Embracing Complexity

The book describes what it means to say the world is complex and explores what that means for managers, policy makers and individuals. The first part of the book is about the theory and ideas of complexity. This is explained in a way that is thorough but not mathematical. It compares differing approaches, and also provides a historical perspective, showing how such thinking has been around since the beginning of civilisation. It emphasises the difference between a complexity worldview and the dominant mechanical worldview that underpins much of current management practice. It defines the complexity worldview as recognising the world is interconnected, shaped by history and the particularities of context. The comparison of the differing approaches to modelling complexity is unique in its depth and accessibility. The second part of the book uses this lens of complexity to explore issues in the fields of management, strategy, economics, and international development. It also explores how to facilitate others to recognise the implications of adopting a complex rather than a mechanical worldview and suggests methods of research to explore systemic, path-dependent emergent aspects of situations. The authors of this book span both science and management, academia and practice, thus the explanations of science are authoritative and yet the examples of changing how you live and work in the world are real and accessible. The aim of the book is to bring alive what complexity is all about and to illustrate the importance of loosening the grip of a modernist worldview with its hope for prediction, certainty and control.

Collating state-of-the-art developments in the area of complexity and design into a unique and authoritative resource for both the design and complex systems communities, this book is essential reading for those studying€complexity or design, €as it touches on€different themes and domains such as€architecture, engineering, environmental design, art, fashion and management.

This detailed volume illustrates the transformative nature of systems and complexity sciences for practice, research, education, and health system organization. Researchers highlight the fresh perspectives and novel approaches offered by these interdisciplinary fields in addressing the complexities of global, national, and community health challenges in the 21st century. With the implications that these emerging fields hold for health still relatively underexplored, researchers from a wide variety of disciplines, including physiological, social, environmental, clinical, prevention, educational, organizational, finance, and policy domains, aim in this book to suggest future directions in health care and highlight recent advances in basic and clinical physiology, education, policy-making, and leadership. Among the topics discussed: Impact of genomic heterogeneity on bio-emergent properties Harnessing Big Data to improve health services Decision-making of women in violent relationships Co-producing healthcare interventions A socio-ecological solution to physician burnout Embracing Complexity in Health: The Transformation of Science, Practice, and Policy is a highly relevant resource to practitioners in the field, students, instructors, and policy makers, and also should find an engaged audience among health and disease researchers, healthcare planners, health system financiers, health system administrators, health services administrators, health professional educators, and other health professionals. The trans- and interdisciplinary natures of health and health care are fostering a broad discourse amongst all concerned with improving patient care in an equitable and sustainable way.

First Published in 2008. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Complex Adaptive Leadership, a Gower bestseller, has been taught in corporate leadership programmes, business schools and universities around the world to high acclaim. In this updated paperback edition, the author argues that leadership is a complex dynamic process and should involve all those engaged in a particular enterprise. Nick Obolensky has practised, researched and taught leadership in the public, private and voluntary sectors, and in this exciting book he brings together his knowledge of theory, his own experience, and the results of 19 years of research involving 2,500 executives in 40 countries around the world.

The way we design and work within our organizations is profoundly impacted by digital technologies and complexity. Speed of flow is critical for innovation, production, communication, and delivery. Arguably, silo-based, functional hierarchies are failing to guarantee the necessary speed of flow as well as quality, and involvement of people. Applying techniques is insufficient. What is required is a radical rethink to compete and thrive. Nothing less than a new way of understanding – an epistemological framework – will do. This book aims to provide such a framework and show how we can break free from silos and silo thinking through a truly systemic approach. It presents an operational solution that allows organizations to effectively adopt digital technologies and reap their benefits. It highlights the new kind of leadership that our increasingly network-based and distributed business world requires to achieve sustainable prosperity.

Using the thought of Christian thinker Thomas Aquinas and Neo-Confucian Zhu Xi, explores how to exercise and limit authority. This book discusses what a religiously grounded authority might look like from the viewpoints of the European Catholic Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) and the Chinese Neo-Confucian Zhu Xi (1130–1200). The consideration of these two figures, immensely influential in their respective traditions, reflects the conviction that any responsible discourse on authority must consider different cultural perspectives. Catherine Hudak Klancer notes that both Zhu Xi and Aquinas conceive wisdom as including, yet surpassing, human reason. Both express an explicit faith in the moral order of the cosmos and the ethical potential of human beings. The systematic, idealistic approach common to both provides the cosmic, anthropological, and ethical elements needed for a comprehensive exploration of how to exercise and limit authority. Ultimately, Klancer writes, authority requires a particular virtue, hitherto latent in both scholars’ work and in their lives as well. A person with this virtue—humble authority—is properly grounded in the sacred order, and fully cognizant in theory and in practice of the parameters of human nature and the responsibilities attendant upon the human role. Catherine Hudak Klancer is Lecturer in the Core Curriculum at Boston University.