Perspective is everything.

If I stated that I could move faster than the speed of light, without any vehicle to help me, you'd think I was nuts.  Usain Bolt clocked in at 27.79 mph, the fastest human on Earth. But I say, it's just a matter of perspective. The earth rotates on its axis at just over 1000 mph. If you're looking down at me standing on the equator, I'm flying by. The Earth rotates around the sun at 67,000 mph. Look at me from that perspective and you're starting to get my point. Our solar system rotates around the center of the Milky Way at 568,000 mph and finally, the universe is expanding at faster than the speed of light. Q.E.D. It's all a matter of perspective.

Okay, so my point wasn't to give you a bunch of astronomical facts, but to make the point that when developing strategy for a complex adaptive system, you should understand that perspective is everything. Your perspective on your organization, the competitive landscape and the global economic climate determines what will surprise you. If your strategic event horizon is very short and you have been experiencing relative equilibrium during the recent past, you will probably fool yourself into believing that your organization exists in a manageable, predictable, stable environment.

However, businesses are constantly being bombarded with high-impact, hard to predict events that can be devastating. Management tends to rationalize these events simply because their perspective prior to the event did not include even the remotest possibility that such a black swan event could occur.

The answer is not to try to get better at prediction, nor is the answer more complex scenario planning in order to try to identify the exact meteor hurtling your way. The solution is merely to have a perspective that acknowledges that small probability events do occur and encourage your organization to develop methods for adapting to these events, thereby minimizing the impact of surprise. The ability to adapt or evolve in the face of constantly changing and rarely identifiable threats is the competitive advantage that will allow your organization to thrive over competitors who try to predict the future from a shortlist of high probability events and design their organizations only to deal with those threats.

As the leader of a complex adaptive system, ensure your organization understands the current competitive landscape, how your organization interacts with that competitive landscape and what the consequences of its actions might be. Be brutally honest and strip away the rationalizations you and your organization has about its perspective. Avoid the temptation to simplify the environment in which your organization exists. Reductionist strategies do not work well in complex adaptive systems. Focus on the whole, not just at seemingly controllable bits.

Your perspective should acknowledge the uncertainty of cause and effect in non-linear systems. Acknowledge a sensitivity to initial conditions and that side effects and unintended consequences are likely outcomes of actions and decisions. Prepare for these eventualities instead of being surprised by them. Your perspective should also acknowledge the concept that you "never step in the same river twice." You cannot assume that non-linear behavior is repeatable. Your organization faces an ever-changing set of variables.

Avoid the arrogant perspective that you can predict or control the future with any reliability and never assume that minor anomalies should be ignored just because they don't fit into your perspective.

- Dr. Bruce Borup