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Adding the Complexity Perspective

to Your Mental Toolbox

The analytic approach takes complex problems and breaks them down

into parts that can be analyzed using straight-line cause and effect
formulae. The problem is that business problems at the highest
strategic levels are dynamic, with multiple interacting parts and must
be solved as a whole.

Aspiring top leaders have mostly faced complicated problems that can

be BEST solved using analysis. To make the leap to the next career
level they need to be able o apply a complexity (holistic) perspective.

There are leadership techniques for dealing with complex problems.
But, the ability to understand complexity at a gut level is more
valuable than simple recipes, models, and recommendations. This will

allow you to anticipate and predict intuitively. The aim of this Guide is
to support the acquisition of that instinctive understanding.

Holistic thinking is part of the Eastern thought tradition. As
Westerners can we think that way?

Western leaders faced a similar problem in the 1980s when Japanese
Management (expressed in quality) seemed to be winning everywhere

and was seen as rooted in a communitarian (versus individualistic)
culture. Thirty years plus later, the West has mastered the quality
problem by developing tools and an operating philosophy that mimics
Eastern thinking. So the answer is - yes - a Western-educated

manager can learn the mental habits of complexity thinking.

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