Leading Together: Complex Challenges Require a new Approach

THREE CAPABILITIES

Complex challenges require richer

and more complex ways of creating

direction, alignment, and commit-

ment. The ways people talk, think,

and act together—the culture of the

organization along with its systems

and structures—are what need to

become richer and more complex.

At first this may seem to be a bad

idea. When facing a complex chal-

lenge, surely the last thing needed is

more complexity. Yet the very com-

plexity of the challenge calls for an

equally complex capacity to

respond. A complex capacity to

respond means something different

from just a more complicated

process. It means a more varied, less

predictable, more layered process