I think I’m learning some simple lessons about complexity

I think I'm learning something, and it has little to do with how to do or understand something better. In June of last year (2008), I co-wrote a paper on monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of capacity development (CD). One of the parts I wrote was on the usefulness of using a theory of change (ToC) framework as a basis for measurement of CD outcomes. Here is a snippet of what I wrote, with the parts I'd like to comment on in red bold:

Theory of Change (TOC) is a planning process for visualizing, constructing and substantiating the elements, conditions and interventions that are fundamental for achieving sustained impact. The principal advantage of TOC is that it encourages the design of a programmatic intervention model that includes the totality of the conditions necessary for the success of a program, project or overall organizational strategy (not only the areas that a particular project might typically take into account). Seeing the totality of conditions necessary for success, it becomes easier to evaluate whether the approaches and interventions that a particular project chooses to implement, in addition to assumptions of the roles and interventions of other actors, are sufficient to "cause" the success of our overall vision. This also reveals gaps in a particular CD project design—both at the level of conditions and interventions necessary for success—and makes it clearer to see what needs to be measured. (Ortiz and Taylor, 2008: 27)

Fast forward to May of this year (2009), and I was recently writing a case study on an experience I had using 'ToC thinking'. I went back to the earlier paper to see if I could pull some language from the ToC section to complement what I was writing now. When I revisited this section of the earlier paper I almost shrieked. What was painfully evident to me is that I don't believe, now, in the things I wrote back in June of last year. The subject of 'complexity theory' has a lot to say about 'the futility of setting up planning and measurement schemes that assume CD interventions have more control over their desired ends than they actually do', and I had even included a significant section in that paper to make this point clear:

Besides being unable to predetermine precise long-term outcomes without knowing where one is starting from, it is inadvisable to attempt to precisely predict these outcomes in any case, because multiple, unpredictable factors are often at play that influence the direction that development takes in practice. Complexity theory sheds light on the futility of setting up planning and measurement schemes that assume CD interventions have more control over their desired ends than they actually do. One of the basic premises of complexity theory for CD is that the directions in which "development" is going have little to do with where well-planned CD interventions intend for it to go.

"Complexity theory posits that it is not possible to predict with any confidence the relation between cause and effect. Change is emergent. History is largely unpredictable. Organised efforts to direct change confront the impossibility of our ever having a total understanding of all the sets of societal relationships that generate change and are in constant flux. New inter-relational processes are constantly being generated, which in turn may affect and change those already existing. Small 'butterfly' actions may have a major impact, and big ones may have very little impact. (Eyben et al., 2008: 203-4)"

In practice (and if looked at retrospectively) capacity development moves in directions where its trajectory and momentum are taking it (which will result in poorly placed CD interventions if not understood beforehand); and where other actors and influences—including policies, internal and external power structures, culture, weather—and other visible and invisible factors push it…Capacity strengthening interventions only have a chance of affecting development to the extent that they're adequately in concert with ongoing development processes. Their effectiveness depends also on whether other actors and influences are cumulatively overwhelming the ability for specific interventions to promote change. (Ortiz and Taylor, 2008: 14-15)

Yet somehow, I had still used cause-effect language in the ToC section, as well as language on 'sustained impact' and seeing 'totality of conditions'. I guess I have been so conditioned in my work in development (with NGOs) over the years to think about success as a destination that we work to produce, not to mention the desire to figure out hard systems, to see the 'totality of the conditions necessary', so that we can design ever better 'solutions'. Perhaps even the use of the word 'puzzle' in the title of the paper was an indicator of my conditioning—after all, puzzles can be 'figured out'; they are far from 'unknowable to the human mind' (Flood, 2001). One thing I can say I have learned since I wrote the language that made me shriek is what I would call the 'practical lesson of complexity', which essentially argues that complexity renders cause-effect thinking futile. This was just as I had written before, but I noticed a clear change in my thinking, as evidenced by this section I wrote for the recent case study I mentioned earlier:

Box 1—A clarifying note on TOC diagram structure and non-linearity

Conditions and interventions at lower levels of a TOC do not cause higher level conditions to occur, i.e. there is not a linear, cause-effect relationship. One thing can be said to cause another

…if the cause is both necessary and sufficient for its effect. One thing is necessary for another if the other cannot occur unless the first one does. One thing is sufficient for another if the occurrence of the first assures the occurrence of the second. (Ackoff, 1999: 10)

Lower level preconditions are necessary 'conditions' that support higher level preconditions, but they are never sufficient for their occurrence because all conditions are emergent—i.e. they have properties which are more than the sum of their parts (Flood, 2001: 133) and which are the result of multiple factors that complexity renders 'inherently unknowable to the human mind' (Flood, 1999: 86). As such, interventions are ultimately only part of a myriad of factors that might contribute to overall change.

Emergence is an unplanned and uncontrollable process in which properties such as capacity emerge from the complex interactions among all actors in the system and produce characteristics not found in any of the elements of the system. (Land et al., 2009: 2)

The path between preconditions is, like development in general, non-linear, and the TOC can be presented in multiple ways, including more creative organic looking diagrams that are clearly non-linear. If, however, an organization's overall perception of change is predominantly linear, then it is indeed possible that this orientation may manifest itself through the way the TOC is articulated.

This is important because if traditional thinking and practice doesn't work due to complexity then we should seriously rethink the way we work. It would be impractical to do otherwise.

But this is not the important lesson I have learned, which for me is actually more the 'philosophical lesson of complexity'—which I think I've internalized more than learned. My internalization of this lesson dawned on me as I was reading an article on choice and quality in action research by Peter Reason (2006), which states:

Because action research is so intimately bound up in peoples' lives and work, a fourth characteristic is that it is necessarily an emergent process (Reason & Goodwin, 1999). Good action research does not arrive fully fledged in a clear research design separate from the stream of life, but evolves over time as communities of inquiry develop within communities of practice. (Reason, 2006: 189)

Specifically, what dawned on me is that we don't need complexity theory to tell us that life is emergent, i.e. life arises from multiple factors, is infinitely more than the sum of its parts, including spiritual and metaphysical dimensions, none of which 'causes' it. So while the 'practical lesson of complexity' is that we should take it seriously if we want to be able to support anything that is practical and useful; the philosophical message, for me, is that even if we could try to figure out life like a puzzle, we shouldn't, because when we do so we will miss the richness of living that is found in the streams, eddies, and rapids of real life, 'bound up in real peoples' lives and work'.

Mowles et al (2008), suggest a move towards 'complex responsive processes, which privileges communicative interaction, power relating and the spontaneous and improvisational nature of collective human action' (2008: 810). I agree, in the sense that we should be responsive to life as it emerges, and need to privilege (empathetic) communication and take into account power structures. But I am increasingly wary of language that sounds of built in solutions, i.e. 'complex responsive processes' in response to 'complexity'. I don't mean to insinuate that the authors meant this at all—which I actually think the article shows wasn't their point. But the language itself made me wonder if maybe the best response to complexity isn't 'complex responsive processes', but rather 'simplicity', presence, and awareness to the streams of life. Perhaps this will allow us to appreciate the whole, by 'developing the capacity not only to suspend our assumptions but to "redirect" our awareness toward the generative process that lies behind what we see' (Senge et al., 2004: 42). I think I better understand what Reeler meant by this passage, which I think sums up nicely what I am trying to express:

In the confusing detail of enormously complex social processes, we need to turn down the volume of the overwhelming and diverse foreground and background "noise" of social life, to enable us to distinguish the different instruments, to hear the melodies and rhythms, the deeper pulse, to discover that "simplicity on the other side of complexity." We need help to see what really matters. (Reeler, 2007: 2)

 

I am more and more aware of the need to do this, for my own sanity and philosophical growth; notwithstanding the fact that it is eminently practical.

 

ACKOFF, R. (1999) Ackoff's Best: His Classic Writings on Management, John Wiley & Sons Inc.

EYBEN, R., KIDDER, T., ROWLANDS, J. & BRONSTEIN, A. (2008) Thinking about change for development practice: A case study for Oxfam GB. Development in Practice, 18, 12.

FLOOD, R. L. (2001) The Relationship of 'Systems Thinking' to Action Research IN REASON, P. & BRADBURY, H. (Eds.) Handbook of Action Research: Participative Inquiry and Practice. 1st ed., Sage.

LAND, T., HAUCK, V. & BASER, H. (2009) Capacity development: between planned interventions and emergent processes. Implications for development cooperation. IN ECDPM (Ed.) Capacity Change and Performance, Policy Management Brief ECDPM.

MOWLES, C., STACEY, R. & GRIFFIN, D. (2008) What contribution can insights from the complexity sciences make to the theory and practice of development management? Journal of International Development, 20, 804–820.

ORTIZ, A. & TAYLOR, P. (2008) EMERGING PATTERNS IN THE CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT PUZZLE: Why, what and when to measure? (report for IIEP). Institute of Development Studies.

REASON, P. (2006) Choice and Quality in Action Research Practice. Jornal of Management Inquiry, 15, 187-203.

REELER, D. (2007) A Theory of Social Change and Implications for Practice, Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation. CDRA.

SENGE, P., SCHARMER, C. O., JAWORSKI, J. & FLOWERS, B. S. (2004) Presence: Exploring Profound Change in People, Organizations and Society, Nicholas Brealey Publishing.