cameron and green making-sense-of-change-management

Emerging inquiriesSUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONSNew thinking on how complexity science can be applied to organizationalproblems is developing fast, and becoming more widely knownand understood.Small, simple or highly convergent change initiatives such as technologyroll-outs are less complex, and less emergent, and therefore lesslikely to benefit from being seen through a complexity lens.‘Complex adaptive systems’ is the name given to large systems bycomplexity scientists. These systems are self-organizing, have no externalblueprint, and yet they still have the capacity to produce coherence,continuity and transformation.Dent (1999) suggests that our whole world view is beginning to shiftfrom the rational world view to the emerging one. This is in tune withmuch thinking about our ability to see the world as complex and emergent,rather than linear, rational and controllable.The important elements of complexity science that relate to organizationalwork are: self-organization and emergence, rules of interaction,attractors, power relations, forms of communicating, polarities and themanagement of paradox and the role of feedback.Systems thinking and complexity science have very different roots, andlead to very different assumptions about how change works.Storytelling, dialogue, whole systems work, open space technology,future search and World Café are all tools that support complex change.Leaders have a different role in complex change from the traditionalorganizing or controlling roles of managers. The new role may be referredto as ‘facilitator of emergent change’. This means leading through vision,values and ethics. It also means creating generative and reflectivedialogue, and being present to the ‘here and now’.330