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The Last Word

The Complexity Perspective: A Perpetual Process of
“Becoming” Rooted in Emergence

Emergence through Stigmergic Action is at the heart of the Complexity
Perspective.

Emergence through stigmergic action is the spontaneous actions of
interacting agents (people and firms) responding to local stimuli and
creating new higher-level functionality.

This new functionality is then diffused through the context in a
nonlinear fashion, thereby forcing all other agents to co-evolve the
business context through their actions to promote and protect their
interests. As the context shifts each agent/actor must respond: adapt
or die.

This process is not directed, it has no end goal, it simply unfolds.

Put that way it seems such a simple thing, but it has driven human
history since the beginning of time. It REALLY is the way the world
works.

If it is so simple, why do people not intuitively perceive it? Possibly
because we spend our lives inside bounded organizations focused on
the goals and structures of the organization. Plus, Western culture has
a long tradition of the idea of ‘progress’ to an ideal end state. The
context is treated as something separate.

To paraphrase a ‘hippy’ thought, the Complexity Perspective’ confirms
that we are ‘one with the context”, our organizations are embedded
actors co-evolving the context we swim in. As we take actions hoping
to amend the energy flows from the context; the actions of others
affect us into an undirected co-evolution of the context.

These context dynamics are the background against which business is
conducted and that leaders and managers with their assorted
specialists try to influence and bend their advantage.

To summarize this Guide:

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