Ordered Systems
These systems are mechanistic. When you take an action on the system, you can predict what result you will get. The problem for teams is that people assume that they are ordered systems and try to govern them with rules and procedures. A plethora of meaningless rules which just prevent work being done is the result. And misery for the team. And frustration for the manager.
Chaotic Systems
These systems are made of of non-connected members. Action on one has neglible impact on another. You control them by looking at averages and distributions. A chaotic system is likely to be a population, but not a team. Trying to control, measure or reward a team by statistical averaging techniques is just plain wrong - see Deming's demonstration on the futility and unfairness of individual rewards. Video at YouTube - skip to 4:30 to see the game in action!
Complex Systems
In these systems, all the members communicate with each other and with the system itself. You cannot control them with rules, you cannot apply statistical averages to them to say what will happen. Remind you of anything? Your team?
Teams (in the sense we tend to use in this blog) are definitely complex. Any act you perform on one member (praise, punishment, pay review, allocate task, anything) changes the behaviour of other members of the team.
How to "manage" a complex system
This is the tricky bit...
Strictly, you can't manage a complex system. It'd be like trying to manage the weather. Literally, as weather is a complex system.
Don't give up hope; there are some things you can do. I'll be mentioning htem in future blogs, so make sure you sign up for the RSS feed so you get notified when they come out!
All the best,
Dave Bull
Team Coaching Network Ltd
http://www.teamcoachingnetwork.com
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