Invisible Climbing Frames

Organisations are complex adaptive systems.¹ As such, they cannot be influenced, changed or steered according to linear or transactional principles. In fact, this seems fairly obvious: if a single human being is already complex, how complex must a group of people be – people who interact with one another in order to produce or provide something together, and to do so for another, usually much larger group of people?

Admittedly, this is a highly simplified view. It can, however, be reconciled with systemic premises. According to Niklas Luhmann, social systems do not consist of individual persons but of their interaction – more precisely, of communication.² Such systems constitute, steer and stabilise themselves from within; they possess the capacity for self-organisation.³

If we take these basic assumptions seriously, one thing becomes clear: complete control and steering from the outside is an illusion. This has significant consequences for those in leadership positions. In this sense, leadership can only attempt, through interventions and irritations, to create conditions that give space to the system’s self-organisation. Yet because of the system’s complexity, the effects of such actions cannot be predicted in advance – they only become apparent in retrospect.

A playground can illustrate this. While planning it, an architect can consider which spatial incentives to build into the site. What she does not have, however, is absolute control over how the space will later be used and played in.

Social games

And yet there are undoubtedly more and less favourable structures and elements, offering self-organisation more or less room – in playgrounds as in organisations. If the first step of a climbing frame is set high, it may become more likely that mainly older children play on it – or those whose parents help them climb. If important meetings in organisations are increasingly scheduled at the edges of the working day, it may become more likely that people with small children cannot attend. After all, at some point they have to help their children climb.

Unlike spatial design in architecture, such behaviour-guiding elements in social systems tend to be invisible and implicit. Mark Poppenborg, co-founder of Intrinsify, brings the term “social games” into play in one of his blog posts.⁴ These games are closely accompanied by the expectations specific to each system, which in turn shape behaviour within the organisation. If, for example, the expectation of attending the meetings mentioned above is linked to promotions, it becomes more likely that young parents are promoted less often – or, as a compensating reaction, rely more heavily on childcare.

Unlike spatial design in architecture, the elements that guide behaviour in social systems tend to be invisible and implicit.

We always have a choice

All this might give the impression that we are mercilessly at the mercy of social rules of the game – and have little opportunity to change social systems. I am convinced of the opposite. A sensitivity to such dynamics opens up a wealth of new possibilities for understanding and changing organisations. A systemic understanding empowers us to look beyond our own horizon and to search for inconsistencies not in individual people, but in the system. This, in turn, creates space for a positive view of human nature – entirely in the spirit of the systemic, solution-focused stance that people are whole and capable of developing from within.

Another systemic premise speaks for the power to shape and act within organisations: systems are subject to circularity. Much like in a mobile, the behaviours within them influence one another.⁵ Individual interventions can thus set supposedly rigid norms in motion and change them. All of us, then, always have the opportunity to help shape things and bring about change. The mere awareness of existing choices and options for action gives us greater room to manoeuvre. Solution-focused counselling makes use of precisely this, activating existing resources and strengthening people’s self-efficacy through future-focused work.⁶

Learning to read the playground

The playground of an organisation is therefore never finished. And we are not only the children who play in it, but always also, to some extent, its architects. Every meeting we schedule, every expectation we place on others, every criterion by which we promote is a step on the climbing frame: sometimes low enough for everyone, sometimes within reach of only a few.

We are not only the children who play in an organisation’s playground – we are always also, to some extent, its architects.

The crucial question, then, is less how we get people to behave differently. Rather: which games are we actually playing – and who set the steps so high?