 As we've previously touched upon, complexity management is an alternative paradigm to our traditional management approach. If we're going to manage something, we're going to have to have some representation or model to how that system works. A paradigm is the fundamental conceptual framework or model we use for interpreting events. In science, there is fundamentally just two different paradigms or processes of reasoning. These two different approaches to modeling are called analysis and synthesis. Analysis is the standard process of reasoning used within mainstream science, management and engineering, while synthesis is typically seen as an alternative and it forms the foundations to what we call systems thinking. With the process of analysis, we build a model of something by focusing on that system, decomposing it to understand its constituent parts. The simple interaction between those elements and then we form an account of the whole in terms of the properties of these parts and the process of doing this is called reductionism. Because we're reducing the system to its most elementary parts, this is the standard approach taken within modern science and it is why when we think about science, we think about things like atoms, molecules and people in labs that are isolating things and taking them apart to understand their properties in isolation. Synthesis in contrast to analysis is the process of reasoning whereby we try to understand something not by taking it apart but instead we try to look at the system in relation to its environment. So here we're reasoning upwards instead of downwards. We're building up a model of the system by understanding its connections to other things within its environment and looking at the function or role that it plays within that network of connections that makes up the overall context or environment. So for example, instead of trying to understand something like a bird by taking it into the lab and dissecting it to understand its anatomy, here we would instead go out and look at the bird within its native environment, trying to understand its place and function within the ecosystem as a whole. So whereas analysis is characterised by the approach of reductionism, synthesis is characterised by being holistic, we're always referring to the whole context or environment in order to create a model of the system we're interested in. Both synthesis and analysis are equally valid processes of reasoning. We use them both all day, every day. When we go to buy a car, we think about the properties of that car in isolation, its fuel consumption, the quality of its tyres, the interior etc. But also we think about how well it is suited to the context within which it will be used, will we be driving it in a city or the country, does my wife have a similar car or not etc. In order to properly build up a model of something, we really need to use both processes of reasoning. We typically call synthesis and systems thinking an alternative approach because the modern era has been characterised by dominance of the analytical scientific approach. For approximately the past 500 years since the scientific revolution and the work of Galileo, Newton and others, the reductionist approach has been the mainstream approach to modelling and interpreting our world. As such it has formed the backbone of modern society's collective body of knowledge and during the industrial revolution, this body of scientific knowledge was applied to creating a more formal management approach, what we call scientific management. The industrial revolution and the arrival of mass society necessitated a whole new approach to management as it became increasingly professionalised and specialised in response to having to deal with larger and more complicated forms of organisation such as the modern nation state and large corporations. Scientific management was an early management theory to come out of this period and gained widespread acceptance in analysing and improving business organisations and the workflows in factories. Scientific management is based upon the work of Frederick Taylor who laid down the fundamental principles of large scale manufacturing through the assembly line. It emphasises rationalisation and standardisation of work through the division of labour. Frederick Taylor looked at each step of production breaking those steps down into sub-steps and recording exactly how much time and how much motion was necessary to complete each task. By reducing the amount of motion the worker could get more done and productivity was increased it was an idea that fitted perfectly with industrial age mechanisation. This approach to managing organisations that was born out of the industrial age has gone on to be applied to all areas of organisation and it remains the default approach that we inherit today. So we'll quickly consider some of its advantages and disadvantages. Firstly, reductionism breaks systems down into their individual parts and focuses upon those well-defined components. So within management this involves the division of an organisation or process into categories, departments or stages. By doing this we create component parts that can be easily isolated and measured. By breaking a process up in this way we're able to isolate the organisation's components sufficiently to identify simple linear interactions of cause and effect. We can then use these simple cause and effect interactions to influence or control how the components function. We can measure their efficiency and control the outputs by manipulating inputs. By using this method we can divide up a complex system like a large corporation into relatively simple components that can be measured, controlled and thus managed. This breaking down of the system into individual components then inevitably requires at some stage for us to put all the parts back together so as to achieve the end product or result. In order to achieve this traditional organisations build up a hierarchical pyramid right at the top of which is one or a small group of elements that are responsible for integrating the whole system. Below this are a small set of positions responsible for managing and integrating the primary domains of the organisation and further down more people are responsible for more specialised areas and so on until we get to the front lines of the organisation. Each level is responsible for the integration of the different set of functions beneath it. In this way the organisation can be coordinated from one centralised position or components can be controlled through a direct line of command and measured through a well defined set of metrics relevant to their domain. This model to the industrial organisation was developed in response to a particular environment that required the large scale mass production of standardised products and services in a stable and predictable fashion. In this context the industrial model for organisation has in many ways proved itself highly successful but faced with the changing environment of the 21st century its limitations are becoming increasingly clear to us. Complexity management is based upon this alternative paradigm of synthesis that gives us a very different model to organisations and how to manage them. Being holistic it is focused on the whole instead of the parts. It is primarily focused on the whole functionality of the organisation positing that this is an emergent phenomena that is to say the whole organisation is something more than the sum of its parts. From this perspective it is the particular way that the parts are interrelated that gives rise to this added value the emergent global functionality and it is this emergent functionality of the organisation that we're really interested in. Thus we're not particularly interested in any part of the organisation but instead how those parts are arranged or organised into a functional unit. Instead of focusing on the components of the organisation we focus instead on the connections that is to say that we do not try to achieve the desired outcome by defining component parts and trying to control those parts through a hierarchy. We instead create the connections the context within which those components interact and now to that we get the emergence of the global functionality to the organisation. So these are two very different approaches. With the standard approach we're essentially trying to manage and control the output to the system. Within this approach management defines and specifies to the organisation what they want the outcome to be. This is why it is seen to be top down in nature because management are constraining the elements to the organisation towards the desired outcome. In contrary the complexity approach does not seek to control or even define the desired outcome. Instead it is focused on creating the right context that will enable the elements in the organisation to self-organise into a functional unit out of which emerges the desired global outcome to the organisation. This approach is essentially a creative one. Your capacity as a manager to influence the system is only really in your capacity to create the input context you don't really get to control the outcome. We will expand upon this further in coming modules but emergence is fundamentally a process of creation leading or managing an organisation within this paradigm means creating the future context instead of trying to control based upon past information. In this section we've been looking at the foundations to complexity management by talking about two different paradigms synthesis and analysis where analysis involves modelling something in terms of its constituent parts and their linear interactions. While synthesis takes a holistic approach modelling the system in terms of its relations and functioning within its whole environment. We then went on to talk about these two different paradigms as applied to the activity of management firstly looking at our traditional analytical approach to management and some of its key features including the reduction of complex organisations to simple components that could be measured management as the control of the linear interactions of cause and effect that govern these components and the use of hierarchical structure and incentive systems as a means for integrating and coordinating the overall organisation. Finally we gave an outline to systems thinking management that is concerned with the emergent functionality of the organisation and tries to achieve this by creating the context that will facilitate self-organisation amongst the organisation's members.