Embracing Complexity Strategic Perspectives For An Age of Turbulence Jean G Boulton Peter M Allen Cliff Bowman

Embracing Complexity Strategic
Perspectives for an Age of Turbulence

Jean G Boulton Peter M Allen Cliff
Bowman
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OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 3/7/2015, SPi
Embracing Complexity
Strategic Perspectives for an
Age of Turbulence
Jean G. Boulton, Peter M. Allen, and Cliff Bowman
1
3
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP,
United Kingdom
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.
It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship,
and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of
Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries
© Jean G. Boulton, Peter M. Allen, and Cliff Bowman 2015
The moral rights of the authors have been asserted
First Edition published in 2015
Impression: 1
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and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer
Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2014959991
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contained in any third party website referenced in this work.
Contents
List of Figures ix
1. Introduction 1
1.1 What is this book about and why are we writing it? 1
1.2 For whom are we writing this book? 6
1.3 Complexity thinking in brief 8
1.4 Limits to knowledge 11
1.5 What this book is not 12
2. The Nature of a Complex World 15

2.1 The life cycle of forests 15
2.2 When the environment is relatively stable 17
2.3 When the environment is not stable 21
2.4 A word of warning: the social world is not so neat and tidy 23
2.5 Messiness and variety are key 26
3. Unpacking Complexity 27
3.1 Introduction 27
3.2 The world really is complex 27
3.3 The key insight: the future is a dance between patterns
and events 29
3.4 The birth of complexity theory: Prigogine and open systems 32
3.5 What is a complex system? 34
3.6 Characteristics of a complex world 35
3.7 So where does this take us? 46
4. Have We Thought Like This Before? 48

4.1 Introduction 48
4.2 Flow, change, particularity, and emergence 53
4.3 Plato and Aristotle 56
4.4 Newton and mathematical laws 56
4.5 Statistical mechanics and thermodynamics 59
4.6 Evolution and Darwin 61
4.7 The impact of Darwin’s thinking 63
4.8 The emergence of systems thinking and complexity theory 65
4.9 Almost full circle back to pre-modernism 69
Contents
5. The Complexity of Complexity Theories 71

5.1 Introduction 71
5.2 Models and equations 72
5.3 A trip into state space 74
5.4 The rocky road from reality to anticipated understanding 77
5.5 Evolutionary, complex models 79
5.6 Probabilistic dynamics: the Master Equation 85
5.7 Assuming stationarity 89
5.8 Dynamical systems 93
5.9 Discussion: what we are trying to emphasize 96
6. Complexity and the Social World 105

6.1 Can we be sure complexity theory is relevant
for the social world? 105
6.2 Complexity theory and human systems: are humans
different from molecules? 108
6.3 Researching the complex world in the flesh! 110
6.4 We are not dismissing the place of large-scale research 120
7. Complexity and Management 122

7.1 Introduction 122
7.2 Methods for exploring implicit beliefs and worldviews 122
7.3 What does complexity thinking imply for managing change? 130
7.4 Complexity-informed management behaviours 135
8. Complexity and Strategy 138

8.1 What is strategy? 138
8.2 Starting outside-in 142
8.3 Dynamics of the strategy landscape and implications
for practice 145
8.4 Strategy in practice: a case study 152
8.5 Deliberate and emergent strategy 157
8.6 Advice to the strategist from the complexity perspective 164
8.7 Pause for thought: the issue of dominance 167
8.8 Complexity and strategy: concluding comments 169
9. Complexity and International Development 171

9.1 This chapter: a personal view 171
9.2 Turkana through a complexity lens 171
9.3 Savings groups 186
9.4 Context analysis 192
9.5 Conclusions 198
10. Complexity and Economics 202

10.2 A very brief history of economic thought 202
10.3 A complexity/evolutionary perspective 204
vi
Contents
10.4 What is wrong with neo-classical thinking? 206

10.5 Implications 212
10.6 Conclusion 219
11. Final Reflections: What We Hope You Take Away from This Book 220
11.2 We start with modelling 220
11.3 A focus on ‘local’ 228
11.4 Mindsets and principles, not tools 229
11.5 Empiricism 234
11.6 The pesky topic of self-organization 236
11.7 A concluding comment 239
Glossary 241
References 247
Index 257
vii
List of Figures
2.1 The life cycle of a forest. 20

3.1 The core of complexity theory. 30
5.1 From complexity to simplicity. 78
7.1 Myers–Briggs types. 127
7.2 Complexity and the nature of change. 131
7.3 Managing change to take account of complex contexts. 133
7.4 How should project managers behave in a complex world? 136
8.1 A dynamic multi-level perspective on transitions. 142
8.2 A way to envisage the strategy landscape. 144
8.3 From stability to dynamism. 146
8.4 An example of how strategy develops. 156
8.5 Different forms of strategy. 157
8.6 The co-evolution of strategy and the environment. 160
9.1 Stages of fragility and resilience. 195
9.2 Analysing the context. 197
Introduction
1.1 What is this book about and why are we writing it?
The pervasiveness of machine-thinking
This book is about two contrasting worldviews. On the one hand there is
the ‘mechanical’ view of the world, the idea that the world works like a
machine. In this view the future is a predetermined path inexorably unfolding
from the present. We can analyse the facts, predict the future, decide how
to intervene, make and execute plans, and control and measure outcomes.
The world can be understood by breaking it down into constituent parts, and
these can be dealt with in piecemeal fashion. There is no learning, variety,
adaptation, innovation, or surprise. This pervasive mechanical worldview
maintains its attraction as it provides a sense of order, purpose, and control.
It makes analyses tractable. It underpins processes of management and pol-
icymaking and it defines, for many, how they view their role in the world, and
shapes how they engage with life and work.
In contrast a complexity worldview sees the world as essentially intercon-
nected, and rich with forms and patterns that have been shaped by history
and context. A complexity worldview reminds us of the limits to certainty, it
emphasizes that things are in a continual process of ‘becoming’ and that there
is potential for startlingly new futures where what emerges can be unexpected
and astonishing.
Complexity thinking is not new, and has been part of our understanding
and experience since the beginning of civilization. But it is also underpinned
by modern science and mathematical modelling, and it has immense signifi-
cance. Once you recognize the realities of the complex world there is no
going back, and we have titled this book Embracing Complexity for a reason. If
you take on board what it means to say the world is complex, this will change
the way you think, feel, and act. And we think this will be a change for
the better. In a mechanical worldview, managers or leaders are expected to
control organizations and what happens in them. These expectations of
control make little sense where the world is emergent and complex, and this
tension between expectations and reality can be a source of considerable
personal stress.
In addition, we feel that there is a polarization in management and policy
thinking. On the one hand, there is an increasing focus, for organizations, on
defining detailed rules, standardizing methods, evidencing and measuring out-
comes. The intention is to make the hospital, school, or firm work as an efficient,
optimized, well-oiled machine. The belief is that if we tell people exactly what to
do and check they do it exactly, then standards and efficiency will improve.
On the other hand, in the field of economics, there is almost the opposite—
increasing deregulation and laissez-faire driven by a strong belief in the invis-
ible hand of the market and in the power of competition to lead to optimal
outcomes. Yet, although not necessarily obvious, in the field of economics too
is the implicit assumption that, statistically, the future can be predicted, that
policies can be designed and optimized. This unregulated economic world is
still modelled as if it worked predictably and controllably, moving inexorably
towards equilibrium.
What is remarkable is that these beliefs seem to harden and become ever-
more entrenched despite the repeating crises facing our economies, ecologies,
and societies. They persist in spite of the stark and sometimes completely
unexpected social eruptions and political crises that dominate the news. If
ever there were a need for fresh thinking we are seeing it now. Yet most of the
solutions that are attempted consist in propping up the status quo, doing
more of the same, just trying harder—rather than thinking afresh and ques-
tioning underlying assumptions.
In this book we are aiming to challenge these entrenched worldviews—of
the organization as machine competing in a ‘free’ and fair market—and in
their stead we are advocating a complexity worldview. The first part of the
book—Chapters 2 to 5—is about ideas, about getting to grips with the theory
and thinking of complexity and contrasting it to the pervasive idea of ‘world
as machine’. We explore where the mechanical image came from and how it
came to be adopted as a way to understand and engage with the world. We will
see that societies have not always thought this way. We will trace the devel-
opment of an alternative, more organic, more complex view of the ‘way the
world is’ from the earliest times of philosophical thinking through to Darwin
and to complexity theory. We explain how this other organic worldview has
been around for millennia and has moved in and out of dominant thinking—
in philosophy, in science, in psychology, and in economics.
In the second half of the book—Chapters 6 to 10—we look at applications
of complexity thinking—to management, strategy, and economics. We have
also included a short chapter focusing on international development, where
the issues in many ways are much more complex than those met by the world
2
Introduction
of business, for reasons we will explore. Our final chapter, Chapter 11, is based
on dialogue and discussion between the authors as to what we would really
like you, the reader, to take away from this book.
The world is complex whether we like it or not

Why are we writing this book? The first driving factor is a political one: we
believe that to approach the social and natural world as if things were predict-
able and controllable, despite substantial evidence to the contrary, is not only
unhelpful, but destructive. This mechanical approach conveys the idea that
we can manage the future of the economy, of society, of the ecology and the
climate. It seduces us with a search for certainty and a belief in the existence
of identifiable causes to identifiable effects, when in reality such prediction
and certainty rarely exist. This mechanical view does not lead us easily into
exploring interrelationship, co-evolution, dynamic flow, values, unintended
consequences, multiple perspectives, learning, the emergence of the totally
unexpected, collapse, the ways differing factors interact—or give sufficient
consideration to the distant future or the role of the past.
We are keen to show that this other more naturalistic and organic idea
of the ‘world as complex’ is closer to lived experience than the ‘world as
machine’. If we understand its implications thoroughly, engaging with the
complexities of the world or even just accepting that the world is complex may
give better guidance as to how to gain success in our ventures and yet also
engender a sustainable and equitable world.
But how can we really get to grips with what it means to say the world is
complex and what that implies we should do? How can we understand it well
enough to make sound judgements as to how to apply complexity ideas and
respond to complex situations? The description below mirrors well our own
motivation.
Sustainability is about sustaining life and sustained life is a property of an ecosys-

tem rather than a single organism or species. Nature sustains life by creating and
nurturing communities and as no individual organism can exist in isolation,
sustainability is a property of an entire interconnected web of relationships.
The fact that sustainability is a property of a web of relationships means that in
order to understand it properly we need to shift our focus to the whole and learn
how to think in terms of relationships, in terms of interconnections, patterns and
context.
Developing this understanding will highlight the many ways in which our
human civilisation (especially since the Industrial Revolution) has ignored these
patterns and processes and has interfered with them. We will realize that these
interferences (our inability to perceive connections) are the fundamental causes of
many of our current world problems, i.e. they are systemic problems, are all
3
interconnected and interdependent and just different facets of one single crisis—a
crisis of perception.
This inability to perceive broader connections comes from the fact that most
people in our society subscribe to the concepts of an outdated worldview (mech-
anistic, reductionist, separate). Although this has brought many advantages, this
thinking is now inadequate for dealing with the sustainability challenges and our
complex interconnected world.
We therefore require a radical shift in our perceptions, our thinking and our
values. Thinking in systems and more specifically thinking in terms of intercon-
nectedness, is a key element of a broader and more holistic worldview and can itself
facilitate and accelerate this transition (Evitts, Seale, & Skybrook, 2010).
An appropriate science for human systems

The second driver for writing this book is a scientific one. Two of the authors
are, by background, theoretical physicists, although both have for many years
been situated in the social sciences and management arenas, in various ways.
Peter Allen worked with Ilya Prigogine, a founding father of complexity, for
twenty years and has continued to focus on the modelling of social and
ecological systems. Prigogine was one of the initiators of this field of complex-
ity, and gave a particular focus to the interplay between current patterns of
relationships/structure/form (which can be expressed via mathematical equa-
tions) and the role of variation, chance, and randomness—between ‘science
and history’, as it has been expressed. Jean Boulton made an earlier transition
from theoretical physics to management and then more broadly into social
science, but, in working with Peter for several years, has maintained a keen
interest in understanding and articulating the science of complexity as well as
developing ways to apply and critique the ideas. She operates between aca-
demia and practice.
We feel it is really important that the detailed ‘scientific’ exploration of
complexity is presented in this book, and that we try to give a thorough and
detailed view of what the science has to say. This is exciting science as for
many people complexity theory is not scientific at all. So we are keen to
challenge traditional scientific views and to be very careful to explore and
critique how these views are translated from a focus on the interactions of
inanimate molecules, through to consideration of ecology and evolution, and
finally to human systems. This exploration has many implications about the
way we conceive the world and takes us into explorations of the way we
understand knowledge, the processes of change and the nature of reality.
As we will show in particular in Chapter 5, complexity can be a minefield.
Because it is derived in large part from mathematical modelling, different models
based on different simplifying assumptions give different and sometimes
4
Introduction
contradictory views. So the non-mathematician can have a hard time sorting

out the beech trees from the birch trees and making up her own mind as to what
is of more general applicability and what is not. We hope that this book will aid
you in comparing and contrasting differing notions and assumptions of com-
plexity, and help you to feel more able to challenge assertions and take a critical
perspective.
So what should we do?

The third driver for writing this book is to explore what the notion that we
live in a complex world implies for the way we live and manage, and the way
we form intentions and ideas. This is where the interests of Cliff Bowman
come in as a theorist and practitioner of strategy, and the experiences of Jean
Boulton as strategist, consultant, and director, and Peter as adviser to policy-
makers. It is easy to be overly simplistic about these implications and to see
the alternatives as either control or chaos, either certainty or uncertainty,
either management or laissez-faire. It is tempting to see complexity science
as a source of new and possibly more complicated tools for the toolkit—but
still to want them to fit within our existing, familiar approach to defining and
solving the problem as we see it. But maybe the issue is less to do with tools
and more to do with perspective. Maybe we need to add a large ladder and
360-degree binoculars to our kit so we can take a wider view and reframe the
problem. Then we may use many of the same tools, but in different ways,
with different aims.
We want to explore these ideas in some depth and consider their applica-
tion to a number of differing contexts, building on our collective experience.
What does being in a complex world mean to individuals, to organizations,
and more globally to issues of economics, climate change, and engaging with
the developing world? What do you do differently? This is a tall order and we
are selective, to a degree, in the topics we address, sometimes for no other
reason than some are more of interest to us than others.
Allied to this focus on application is the issue of methods—ways of know-
ing and ways of acting. How do we engage empirically with a complex,
interconnected, co-evolving, emerging world? How do we learn about how
things change? How do we attempt to spot change as it happens? How do we
test strategies, work out what has happened and what to do next? This topic
of methods is not straightforward. Working with a complexity worldview
gives us, in the main, principles and frameworks rather than step-by-step
formulaic processes. It provides maxims and questions for consideration
rather than rules. Many existing methods remain relevant if approached
with a different ‘mindset’.
5
It is important to emphasize, however, that we are not taking a stand against

numbers or data or models. Nor are we against leadership or planning or
analysis or regulation (although not the detailed micro-management kind).
Indeed, as you will see in Chapter 10 on economics, we feel there is a place for
forms of regulation, and we are concerned as much about laissez-faire as we are
about detailed control. What we are striving to counter is certainty or fixed-
ness in assuming any approach. We are advocating more tentativeness and
less hubris. We think that a complexity perspective sits in the middle ground.
It suggests ‘try it and see’ or ‘try several things and see’ rather than ‘the analysis
of the situation shows this is the right way to tackle it’. It implies that, whilst
we should work as best we can to use evidence and information to inform our
decisions, sometimes the information which captures the past quite well is
of limited use in illuminating the future. We need to be wary of assuming
everything can be tested and evidenced, and imagining that we can always
know what caused what or what might happen next. We need to be more
willing to experiment, to fail, and to learn from those failures—without giving
up on clarity, and without abandoning the use of concrete data to plan and
measure within limits.
What is easy to miss in saying all this is that embracing complexity can
actually makes things easier, simpler, and more straightforward! How much
time gets spent by organizations making cases, forming detailed plans, com-
pleting analyses, and demonstrating outcomes? How much of this really gets to
the heart of the situation and really determines either what to do or what has
been done? Perhaps less planning but more experimentation would be not
only more effective but also simpler? Perhaps more focus on the initial select-
ing of good professionals, allowing them more autonomy to respond more
effectively to the situations they are facing, would be less time consuming than
the considerable efforts put in by managers to direct, measure, and control
their performance. If the world is complex, then acting congruently with that
complexity can be simpler than trying to control a machine that does not exist.
1.2 For whom are we writing this book?
We hope this book will have something to offer a wide range of people. First of
all, we hope it is of interest to people who have heard of complexity theory
and would like better to understand what it is about. In particular, we expect
the book to appeal to those who really want to explore where these ideas have
come from and on what they are based. So we do not want to treat complexity
in a superficial or metaphorical way. We want to explore complexity thinking
as deeply and rigorously as we can and provide a historical perspective too.
The idea that the world is complex and interconnected—neither random nor
6
Introduction
chaotic, but not predictable either—is not a new idea. We would like to
explore where these ideas have surfaced in human history, and we would
like to position complexity thinking scientifically too. How does it differ
from statistics? How does it relate to systems thinking and evolution and
Newton’s mechanical theories?
So the first half of this book will appeal to those who are interested in the
science and philosophy of complexity and how it sits with other ways of
thinking about the world.
The second half of this book will appeal to those who want to consider what
these ideas have to say about the social world. How do they impact manage-
ment? What do they suggest for theories of economics? This second half of the
book is ambitious, but necessary if we are to convey a sense of the importance
of complexity theory as applied to the social world.
As we have said, this book is not primarily a ‘how to’ book. It does not contain
many frameworks or checklists, although we do try to bring concepts alive with
real-life examples. Our primary intention is to challenge the reader to question
his or her underlying assumptions about the way the world works. If we uncover
our implicit assumptions and prejudices, if we cross the threshold into another
paradigm, we are likely to change our attitude and approach towards much of
what we do. For example, if we think that the world is not entirely predictable,
we would still plan, but would review the outcomes of the plan more frequently.
If we believe that it is the norm for there to be multiple causes and influences on
outcomes, we will be more fluid and tentative in our approach to gathering
evidence of efficacy than if we believe clear cause-and-effect chains exist and
just need to be uncovered. So, as we keep saying, a change of outlook may not
change what we do, but it may change how we do it and the degree of certainty
with which we approach our actions and decisions.
This book, whilst not a textbook, should be useful for postgraduate students
looking at business, change, economics, development, or social responsibility.
It should be of interest to managers and policymakers—people who are aware
of the mainstream theories but want to consider things differently. It should
in addition appeal to those interested in popular science and in new world-
views and ideologies—anyone who wants to explore the underlying assump-
tions behind common practices and processes.
Hopefully it will also interest those people who sense themselves to be on
a threshold, who are trying to reach for a new way of thinking and being in
the world. Many authors try to encapsulate these shifts in perspective. Torbert
(Torbert & Rooke, 2005), for example, talks about post-conventional thinking,
Reason and Bradbury (2001) promote a participatory worldview. Gillian Stamp
(1978) explores the transformations people make during the course of their
lives—away from the concrete towards the ambiguous, away from the imme-
diate towards the longer term, and away from the simple to the complex. Stamp
7
describes the sense of loss or malaise that can accompany a shift into a different,
more expansive frame. If this is your experience, this book may appeal to you.
In the remainder of this chapter, we sketch out what complexity thinking is
all about, then we tell you what this book is and what it is not!
1.3 Complexity thinking in brief

Complexity in a nutshell
Although the whole book is about developing this topic, here is a succinct
definition of what complexity theory and complex thinking is all about.
When we say the world is complex we are saying it is:
• Systemic: the world cannot be understood through taking apart the bits
and understanding them separately. Factors work together synergistic-
ally, that is, the whole is different from the sum of its parts. We live as part
of patterns of relationships.
• Path-dependent: history matters and the sequence of events is a key
factor in giving shape to the future.
• Sensitive to context: one size does not fit all, and the way change happens
and the way the future emerges is dependent on the detailed and particu-
lar events and patterns of relationships and particular features in the local
situation. By generalizing we risk throwing out the very information that
sheds light on why things happen and what might happen next.
• Emergent, uncertain, but not random: although the future does not follow
smoothly from the past, neither is what happens random. The world is
neither chaotic nor predictable but somewhere in between.
• Episodic: things are becoming, developing, and changing, but change
seems to happen in fits and starts. The intriguing thing about the world
is that on the surface patterns of relationships and structures can seem
almost stable for long periods of time, although micro-changes may be
going on under the surface. And then radical change can happen sud-
denly and new patterns of relationships can self-organize and some
completely new features that could not have been predicted may emerge.
Complexity: a potted historical perspective

This theme is developed in much more detail in Chapter 4, but we include
here a potted historical perspective.
This way of thinking about the world began with the ancient cosmologies
such as Daoism or the pre-Socratics, like Heraclitus. They saw that the
8
Introduction
fundamental principle of the universe was becoming, characterized by flow and

change. This was not change occurring in a random, chaotic way; the cosmol-
ogies still recognized that there is form. Form is described as a patterning of
relationships which sustains for a time. Form emerges from relationships
between the things of which it is constituted. So this presents a view of the
world as systemic, emergent, and co-created, rather than a view of the world
as pre-fixed, predictable, and controllable.
Darwin’s view of evolution takes this worldview further in that it places
attention on how things evolve. Darwin emphasized the importance of vari-
ation. Variation may invade the patterning locally and any new emergent
pattern may or may not be adapted to local circumstances. Evolution shows
that change is always, initially, local and particular to the unique and histor-
ically placed set of events and interactions.
Ilya Prigogine, a central figure in the development of complexity theory,
was intrigued by Bergson’s (1964) comments, in 1911, as to why physics
seemed to suggest that situations either continue without change (Newton’s
laws) or decline into featureless dust (thermodynamics). He asked ‘why does
life mount the incline that matter descends?’ His answer, in a nutshell, was
that the physics of the time (partly due to the pragmatic reason that you
otherwise could not tackle the maths) tended to assume that situations of
interest could be considered as closed, and therefore independent of, not
interacting with, their environment. If we recognize that situations of interest
are generally connected and engaged with their environment—that they are
open—then it can be shown that structures and patterns can emerge.
How does this come about? We develop this in more detail in Chapter 2 but,
briefly, it is the second law of thermodynamics applied to closed systems that
gives us the notion of the arrow of time, associated with increasing decay,
disorder, and entropy. In open systems, interacting with the environment,
order and structure can develop inside the system at the expense of energy
or ‘stuff ’ from the outside. So locally the general running down and decay
over time that thermodynamics predicts for the universe as a whole can be
reversed. A local system—the planet, the piece of land, the ecosystem, the city,
or the body—may at times show increasingly complex patterns of structure
and organization. So this is the basis of the concepts of emergence and self-
organization.
But how do we know all this has anything to do with the social world?
We must be careful, however, to consider the implications of abstracting ideas
from physics into the living world. What we have been describing comes from
physics, focusing on atoms and molecules, and we are already holding up a
mirror to the previous project of asserting Newton’s mechanical physics is
9
relevant to the social and natural world. So a key question which we consider
in this book is whether—and to what extent—these explorations of the
behaviour of open systems are relevant to living systems and to the personal
experience of our lives. As you can imagine, our conclusion is yes in broad
principle—but beware the detail!
If we look at our own lives, we are happy to conclude that what happens
emerges though a complex interplay of chance, choice, the behaviours of
others, particular events and decisions, the particular local features of our
surroundings, the features of the economic, social, and environmental world
at large, our own particular history and that of our family and culture—not to
mention our personalities, beliefs, and abilities. So the assertion that the
world is essentially interconnected, messy, sometimes fairly predictable, at
other times fast changing and unpredictable—does not come as a surprise.
We just, perhaps, have never connected this personal experiential perspec-
tive to what we expect from a ‘scientific’ view. Indeed, we perhaps hoped
that science could give us truth in terms of general, universal laws allowing
prediction and control and allaying our fears about the uncertainty of the
future.
What is interesting is that pre-Socratic cosmologies, evolutionary theory,
complexity theory, and our own personal experience have arrived at a very
similar viewpoint as to the way the world works, as we will explore in Chapters
4 and 7.
So why is it helpful to explore this story, this ‘experience’ from the point of
view of science? Why not just rely on personal experience? Exploring com-
plexity theory allows a direct challenge to the implicit assumptions many
people hold that science implies the world is ‘mechanical’, that it is indeed
predictable and controllable. The fact that complexity is a ‘new science’ has
power. Indeed, it reframes science and emphasizes that the only reliable way
to investigate the way things are, and certainly the way things change, is
through paying attention to the local detail—to the ‘minutely organized
particulars’, as William Blake (1908) called them.
This is challenging, as complexity thinking suggests we can never be entirely
sure what will happen next, what will be the results of any intervention or
shift. It emphasizes the limits to any universal knowledge, the limits to predic-
tion, the possibility of ‘unknown unknowns’, and the possibility of ‘tipping’
into new forms and finding there is no reliable way back.
Complexity science encompasses a worldview, and one that is shared with
other traditions, as we have discussed. But what is the basis for this worldview
from the viewpoint of complexity? This worldview has been developed pri-
marily through the use of mathematical modelling—and this of course is
problematic. As the saying goes, ‘the map is not the territory’ and modelling
is always limited in that it makes assumptions, it leaves things out and
10
Introduction
necessarily draws boundaries. However, when many different types of model-

ling investigations give similar views of the way the world is, and when these
views are consistent with other traditions and indeed are consistent with our
own personal experience, then we need to take them seriously. Each model
may be limited but, then, so are practical experiments and so is the power of the
mind to think through complex problems or interpret complex data. So com-
plexity science offers us the tool of modelling, but is also about very much
more than modelling. It provides an ontology, a worldview, a generic insight
into dynamics, into the way the world ‘becomes’. It also allows exploration and
insight into the particularity of problems and areas of interest.
Complexity provides a frame within which to interrogate what we see and
experience—it gets us to consider, for example, whether situations are resili-
ent or whether dominant factors have become ‘locked-in’ and cannot easily
change, or how things might become unstable and collapse or ‘tip’. But
this should not preclude our taking a critical and detailed view as to what
really is happening in any particular circumstance. How to explore the
complex world ‘in the flesh’ rather than through models is another theme
in this book.
1.4 Limits to knowledge
The tradition that underlies this book is that which motivated and drove Ilya
Prigogine. Prigogine’s fascination with the irreversibility of time was a hugely
important catalyst. Today is not yesterday, and tomorrow will not be today—
laws, entities, structures, features, problems, ideas, and situations will change
over time as new things emerge and old ones disappear. The idea of time-
reversibility, implicit in all deterministic science, ‘contradicts outright every-
thing we see around us’, as Prigogine (1996: 40) said. This is fundamental, as it
implies that any description and understanding that we may have of a situ-
ation will erode over time—or indeed sometimes even collapse. Thus we are
engaged in an unending, imperfect attempt to make sense of things. Any
understanding we may develop will necessarily be temporary, because the
view is one of not simply quantitative change (things grow or shrink) but is
qualitative—that is to say new types of things will appear and disappear. The
question is of course, how long is ‘temporary’? If it is long enough to provide a
better outcome for something, then it is worth pursuing knowledge and
understanding of the current situation (the focus of most science), but we
must also be studying and looking out for change and pursue an understand-
ing of the nature of change too.
Situations are characterized by quite different time scales of major change—
millions of years for geology and biological evolution perhaps, decades for
11
industries, economies, and skills, and maybe years or only seconds for per-
sonal interactions and relationships. Patterns and regularities persist for dif-
ferent lengths of time and we cannot easily predict when a change may occur.
Geology may be on a scale of millions of years, but earthquakes are over in
minutes. What we regard as our knowledge and understanding is based on
investigating whatever has been stable for a time—but unless we can predict
exactly when a tipping point will occur then such understanding is probably
useful, but also potentially dangerous if we do not recognize its tentative
nature. Basing decisions on expectations of what will happen seems sensible,
but is perilous when the situation can change structurally (where new features
emerge) and when, as is normally the case, we cannot predict exactly when
that will happen. History is really made at precisely such key moments when
we move into a ‘new world’ and old practices, beliefs, and understanding are
no longer relevant. Accepting the reality of complexity, uncertainty, and
ambiguity forces us to keep doubt alive and never to suppose or assume that
things will not change. It illuminates the importance in the long run of the
moments when previous understanding and models fail. But many ‘hard’
scientists find it difficult to move beyond the fixity and beauty of a particular
model or set of equations since in much of physics such an approach has
been extraordinarily successful in the development of technology. But what
is appropriate for technology is not necessarily—or indeed generally—
appropriate for living systems.
However, in many ways, in creating our modern technology-based lifestyle,
the ‘mechanical’ basis of technology and engineering has forced us to try to
shape our lives into a similar predictable, predefined form of synchronized
regularity, thereby limiting the potential for novelty, surprise, and uncertainty
within a functioning system. We try to protect ourselves and the different
elements of our artificial world by shielding them from their inner and outer
environments—by fixing routines and defining behaviours, and by shielding
them from contextual changes for which they were not designed. In other
words, in some ways we have been trapped by our own mechanical creation
into the need for regularity, predictability, and routines. Fortunately, there are
always those whose personalities force them to explore, experiment, and
break out of routines, and even though this will often be at great personal
cost, the evolution of society continues.
1.5 What this book is not
This book is not trying to be a neutral and comprehensive review of all the
literature of systems, chaos, and complexity thinking. It does not cover the
12
Introduction
work in non-linear physics and evolutionary biology, nor the extensive litera-
ture of systems thinking. It does preference the ideas of evolutionary com-
plexity and emphasizes that which is beyond what can be tackled analytically,
with its precise equations and mathematics. Our main concern is with the
general question of the application of complexity to social situations, and to
management and economics, building on an approach which emphasizes
change and ‘becoming’. Our question is, ‘what does complexity thinking
have to offer?’ Is it just another possible worldview, or even only just a source
of metaphor? Or is it, as we conclude, something more fundamental and
critical? Does it suggest how we should approach understanding the way the
world works, exploring particular situations, and can it provide insights into
what we should do?
Because we want to focus on the fundamentals of complexity by trying to
unpick and make explicit some of the assumptions made by various
researchers and authors, this book is also not a comprehensive review of
the rapidly expanding literature in the application of complexity to man-
agement and social science. Our motivation is to offer the reader a more
comprehensive understanding of the fundamentals, so as to become better
equipped to critique the assumptions made in other work. Some concepts
can become ‘reified’, treated as if there is no doubt as to what they mean or to
what they pertain. They can be used to drive assertions as to what is good
management practice and can become unassailable assumptions about what
complexity is all about. We want to go back to the earlier science and give the
reader the tools to critique such work and then provide a perspective on what
these ideas suggest about how we might better engage in our organizations
and live our lives.
This book is not about how to do modelling. It is much more about how to
understand complexity as a worldview, how to get to grips with what is being
said about the way the work works. If we embrace this view of the world as
complex, what does it mean for our actions, intentions, interpretations, and
beliefs?
We are aware that this book covers a lot of ground—the history of science
and philosophy, the field of mathematical modelling and social research,
economics, strategy, leadership, management, and international develop-
ment. Each of these subjects has extensive literatures and long histories of
scholarship. Our intention in this book is to raise the question as to what
complexity has to offer in many, diverse arenas relevant to management and
policy and to the way we live our lives. Our hope is that this is a consciousness-
raising, paradigm-shifting book that gets you thinking, one that causes you to
pause when adopting commonly held ideas and methods, and which encour-
ages you to critique the basis on which ‘things are done’. Many of the ideas
and suggestions we make come from other directions too. We are not
13
suggesting we hold the high ground in pointing out the limitations of some
common practices. Our focus is on how a complexity perspective informs this
debate.
Note on Glossary
There are many technical terms used in this book. Where words are high-
lighted in bold italics this signifies they are defined in the Glossary at the end
of the book.
14
The Nature of a Complex World
2.1 The life cycle of forests
The development of the science of complexity and the way people have explored
the nature of the complex world has been, in the main, through mathematical
models, and it can be hard to get a real sense of what these ideas and concepts
mean in practice. It is one thing to assert, for example, that variation is key to
resilience, another thing really to understand what that means.
One study that we feel really helps to bring alive a sense of what it means to
say the world is complex is based on real-life observations of forests made by
Buzz Holling (Homer-Dixon, 2006). Indeed it was his writing that really
brought complexity to life for Cliff and caused him to get excited about its
importance and relevance for managers and policymakers. Holling studied
the life cycle of forests, and we are going to unpack his observations here to
illuminate some of the characteristics of complexity—the role of variation in
shaping the future, and the way the complex world can inhabit different
regimes with different qualities. This, we feel, is a direct and visual way to
get a sense of some of the concepts that rattle around the complexity
literature.
So, in this chapter we study in some detail the story of the life cycle of a
forest, starting with a summary of Buzz’s conclusions.
But, as we will go on to say at the end of this chapter, the human world is
not as tidy as a pristine forest left to itself over centuries. Studying the forest
does bring alive the role of variation and of non-linear interactions in creating
change, it helps us explore the meaning of concepts such as self-organization,
and helps to explain why we find some situations seemingly simple to analyse
and other situations which are anything but. It is an important set of discus-
sions and worth, we hope, staying with it as the story unfolds.
We will consider the way forests evolve when, as discussed in Section 2.2,
their context, the broader environment in which they sit, is broadly stable.
Then, in Section 2.3, we will consider the additional factors when the wider
context is itself changing and fluctuating.
We start with an excerpt of a description of Holling’s work by Homer-Dixon
(2006) and hope that this engages you in that sense of ‘ah, I see what this
means’. Then we look at this work in more detail.
Homer-Dixon (2006: 226) quotes ecologist Holling:
[Holling] noticed that healthy forests all have an adaptive cycle of growth, collapse,
regeneration, and again growth. During the early part of the cycle’s growth phase,
the number of species and of individual plants and animals quickly increases, as
organisms arrive to exploit all available ecological niches . . . Also, the flows of
energy, materials, and genetic information between the forest’s organisms become
steadily more numerous and complex. . . . [leading to] greater ‘potential’ for novel
and unexpected developments in the forest’s future. As the forest’s growth con-
tinues, its components become more linked together—the ecosystem’s ‘connect-
edness’ goes up—and as this happens it evolves more ways of regulating itself and
maintaining its stability . . .
Over time as the forest matures and passes into the late part of its growth phase,
the mechanisms of self-regulation become highly diverse and finely tuned. Species
and organisms are progressively more specialized and efficient in using the energy
and nutrients available in their niche. Indeed, the whole forest becomes extremely
efficient—in a sense, it effectively adapts to maximize the production of biomass
from the flows of sunlight, water, and nutrients it gets from its environment. In the
process, redundancies in the forest’s ecological network . . . are pruned away. New
plants and animals find fewer niches to exploit, so the steady increase in diversity
of species and organisms slows and may even decline.
This growth phase can’t go on indefinitely . . . the forest’s ever-greater connect-
edness and efficiency eventually produce diminishing returns by reducing its
capacity to cope with severe outside shocks. Essentially, the ecosystem becomes
less resilient. The forest’s interdependent trees, worms, beetles, and the like
become so well adapted to a specific range of circumstances—and so well organized
as an efficient and productive system—that when a shock pushes the forest far
outside that range, it can’t cope. Also, the forest’s high connectedness helps any
shock travel faster across the ecosystem . . . Overall, then, the forest ecosystem
becomes rigid and brittle.
At this point in the life of a forest, a sudden event such as a windstorm, wildfire,
insect outbreak, or drought can trigger the collapse of the whole ecosystem. The
results, of course, can be dramatic—large tracts of beautiful forest can be obliter-
ated. The ecosystem loses species and biomass and in the process much of its
connectedness and self-regulation.
But the effects on the ecosystem’s overall health may be very positive. . . . The
organisms that survive become much less dependent on specific, long-established
relationships with each other. Most important, collapse also liberates the ecosystem’s
enormous potential for creativity and allows for novel and unpredictable recombin-
ation of its elements. . . .
16
The Nature of a Complex World
In these ways the forest ecosystem reorganizes and regenerates itself, quite
possibly in a very new form. Put simply, the catastrophe of collapse allows for
the birth of something new. And this cycle of growth, collapse, reorganization, and
rebirth allows the forest to adapt over the long term to a constantly changing
environment. ‘The adaptive cycle,’ Holling writes, ‘embraces two opposites:
growth and stability on one hand, change and variety on the other. It’s at once
conserving and creative—a characteristic of all highly adaptive systems.’
2.2 When the environment is relatively stable

Chaos, self-organization and self-regulation
With all the diverse and complex set of interactions and variations that occur
in real-world complex systems it would be easy to think that all we would
experience is chaos. But when the context, the general environment, is fairly
stable, patterns of relationships emerge and sustain. This process of the emer-
gence of patterns is called self-organization. It is called self-organization
because the patterns of relationships that emerge are (a) not designed by an
external agency, (b) what form they take cannot be predicted, and (c) they do
not in general accord with any overarching principle such as maintaining
stability or maximizing profits or minimizing energy.
We can use the forest example to explain this idea of self-organization. Holling
shows that in the beginning, as a forest starts to develop and take root, a great
deal happens. There are influxes of plants and animals and a huge amount of
diversity. The forest is in a chaotic state, with little perceivable structure, lots
of changes and shifts over time, and lots of differences between different parts of
the forest. Anything might happen and much is happening all over the place.
Over time, if nothing else major occurs, such as a flood, a change in climate,
or the arrival of a significantly new and aggressive species which could spin
things back into chaos, the forest matures. The differing species settle down
together, they self-organize into a pattern of relationships. Some species will
die out, sometimes through competition with other similar species. Some-
times, paradoxically, a species can die out through being so successful that it
destroys its food source. Others will find a dynamic balance in their relation-
ships in terms of who eats what and who competes with whom for particular
sources of food. This will result in a balance in the sizes of populations, a
balance on average of who eats whom or what, what synergies arise, and what
competitions prevail. This web of relationships becomes mutually sustaining,
it is self-regulating. We could construct a flow chart or systems map showing
this resulting balance and the relationships between species, and measure
average populations and create models of food chains. There would be less
17
diversity than in the earlier chaotic stage, but more stability—although there
will always be fluctuations over time and variations over the whole forest,
giving the system resilience—the ability to adapt to changing circumstances.
Similar patterns are seen in social systems when stability has existed for long
periods. Anthropologists, for example, identify stable social patterns of behav-
iour, and marketers can define purchasing patterns by demography.
The trend towards linearity in stability

The seductive and potentially misleading aspect of this stable, mature forest is
that the patterns of relationships can largely be understood, much of the time,
in linear terms. That is to say when things are stable if we compared the
relationship between two species in the forest, say foxes and rabbits, any
increase in numbers of foxes would result in a proportional decrease in rabbits.
This would then result in some foxes having less to eat and dying and hence
the number of rabbits could increase again. This negative feedback loop will
result in a balance of populations being maintained, providing nothing else
major occurs like a drought or the invasion of a new species. So, on average,
when things are stable we can measure the population density of foxes and
the population density of rabbits and find that we can model the situation
using just one term—the average number of rabbits that foxes eat in a day.
This linearity in stability is what beguiles us; it makes us feel that the world can
be understood as if it were mechanical. Whilst this gives a reasonably reliable
description of today, we tend to want to take it further and use these macro-
relationships to predict the future. This may work when nothing new is
happening, but it is the non-linear effects, where the relationships are not
in proportion, that create dynamic change, that cause small populations of
seemingly insignificant species to grow and populations of well-established
species to shrink or disappear and lead to new patterns between different
species. When there is balance, stability, it must be the case that the non-
linearities have died away (or there would be change not balance) and a linear
macro-analysis will, at least for the time being, capture the essential features of
the system. But if we want to understand change, we cannot just extrapolate
today’s macro-patterns into tomorrow.
The role of variation in creating options and creating resilience

Let us expand on this argument. In reality, although the populations on
average can be described by average linear relationships between them, we
need to remember that in the real world there are really individual animals
eating other individual animals in particular places in the forest, and these
places in the forest have unique characteristics. Or, in the social world, there
18
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
weinigje tabak, dat hem verkwikte. Maar helaas! hij kon den brief niet
lezen en dus bleef de inhoud hem onbekend. Naderhand ontdekten
wij, dat het JAN WIT niet was, zijnde het de man, die (zoo als op den
12 October gezegd is) van ons over het hooge gebergte was gegaan,
en dien wij alreede in het ijsgebergte verloren hadden geschat. Na
verloop van twee dagen wandelde die man bij de woning dier Wilden
om en zag drie mannen in eene vrouwe- of koene-boot met de
Wilden bij hem aan land komen. Hij verwelkomde dezelve en
verstond, dat zij van het verongelukte schip van Kommandeur
KASTERKOM waren. Zij verhaalden hem, hoeveel zij door honger en
koude geleden hadden, doordien hunne Wilden gebrek aan voedsel
hadden. Zij vroegen hem, hoe hij daar gekomen was? Hij antwoordde
hierop: met Kommandeur KAT, vermoedende voor het overige, dat
deszelfs togtgenooten wel al dood zouden zijn, nademaal zij, wegens
de diepte, om het steil gebergte niet heen konden komen; zijnde hij
van hen afgegaan en over het hoog gebergte heen gewandeld.
Zeven dagen had hij in hetzelve doorgebragt, zijnde hij eindelijk hier
gekomen, na veel lijden te hebben doorgestaan.
Hij verblijdde hen met te zeggen: ik heb eenen brief met een
weinigje tabak ontvangen, maar ik kan niet lezen en weet dus niets
van deszelfs inhoud. Zij lazen hem toen den brief voor, waaruit zij
verstonden, dat dezelve door HIDDE DIRKS KAT geschreven was,
wordende daarin gemeld, hoe hij zich te gedragen had, om bij dezen
te komen. Dit was voor hen allen eene blijde tijding, hetwelk zij met
vreugde-tranen aan den dag legden, daar hun zulks nieuwe hoop gaf,
om eindelijk eens weêr te regt te komen.
Kort voor mijn vertrek van Frederiks Hoop kwam deze man, met de
boven genoemde drie mannen, die bij hem waren, bij mij, waarover
wij ons zeer verheugden. Nu vernam ik, dat het JAN WIT niet geweest
was, maar de man, die (zoo als ik den 12 October gemeld heb) van
ons was gegaan over het hoog ijsgebergte. Hij verhaalde mij, dat hij,
onder het verduren van honger, koude en wanhoop, ja somtijds in
volslagene magteloosheid, zeven etmalen in het ijsgebergte
omgezworven had, hebbende bij wijlen op de ijsbergen of op de
klippen in de sneeuw uitgerust, als zijnde dezelve grootendeels met
ijs en sneeuw bedekt. Hij had in dien tijd nu en dan aan den oever
van de zee, of de rivier, voedsel gevonden, te weten Mosselen;
waarop hij zich, ten langen laatste, geheel afgesold, op het strand
had nedergezet, om te sterven.—Op dit oogenblik had hij iets, in de
gedaante van eenen vogel, op de rivier gezien, dat op hem afkwam.
Ziende, dat het een Wildeman in zijn schuitje was (iets, hetwelk hij
nooit voorheen gezien had) had hij het ergste gevreesd. Toen deze
Wilde bij hem aan den wal kwam, had hij hem, uit vrees van
gewelddadig aangevallen te zullen worden, eenen zijden halsdoek
toegereikt, dien deze had aangenomen. Hierop was zijne vrees in
vreugde veranderd. Deze goede Wildeman had hem opgerigt,
ondersteund en in zijn huis geleid, dat, buiten zijn weten, in zijne
nabijheid, in het klipachtig gebergte stond. Zij bewezen mij (vervolgde
deze man) alle liefde, gaven mij van hun voedsel en verwarmden mij.
Hier bleef ik tot op het tijdstip, dat ik den brief van u, Kommandeur
KAT, benevens de hier vermelde hulp ontving. Door middel van
denzelven ben ik thans bij u.
Vervolg mijner reize.
1778.
Toen ik mij op Frederiks Hoop bevond, ging de boot, die mij daar
gebragt had, met leeftogt terug naar de Kolonie Juliaans Hoop (No.
29.). Ik gaf met dezelve eenen brief aan den Koopman ANDRIES
OELZEN mede, waarin ik hem voor alle zijne aan ons bewezene liefde
bedankte; hem tevens verzoekende, om, zoodra mogelijk, mijne
dáár geblevene manschap met de genen, die nog verder op in leven
mogten zijn, naar mij toe te zenden, hetwelk hij, in het vervolg van
tijd, volbragt heeft.
Hier op Frederiks Hoop (No 33.) verzocht ik den Koopman KAREL
BRUIN om, benevens mijn volk, met dit schip naar ons vaderland te
mogen vertrekken. Ik ontving hierop een gunstig toestemmend
antwoord. Doordien het ijs tegen den wal aan lag, moesten wij hier
blijven tot op het einde van de maand Julij. In dien tusschentijd
kwam het achtergebleven volk bij mij, bestaande in tweeëntwintig
man; gedurende dezen tijd kregen wij rantsoen, waarbij wij het leven
konden houden.
Omstreeks den 10 Augustus (No 33.) waren wij gereed en zagen
wij kans, om met het schip zee te kregen. Wij ontvingen tot ons
onderhoud voor acht weken proviant mede en maakten te zamen
een gezelschap uit van tweeëntwintig passagiers, buiten de
scheeps-equipage. Wij gingen toen op reis. In zee komende
bevonden wij het ijs twee mijlen van het land, digt aan een gesloten.
Om hier door te komen laveerden wij langs het ijs om de Noord
tusschen het groot ijsgebergte door. Met zeer veel gevaar kwamen
wij 15 mijlen in de acht dagen tijds om de Noord en wel tegen den
Noorden-wind in. Ons schip was goed en wel bezeild. Eindelijk
kwamen wij voor de Kolonie Gorthoop genaamd (No 35.). Hier
deden wij twee schoten, waarop twee Wilden bij ons aan boord
kwamen. Wij schreven eenen brief aan den Koopman van die
Kolonie, dat, bijaldien wij niet door het ijs konden komen, wij
voornemens waren daar binnen te loopen, in welk geval wij zijnen
bijstand verzochten.
Op den 18 Augustus (No 36.) hadden wij des namiddags mooi
weêr, kregen eenen zuidelijken wind en zetten toen onzen koers nog
8 mijlen om de Noord. Die afgelegd hebbende, kwamen wij den 19
Augustus (no 37.) tusschen het ijs en het land door behouden in zee,
op vrij water. Nu konden wij onze reis doorzetten. Des namiddags
zagen wij een Galjas-schip ten westen van ons. Wij zeilden er heen
en ontvingen het berigt, dat hetzelve met levensmiddelen naar de
Noord-Kolonien bestemd was. Wij gingen met onze sloep bij hem
aan boord en kochten eenen kleinen voorraad van suiker, thee en
koffij en eenige proviant tot onze verkwikking, waarna wij ons
afscheid namen. Vervolgens bleven wij kruisen tegen den zuiden-
wind. Na verloop van eenige dagen kregen wij eenen goeden wind,
en zetten toen onze reis door. Na drie weken zeilens zagen wij de
Orkadische eilanden. Toen hadden wij harden wind uit het
Zuidwesten tot den 9 September (No 38.).
Den 10 September (No 39.) stevenden wij Hitland voorbij met
zwaar weêr uit het Westen en West-zuid-westen. Na verloop van
drie of vier dagen passeerden wij op den 13 September (No 40.)
Schagen in het Kattegat, en kwamen na verloop van eenige dagen
den 18 September op de plaats van onze bestemming, te weten
Kopenhagen, alwaar ik met mijn volk aan den wal stapte en in eene
herberg ging. Ik vond daar Kommandeur HANS JOHANNES, die weleer
drie jaren lang als stuurman met mij van Hamburg gevaren had.
Deze bragt mij bij de Groenlandsche Directeuren. Ik gaf dezen mijne
rekening over van de schuld, die ik voor mij en mijn volk in de Straat
Davids en in de Kolonien gemaakt had. Dezelve ontsloegen mij
daarvan ten volle, en nadat ik aan deze Heeren alles, wat mij
wedervaren was, verhaald had, nam ik afscheid; betalende mijne
schuld, met hun mijnen dank te betuigen. Voorts ging ik met
Kommandeur HANS JOHANNES naar deszelfs huis. Ik verhaalde
denzelven ook mijne lotgevallen en werd met liefde onthaald.
Na verloop van twee dagen vertrok ik op den 20 September van
daar met een schip naar Lubeck, alwaar ik den 22 September met
mijn gezelschap aan den wal stapte. Den 23 September kwam ik bij
mijnen patroon, den Heer D.H. REWOEL te Hamburg; en vervolgens
aldaar bij mijnen zwager, den Kommandeur C.J. NEY komende,
vernam ik, tot mijne overgroote blijdschap, dat mijne vrouw met één
kind nog in leven en gezond was, zijnde een van mijne kinderen in
mijne afwezigheid gestorven.
Daarna kwam ik den 27 September met een vaartuig op het eiland
Ameland en ontmoette vrouw en kind in goede gezondheid. Het is
mij onmogelijk deze zielroerende blijdschap te beschrijven. De
menschen op straat hieven een vreugdegejuich aan en riepen
elkander mijne terugkomst toe.
God zij hartgrondig gedankt voor alle onverdiende genade, aan mij
HIDDE DIRKS KAT bewezen!
Naberigt.
Men vindt in de beschrijving van JELDERT JANZEN GROOT, die op
den 10 April 1777 van Amsterdam naar Groenland gevaren is, en
ten zelfden tijd met Kommandeur HIDDE DIRKS KAT zijn schip
tusschen Statenhoek en IJsland verloren heeft (welke beschrijving
hij, na zijne terugkomst van de Straat Davids, in het licht heeft
gegeven) schier dezelfde berigten, niet tegenstaande elk hunner
zijne bijzondere ontmoetingen had bij het verlies van schepen en
manschap, en bij het verblijf op het ijs en aan den wal. Gemelde J.J.
GROOT teekent mede aan, dat de wilde mannen zeer ervaren zijn in
en voorkennis hebben van den aan- en afloop van het ijs, als mede
van weêr en wind, hetgeen zoo verre ging, dat men op deze hunne
voorspellingen vrij gerust staat kon maken. Wijders meldt hij, dat de
bekeerde of de gedoopte Groenlanders hunne godsdienst-oefening
stiptelijk onderhouden, dat zij ’s morgens niet uitgaan, vóór dat zij
hun gebed gedaan en eenen Psalm gezongen hebben, verrigtende
zij des avonds bij hunne t’huiskomst wederom hetzelfde. Wij
bevonden, (zegt hij) dat de Groenlanders, die het verste om de Zuid
en zelfs aan Statenhoek wonen, de eenvoudigste, de
menschlievendste, en de gulhartigste zijn. Bij de ongedoopte Wilden
bevond men geene godsdienst-kennis; maar bij de ongedoopte
Wilden konden wij voor een weinigje veel meer inruilen, dan bij de
gedoopte, zoo dat het Christen-worden dier menschen geene
mededeelzaamheid heeft aangebragt. Dit verschil was in het oog
loopende.
BERIGT AAN DEN ZEEMAN.
De kust van Gale Hamkes 10 a 12 mijlen van land vertoont zich

bergachtig en hoog; op de breedte van 68 gr. 30 minuten zagen wij
geen land meer en niets dan ijsbergen, die, met de toppen in de
wolken, het land bedekken. Men ziet dezelve reeds op eenen
afstand van 16 a 18 mijlen. Van gelijken aard vond ik naderhand het
land op eene N. Breedte van 62 gr. 30 minuten in de Straat Davids
benoorden Kaap Vaarwel.
Op 66 gr. zagen wij noch Walvisschen noch Robben noch
gevogelte meer. De stroom loopt bestendig om de Zuid-west, en
toen wij er waren, veel sterker dan gewoonlijk, omdat de wind
bestendig uit het Noord-oosten woei en met den stroom in dezelfde
lijn liep.
De reden, waarom het eene IJsveld veel sneller drijft dan het
ander, is deze: het ijs is somtijds van 2 tot 6 vademen en meer dik,
zijnde de IJsbergen somtijds wel 10 a 30 vademen en meer diep.
Wanneer laatstgemelde nu op droogten of hoog uitstaande blinde
klippen vastraken, worden dezelve gestopt. Op deze wijze drijft het
vlot-ijs de vastgeraakte ijsklompen voorbij met meerdere of mindere
snelheid naar gelang van den stroom.
In de Straat Davids, op de N. Breedte van 61 gr. 40 minuten zijn
wij, tusschen Juliaans Hoop en Frederiks Hoop eene IJsvallei
voorbijgevaren. Deze was eene halve mijl lang, loopende landwaarts
in. Aan deze groote vallei lagen de ijsbergen met hunne blinkende
toppen in de lucht. Deze hooge ijsbergen, welke men vroeger dan
het land ziet, zijn een zeer goed kenmerk van den weg, dien men in
de straat heeft afgelegd. Men ziet diezelfde vallei desgelijks ten
Oosten van Statenhoek, vermits die opening, waarin de vallei ligt,
het land doorsnijdt, zijnde eene rivier die, naar uitwijzing van de
Kaart, van het Oosten naar het Westen loopt. Zoodanig is het
voorkomen der ijsbergen tusschen Jan Maaijen Eiland en IJsland op
68 gr. 30 minuten N. Breedte, zoo als voorheen gezegd is. Op mijne
vraag, hoe ver zich de woonplaatsen der Wilden om de Noord naar
Spitsbergen uitstrekken, verstond ik van den Koopman ANDRIES
OELZEN, dat dezelve zich zoo verre uitstrekken, als men kraaijen of
raven aantrof.
KORT UITTREKSEL
Uit het kort doch echt verhaal van Kommandeur MARTEN JANZEN[1]
wegens het verongelukken van zijn schip, genaamd Het witte Paard
en van nog negen andere schepen door de bezetting van het West-
ijs in Groenland ten jare 1777.—Leeuwarden bij Tresling 1778.
[1] Van dezen Kommandeur wordt op bladz. 42 van dit Dagboek
gewag gemaakt. De Uitg.
(In dit verhaal wordt mede gevonden een gedrukte brief van
Kommandeur HIDDE DIRKS KAT aan zijne huisvrouwe, geschreven uit
Straat Davids. Daar deze echter onderscheidene in het Dagboek
zelve voorkomende bijzonderheden bevat, heeft de uitgever het
overtollig geacht denzelven hier mede te deelen. Het navolgende
kort Uittreksel dient tot nadere bevestiging van het door ons
medegedeelde Dagboek van den Kommandeur HIDDE DIRKS KAT.
“Den 17 September (1777) hadden wij harden wind uit het O.N.O.
en zware kruijing van het ijs, waardoor het schip van Kommandeur
KASTRIKOM van achteren een gat kreeg en heel lek werd. Wij
moesten toen vijf pompen aan den gang houden, en zetten de
victualie en ’s volks goed op eene schots. In den avond verloor
Kommandeur GROOT zijn schip, waarvan wij ter naauwernood de
victualie borgen. Den 8sten stopten wij het lek van ons schip,
waardoor wij lens kregen en het met ééne pomp gaande konden
houden. Toen namen wij de victualie weder in en het volk werd op de
twee nog overig zijnde schepen verdeeld. Het schip van
Kommandeur BROERTJES was nog digt. Den 9 September kregen wij
een weinig ruimte, doch hadden zware deining en eene hooge zee,
waardoor wij van elkander raakten. Ook werd ons schip weder zeer
lek en ontramponeerd. Het zag er toen voor onze beide schepen,
met het volk van vijf schepen bemand, en nog eenig volk van het
schip van Kommandeur KLAAS KUIKEN, dat al vroeg gebleven was,
met zich voerende, zeer droevig uit. Wij waren toen op 65 gr. N.
Breedte en dreven nog al hard Westwaarts op, alle dagen het land in
het gezigt hebbende. Nu begon ons de moed te ontvallen. Wij
konden daags slechts tweemaal een klein rantsoen schaffen, en
dagelijks vertoonden zich zeer groote ijsbergen, daar wij tusschen
door dreven. Het schip kraakte geweldig, en wij moesten, bij het
zinken af, onophoudelijk pompen. Wij bevalen ons Gode aan en
baden het mogt Hem behagen ons uitkomst en redding te geven.
Den 30 September vermeerderden onze smarten, doordien
Kommandeur BROERTJES ook zijn schip verloor. Hij kwam met zijn
volk, zoo als zij gingen en stonden, den 1 October bij ons aan boord.
Zij hadden van hunne victualie niets kunnen bergen, doordien het ijs
aan losse schotsen lag.
“Nu was ons schip er maar alleen, en waren wij, weinig victualie
hebbende, belast met al de manschap van alle de geblevene (acht)
schepen. Dienzelfden achter middag kwam nog bij ons aan boord
HANS CHRISTIAANSZ. van Hamburg met vijftig mannen, die hun schip
op den 30 September aan den zeekant verloren hadden. Zij
berigtten ons, dat er nog twee schepen bij hen geweest waren als
Kommandeur HIDDE DIRKS KAT en HANS PIETERS van Hamburg. Doch
die waren uit hun gezigt geraakt. Een harponier van HANS
CHRISTIAANSZ. was met dertien mannen aan den buitenkant van het
ijs bij het wrak gebleven, met voornemen om IJsland op te zoeken.
Wij waren toen op 64 gr. en dreven nog al hard om de Zuid-west bij
het land langs. Met 286 zielen, welke zich thans bij ons aan boord
bevonden, hadden wij daags niets meer dan ieder tien lepels eten tot
rantsoen, waarom het volk, om den honger te stillen, het
tandvleesch, dat tusschen de Walvisch-baarden zit, opat en de
Scheeps-honden slagtte. Wij dreven toen in eene bogt tot op 5
mijlen van land. Twaalf mannen enterden naar den wal, doch konden
het vaste land niet krijgen, maar kwamen op een eiland, daar zij
zwarte bessen vonden. Dit was op 63 gr. Wij dreven nog al hard
Zuidwaarts en ons schip kraakte gedurig door het kruijen van het ijs.
Doch dit alles was slechts een begin van onze rampen, dewijl de dag
van den 11 October ons lot geheel scheen te zullen beslissen. Wij
verloren toen ons laatste schip. Het werd geheel aan stukken
gekruid en verpletterd. Wij borgen ter naauwernood nog de victualie
op eene schots ijs. Wij moesten van de eene schots op de andere
springen om ons leven te behouden. Alle vervoegden wij ons op de
schots, daar de victualie op stond. Onze toestand was toen naar. Er
werd een vreesselijk gejammer en gekerm gehoord, en wij zonden
onze gebeden hemelwaarts om hulp. Wij sloegen op de schots twee
tenten op, om ons verblijf daarin te houden; doch wij waren in
gedurige vreeze van onder de ijsbergen door te gaan, maar zij
draaiden ons alle nog gelukkig voorbij.
“Den 12 October dreven wij op de schots met een’ harden gang
om de Zuid tot 60 gr. 50 min. N. Breedte. Het ijs was somtijds digt en
dan weêr geheel open met eene hooge deining. Wij zagen geene
uitkomst van redding en dachten niet anders dan van honger te
zullen sterven, of door de schotsen weggespoeld te worden, dewijl
wij gedurig door ijsbergen heen dreven. Den 13den dito des
morgens lag het ijs weder digt gesloten. Wij hadden nog drie
sloepen bij ons, maar konden er geen gebruik van maken. Wij
besloten het ijs te verlaten en naar land te zoeken. Ieder man had nu
dertien beschuitenbrood, en hiermede gingen de Kommandeurs
JELDERT JANS GROOT, HANS CHRISTIAANSZ. en ik (MARTEN JANZEN) met
nog veertig mannen over het ijs naar den wal. Wij kwamen toen op
een eiland, waar wij den nacht blijven moesten. Een gedeelte van
het volk bleef op de schots bij de tenten, en eenige kwamen,
bezuiden ons, op de eilanden, daar het ijs bij langs liep. Ook raakten
er eenige onder de schotsen.
“Den 14 October enterden wij van het eiland, zoo wij meenden,
naar den vasten wal, maar bevonden het gebroken land te zijn, daar
wij over heen konden zien. Wij zagen ook tot onze verwondering
volk van de inboorlingen aan land staan. Ik (MARTEN JANZEN) die
eenige woorden van hunne taal kan spreken, terwijl ik op Straat
Davids gevaren heb, smeekte hen om bijstand. Zij kwamen ons met
hunne schuiten te hulp en bragten ons aan land en in hunne
woningen, daar zij ons gedroogde Spiering en gedroogd
Robbenvleesch met salade, die bij hunne huizen groeide, te eten
gaven. Er waren twee huizen, waarin wij geplaatst werden. Wij
bevonden deze menschen van eene goede inborst. Tot den 17den
regende het dagelijks zoo sterk, dat wij, zonder doornat te worden,
niet buiten konden komen. Den 19den gingen achttien mannen van
ons af, om eenen weg te zoeken, doch zij kwamen des avonds
onverrigter zake terug. Het ijs lag ook zoo digt aan den wal, dat de
Wilden ons met hunne schuiten niet konden vervoeren, dewijl wij
eerst een’ westen wind moesten hebben, die het ijs afzette. Wij
handelden voor een gedeelte van onze plunje eene wildemans
vrouwenschuit in, waarmede Kommandeur GROOT met vijftien
mannen op reis ging. Den 22sten dito was de wind W.Z.W. Toen
bragten de Wilden ons met twee schuiten naar Statenhoek, waar
Kommandeur GROOT weder bij ons kwam. Hier vonden wij twee
huizen en werden wel ontvangen. Den 23 en 24 woei het hard,
waarom de inboorlingen ons niet verder wilden brengen. Den 25sten
woei de wind uit den Noorden met harde vorst. Toen kwamen nog
dertien mannen van ons volk bij ons met berigt, dat zij iets
noordelijker, dan ter plaatse, waar wij geland waren, bij veel volk
waren geweest, denkende zij, dat die landwaarts gegaan waren.
Den 26sten gingen wij drie Kommandeurs met eene schuit op reis,
om te zien, of wij dat volk ook konden vinden—doch dit was
vergeefs. Dien avond handelde ik nog eene schuit van de Wilden in,
om daarin onze plunje te bergen. Den 27sten was het goed weêr
Toen gingen Kommandeur GROOT, ik en nog achtentwintig mannen
met twee schuiten op reis, blijvende de overige vijfentwintig mannen
aldaar. Des avonds kwamen wij weder aan een huis, waar wij
Spiering en Robbenvleesch kochten voor knoopen, doeken, wanten
enz. Wij vonden deze Wilden weder eene goede soort van
menschen. Den 28sten gingen wij weder met twee loodsen op reis
en voeren dus eenigen tijd voort, telkens des nachts in tenten of
huizen vernachtende tot op den 25 November. Toen kwamen wij aan
een huis, daar wij zes man van het volk van Kommandeur HIDDE
DIRKS KAT vonden, die op Kaap Vaarwel aan land gekomen waren.
Zij zeiden ons, dat de gemelde Kommandeur met Kommandeur
ALBERT JANS, in eene bogt lag en nog zeventien mannen bij zich had.
Den 6den was het slecht weêr, en konden wij weinig eten krijgen.
Den 7den gingen wij op reis tot den 10den. Toen was het zeer koud,
en kregen wij gaten in onze schuiten, hetwelk ons deed besluiten,
om aan land te vernachten. De Wilden vingen vele Robben, vogels
en visch, waarvan wij ook wat te eten kregen. Den 12 November
reisden wij weder voort en kwamen in den achtermiddag ten 3 ure in
eene groote bogt bij de Deensche Kolonie Juliaans Hoop. Des
Koopmans naam aldaar was ANDRIES OELZEN. Hier werden wij wel
ontvangen en op vaderlandschen kost onthaald. Ook gaven zij ons
kleederen, om ons te verwarmen.”
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DAGBOEK
EENER REIZE TER WALVISCH- EN ROBBENVANGST, IN DE
JAREN 1777 EN 1778 DOOR HIDDE DIRKS KAT ***
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Embracing Complexity Strategic Perspectives For An Age of Turbulence Jean G Boulton Peter M Allen Cliff Bowman

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Embracing Complexity Strategic

Perspectives for an Age of Turbulence

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Jean G. Boulton, Peter M. Allen, and Cliff Bowman

2. The Nature of a Complex World 15

4. Have We Thought Like This Before? 48

5. The Complexity of Complexity Theories 71

6. Complexity and the Social World 105

7. Complexity and Management 122

8. Complexity and Strategy 138

9. Complexity and International Development 171

10. Complexity and Economics 202

10.4 What is wrong with neo-classical thinking? 206

2.1 The life cycle of a forest. 20

The world is complex whether we like it or not

Sustainability is about sustaining life and sustained life is a property of an ecosys-

An appropriate science for human systems

contradictory views. So the non-mathematician can have a hard time sorting

So what should we do?

It is important to emphasize, however, that we are not taking a stand against

1.2 For whom are we writing this book?

1.3 Complexity thinking in brief

Complexity: a potted historical perspective

fundamental principle of the universe was becoming, characterized by ﬂow and

necessarily draws boundaries. However, when many different types of model-

1.4 Limits to knowledge

1.5 What this book is not

The Nature of a Complex World

2.1 The life cycle of forests

The Nature of a Complex World

2.2 When the environment is relatively stable

The trend towards linearity in stability

The role of variation in creating options and creating resilience

BERIGT AAN DEN ZEEMAN.

De kust van Gale Hamkes 10 a 12 mijlen van land vertoont zich

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