every voice. And globalization is making the world more interdependent than ever."
To state that the world today is significantly more complex than it was around the middle of the last century has become a cliché. Complexity, a concept used to characterize something with many parts, interacting with each other in multiple non-linear ways, is something we face every day. Business leaders routinely postulate that "uncertainty + complexity = today's reality." Globalization, defined as a process of interaction and integration among the people, companies, and governments of different nations, driven by international trade and investment, and aided by information technology, forces our leaders to interact with a significantly different set of conditions than those encountered by their predecessors. In an article entitled: "Developing Leaders For A Complex World," Tamara Erickson, a leading expert on the topic, writes: "The complex and ambiguous conditions of this century are unlikely to respond to the old school of leadership. Old norms were honed in a different environment - one in which it was perhaps easier to view one position as right and the other as wrong, easier to predict, to forecast, to control." She and others suggest that today's leaders need to possess maturity, be able to grapple with ambiguity, and have a keen interest in collaboration - leveraging shared efforts and group processes.
Since all of this may sound like common sense, we should consider why some contestants for leadership positions at the pinnacle of our government act as if many of the most significant, and complex, issues confronting us are really simple and easy to fix. "Want to stimulate the economy? Cut taxes. Want to stop violent crime? Pass better gun control. Want to reduce our carbon footprint? Enact a cap and trade system. Want to stop illegal immigration? Build fences and hire border control agents." (Terry Newell, Simple Leadership in a Complex World." The Huffington Post, May 25, 2011). These slogan solutions are very popular in our electoral campaign world, but they are partial at best and dangerous at worst. They reflect a poor and often distorted understanding of the issues, while discouraging a more intelligent conversation. Albert Einstein said it best: "The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking where we were when we created them." Integrated problems demand integrated solutions.
We are regularly confronted with the unfortunate and stark contrast between the skills politicians advertise when campaigning, and the expertise required of them if and when they are elected. The excuse they use, however inadequate, is that the voting public won't take the time to understand complex discussions. The argument goes: We live in an age of attention deficit disorder, sound-bites, 30 second commercials, and bumper stickers. Many of us complain about technological change and increased complexity. We yearn for "simpler times." We project anxiety about the present, fear the future, and become nostalgic. The past is safe, because it is completely predictable. Our culture thrives on black-and-white narratives, clearly defined emotions, and easy endings. Rapid change is destabilizing. And politicians feed into this mind-set. They try hard to create zingers that are memorable and easy to grasp. Nevertheless, there is a difference between attaching "simplistic" solutions to complex problems, and using "simplicity" to make these issues more easily understood. To explain policy options in simplistic terms in effect involves a pejorative process which insults our collective intelligence. Simplicity, on the other hand, as Leonardo da Vinci told us "is the ultimate sophistication." And Steve Jobs cautioned that "simple can be harder than complex: you have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple."
Friedman concluded that the accelerations he identified are raising the skill levels and life-long learning requirements for every good job. "They are raising the bar on governance, the speed at which governments need to make decisions, and the need for hybrid solutions. They are also raising the bar on leadership, [and require] leaders who can navigate this complexity." The challenges these accelerations pose require forcing a politics that is much more of a hybrid of left and right. So, while recognizing that much of our electorate may be more comfortable with the old school of leadership and with turning back the clock, the dynamics of our evolving world should require our politicians to demonstrate that they are cognizant of the need to raise the bar, and not insult us with sound-bites and platitudes. If we don't demand this, we allow them to continue to compete in a limbo contest.
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