Skip to Content Search for books, courses, events, and more Search for books, courses, events, and more Introduction What is this book about? Global heating, rising inequality, diminishing resources, geo-political unrest – just a few of the issues causing turbulence in today’s world. We are living in times that are complex and fast-changing. If we can get a handle on the dynamics of this complex global landscape, might we be better equipped to act more skilfully? The Dao of Complexity starts with an intention to make sense of the nature of complexity, a complexity that shows up at all levels: the global, the organisational and the personal. The thesis is that we have adopted the wrong science to guide us in how to live and work in a way that values the sustainability of the future. I hope to convince you that viewing the world as complex will provide good guidance for how to live well, harmoniously and with resilience. The inquiry begins with the physics of open systems, engages with other diverse bodies of knowledge, and leads to the articulation of ‘process complexity’ – a framing of the world as processual, contextual and emergent. The second half of the book then addresses, in a variety of ways, what a complexity worldview suggests for ‘making waves’ – for making a difference in a world of increasing connectivity, polarisation and fragility. What does this mean for leadership, change, governance and the way we conduct our personal lives? I chose the phrase making waves as it suggests that what emerges from our actions may not entirely be what we intended. We can make a difference, but we cannot march inexorably towards a chosen endpoint. A chance encounter with the Dao The seeds for this book were sown one day back in 2004. I was part of Cranfield University’s Complex Systems Management Centre under the leadership of Peter Allen. Peter’s background was in theoretical physics, and he had worked for many years with Ilya Prigogine.1 Peter came into the office this particular day clutching a copy of the Dao de Jing, an ancient Chinese philosophical text. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘it reads just like a complexity theory textbook.’ I was intrigued. The question raised for me that afternoon was this: How is it that the cosmology or worldview emerging from complexity theory – with its roots in the science of open systems – is more or less identical to an experientially informed perspective developed in the Far East in the fourth century B.C.E? It struck me that if inquiries flowing from such unbelievably different starting points arrive at very similar destinations, then maybe we are homing in on something really important. After devouring that particular version of the Dao de Jing,2 a translation and commentary by Ames and Hall, I started to notice similar resonances with other bodies of knowledge – neuroscience, theories of personal development, early modern process philosophies. When I came across Carlo Rovelli’s3 views on quantum physics and quantum gravity, and that work also seemed to be reaching not-dissimilar conclusions, I really started to become excited. Simultaneously, I discovered the work of political commentators who had lived through the rise and fall of various kinds of despotism. They, too, had developed perspectives on this complex world that seemed very resonant. Here are key words shared by these very different disciplines: flow, process, pattern, becoming, difference, context, history, diversity, evolution, paradox, relationship, indeterminism, emergence Process complexity I develop the concept of process complexity4 in Section III. This incorporates the idea of a world always in process of ‘becoming’, but, more than that, forsakes the idea of a world made of things; it considers a world constituted of intersecting processes and patterns. The development of process complexity is a central feature of this book: what does it mean to see oneself as more of a process than a thing? What does that mean for the way our various webs of relationships can become ‘established’ and yet are always subject to change? One expression that encapsulates this perspective is to view the world as: the emerging, stabilising and dissolving of patterns of relationship The power of mindset We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them. Albert Einstein I registered the central and primary importance of mindset or worldview when writing Embracing Complexity with Peter Allen and Cliff Bowman.5 Mindset, not method, is the thing.6 Mindsets and beliefs hugely impact what we value, to what we pay attention, how we make sense of what we see and how that, in turn, shapes our choice of methods and mediates our decisions and actions. Without a shift in mindset, we all concluded, nothing really changes. I have become evangelical on this point and this theme imbues the approach I have taken in this book. I set out to trace the development of the worldview of process complexity and through this I invite you, the reader, to consider your own views about ‘the way the world works’. Is the world, indeed the cosmos, largely static or always changing? Can the future be predicted, or does it emerge? How ‘real’ are things? Are there universal understandings to be uncovered or are matters more locally and contextually driven? Complexity theory conveys a view of ‘the way the world works’ that is different from the picture we receive from classical physics. What is that view, with what other bodies of inquiry does it resonate and how might this be of use to those of us, concerned – in both senses of the word – with the social and natural world? The challenge of changing our worldview is central to our times. Peter Reason7 The still-dominant worldviews from classical physics Meanwhile, it still seems that the world is primarily in the grip of worldviews driven by two classical – and outdated – physics theories. One, the mechanical worldview, is based on the work of Isaac Newton. Newton essentially was focused on two questions: how the planets travel around the sun, and (essentially) how two billiard balls knock into each other.8 His work was of enormous significance to science; the problem comes when we want it to apply as a ‘theory of everything’. It presents a picture of a world that works like a machine – a world made of bits that operate under the direction of forces, a world that is as predictable as the cogs, wheels and gears of a train engine or a cotton mill. This world is ‘closed’. It is unaffected by anything outside of its own regime. It is reducible to its separate parts. It is predictable. It offers the promise of certainty and control. It is a very tempting metaphor to adopt when we are wanting to organise and manage the human world. The other physics theory that has gained salience as a worldview focused on the behaviour of gases and liquids. This theory, from equilibrium thermodynamics,9 also applies to situations closed to outside influences. It promises that things will reach equilibrium and not deviate very far from there. These classical physics theories, both applicable to closed systems, established the ground in physics for future developments, such as relativity and quantum mechanics. They were a huge step forwards in the field of science. The problem arises when we wish to assert that these theories apply to the human world. One particular difference, as I will explore in Section I, is that situations in the human and natural world, and indeed in the galaxies of the heavens, are almost always open to their wider contexts. They can almost never be regarded as isolated and unaffected by their surroundings.