An Ode to Exceedingly Complex Systems

In management cybernetics, theorists divide systems into three categories: simple systems, complex systems, and exceedingly complex systems.1 In a simple or complex system, we can figure out the system’s behavior and output.

In an exceedingly complex system, we have to settle for probabilities. The system’s variables, interactions, and fluctuations prevent us from knowing exactly what’s going on and why it’s happening. Think three-body problem.

Technology and empirical science can mask just how exceedingly complex many systems are.

Problems should have solutions; phenomena should have objective and knowable explanations. We want to believe that even if we don’t understand the system, someone else does, and they have coded or mapped or reasoned their way to full understanding.

Disease is a perfect example of this masking influence. Germ theory teaches us that a novel bacterium or virus will enter our system, infect our cells, and make us sick. That’s true.

It’s true, and it doesn’t explain why some people get sicker than others, why some can access treatment and some can’t, or why one person will feel better after a week and another might start to feel better months later. Sure, there are good theories to accompany each of those scenarios. But as we stack good theories upon good theories, our ability to discern the Truth or claim full knowledge decreases. The system is too exceedingly complex.

Simple systems do exist—they’re everywhere, really. But those aren’t the systems don’t tend to trip us up. We take their functions and our understanding of them for granted. It’s when we try to squeeze exceedingly complex systems into the epistemic conditions of a simple system that things get hairy.

People are systems.

As you might guess, people are exceedingly complex systems.2

And yet, in everything from software to electoral politics, marketing to organizational psychology, we often squeeze ‘people’ into the conditions of a simple system. When we turn people into users, clicks, page views, targets, subscribers, voters, etc., we often lose our awareness of their complexity. We make assumptions when we shouldn’t, turn probabilities into knowledge, and act as if we know causes when, at best, we only know correlations.

With more data at our fingertips than we know what to do with, we reduce relational questions to math problems and automations. That impacts how we run our businesses or work on projects. Often, it sounds like:

What’s the conversion rate? Instead of: Are we addressing people’s real needs in a way that resonates with them?

How much does a lead cost? Instead of: How are we connecting with the people we want to serve?

What’s the organic reach? How many downloads? How many views? Instead of: Does what we share answer people’s real questions, tell true stories, acknowledge real frustration or desire?

How many emails go in this sequence? Instead of: How do we equip people with the information they need to decide whether to buy or not?

We construct systems that accommodate, analyze, and amplify these metrics. However, those less complex systems have no way of representing the fact that metrics are people and their behavior. People and their behaviors are diverse, unpredictable, and influenced by all sorts of things we can’t anticipate.

We’re the products of our previous experiences and relationships—as well as our reactions to the ever-changing world around us. We don’t interact with companies the way their annual plans and projections are designed. We bring the day’s joys, anxieties, and questions with us every time we view an ad or walk in a store. And most importantly, we bring a lifetime of hard-won wisdom with us wherever we go.

Unfortunately, for some, all of this complexity makes it difficult to appeal. to, profit from, and exploit us. It also makes it difficult to help us, support us, and collaborate with us. We learn to reduce and flatten ourselves and each other to make life, in a way, a bit easier.

Critical to rethinking business and leadership is examining the tendency to reduce and flatten. To build a more equitable system of exchange and needs-meeting, we must devise ways to accommodate the exceeding complexity and richness of every human being.

Control Through Code

Systems of control, including capitalism, are designed to flatten us into more predictable and measurable systems. The process of exerting control is a process of reducing the available options. With few options, we’re more predictable, which has the same effect as being easier to control.

Flattening is something that’s done to us through various systems of control. But it’s also something we do to others. Flattened people tend to flatten people. It’s a consequence of being born into, growing up in, and building a business in relationship to this larger economic and cultural system.

Control is in the source code.

Code is the stuff that software is made of. And, code is integral to systems of control. Systems of control use code—broadly defined—to flag certain types of input, process that input according to the system’s needs, and output the desired result. Marketing systems, sales systems, political systems, management systems, etc., take my relevant traits or behaviors, run them through their code, and learn how to motivate or manipulate me to get the results they want.

“It’s easier to learn about a system’s elements than about its interconnections,” writes systems theorist Donella Meadows. Code is very good at identifying and analyzing a system’s elements, and we’ve become very good at using code to turn people into their constitutive elements.

Meta and Google have a literal treasure trove of information about my elements. They know I’m a homeowner, that I’m married, that I’m 42, etc. They also know my politics, where I buy groceries, and how much Dogfish Head Slightly Mighty IPA I drink each month. The code they produce not only gathers all that data but also identifies patterns in the data.

Identifying patterns is not the same as understanding the interconnections between those elements of my human system. The interconnections are essential to the full humanity of my system. Code can only function on the level of patterns. Incorporating interconnections is a uniquely human capacity and a uniquely human opportunity.

We can think about code expansively, beyond the character strings that make up an algorithm or app.

The recognition of patterns and the structuring of events based on them shape how we perceive the world.

Management thinkers, consultants, and strategists have performed countless experiments and analyzed piles of data. They’ve then applied that scientifically-gathered knowledge to the processes of branding, marketing, sales, operations, and growth. We learn about these technologies when we read books like Good to Great, Strengthsfinder 2.0, or Traction. Those ideas are now part of the source code we use to build businesses today.

We use this code whenever we follow a “proven” social media procedure or sales process we learned in an online course. It’s code that helps us formulate an automated email sequence or new employee onboarding.

Code makes our lives easier.

It helps us get things done faster and often more effectively. And yet, code also tends to transform how we see other people. On Instagram, we might see an angry comment instead of someone with a personal history that’s led them to make that remark. Driving along, we often see cars instead of drivers who are late for their kids’ performance. With email marketing, we see open rates instead of people who have questions, needs, and prior experiences.

Code transforms people into consumers and then quickly into wallets. Problems become solutions that become products to be consumed. Every problem, real or imagined by a marketer, is an opportunity to cash in. We structure our businesses to make that cycle as frictionless as possible. Our business technologies grease the gears so that we can turn people into wallets faster and with less waste.

Code only knows inputs, processes, and outputs. When we use code to guide our interactions with human beings, we start to see people as inputs we can process into desired outputs. Code is rarely unethical or inhumane on its own. It becomes unethical or inhumane in the way we use it. But when code is engineered—intentionally or not—in a way that produces unethical or inhumane behavior, we must consider other options.

The code we use to make more money, spend less time working, and extend the reach of our brands often encourages us to view others as a means to the end we have in mind. While I won’t attempt to argue that every content marketing formula, sales process blueprint, or outsourcing system results in viewing others that way, it’s a common enough result to cause concern.

It happens every time we look for ways to earn more likes or shares. It happens when we write off people who don’t buy as tire-kickers. And it happens when we focus on conversion rates instead of delighted customers.

What code are you using today that encourages you to view others as a means to your profit and influence?

Losing track of the people we do business with at the expense of seeing their problems in need of solutions or their desires in need of something new to buy is a normal byproduct of the larger economic system we operate in. But by raising our awareness, we can push back and start to see people as people again.

Instead of asking how we can find more followers or subscribers, we can ask ourselves why someone would follow or subscribe and whether we’re delivering on that why. Instead of asking how we can delegate more of our work to a virtual assistant, we can ask ourselves who an ideal stakeholder in our work would be or whether the work we have to delegate is meaningful or necessary. We can seek out ways to accommodate different learning styles or communication needs.

Decoding People Systems

I believe we want to do business with real, complicated humans—and not simplified consumers, wallets, or even “ideal customers.” We want to know and respect people as people, not inputs for code to process. So how can we reclaim a more nuanced perspective on the people who buy our products or services?

A possible answer comes from the work of philosopher Kathleen Wallace. Wallace suggests that, instead of seeing the self as merely biological or psychological, we can see the self as a relational network that includes biology and psychology but also includes our relationships, personal history, interests, personality traits, and more. She writes in her article “You Are A Network:”

Just as selves have different personal memories and self-awareness, they can have different social and interpersonal relations, cultural backgrounds and personalities. The latter are variable in their specificity, but are just as important to being a self as biology, memory and self-awareness.

I’m a network of my various identities, experiences, biological realities, and social constructions. I’m a woman, a feminist, a mom, a wife, and a college-educated progressive. I’m left-handed, autistic, about 5’5″ on a good day, with light skin and brown hair dyed blonde.

My list, like yours, could go on and on. However, who I am isn’t the list itself. Who I am is the interconnections—the network of all the various elements and how they shape each other. And who I am is the interconnections between those interconnections and an ever-changing world. Who I am is also my interconnections’ interconnection with your interconnections. It truly is exceedingly complex.

I can’t simplify that system without losing something core to who you are or who I am.

I can’t simplify it without trading some of our humanity. And yet, that’s what we’re trained to do as people with projects to do and products to market.

The interfaces we use present metrics as facts rather than approximations. The frameworks we rely on turn unknowable systems into easy-to-follow instructions.

We shouldn’t give up on the apps we use, the interfaces we find useful, or the frameworks that guide our decision-making. But we should shift how we use them. We must ask what isn’t being captured in the metrics. We must question what complexities are being masked by simplified patterns and data. A dashboard isn’t a set of answers; it’s the springboard for a set of questions.

adrienne maree brown puts it this way:

We have to create futures in which everyone doesn’t have to be the same kind of person.

Our work—and especially our businesses—offers a chance to practice such futures.

And that means wrestling with ambiguous and often conflicting ideas. We can prompt ourselves to get creative with how we work and do business. What happens if we…

• Remember that we don’t all share the same bodies, histories, or experiences?

• Provide a path toward buying that allows a customer to choose their pace?

• Design learning that accommodates different needs and styles?

• Consider how a customer’s schedule might change when the kids go back to school?

I don’t always get it right, but I’m practicing.

I know that I still exclude people who I don’t mean to exclude or make assumptions about what you’ve experienced or how you feel about things that make it more difficult to use the work I do. But little by little, I’m creating more room for difference and complexity among the people I create for—and hopefully, you see yourself reflected in this work more often than not.

I write this because this is something I think about all the time—not because it’s something that I’m an expert at. It’s taken a lot of work to remember that what seems obvious or natural to me might be anything but for someone with a different set of components than I do. It takes attention to consider how someone’s question or email or comment might be the product of a hundred different factors that I do not and cannot know.

You can practice seeing people as systems, too.

Try focusing on one component of their systems at a time. Maybe this month, you examine your work through the lens of gender or class. What are the ways that different gender expressions might intersect with the way you create? How would different class consciousnesses receive your message? Next month, you dig into family history or disability. How do different family structures impact the way we see possibilities? How does chronic illness or disability impact the way someone uses what you’re creating?

As you practice, you’ll internalize more humane ways of approaching your work and make it easier to let people be people—not just consumers, users, clicks, or client profiles. At the same time, you practice letting yourself be exceedingly complex, too.

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