Funny that people are only generally able to operate with complexity at its highest level when doing something negative (eg conspiracy). So any theory of tapping into people’s ability with managing complexity needs to take this into account. First you need to deal with the negative root, to enable the fullest use of positive side of complexity. Call it self-empowerment if you prefer, but that needs to happen otherwise its just another fancy technical exercise. And this in turn demands that any employer has to be honest enough with their own approach/motives etc which may not often be the case. I recall one UK complexity consultant telling me of being hired by a team leader only to discover through workshops that the key problem was the team leader! So we are not talking about an easy process.

Footnote: Today’s Valleywag reports that one of their friends there said, “At Google management is a janitorial function.” Well, if they really do operate at the ‘edge of chaos’ as they say they do – that’s actually what you’d expect dumbo <ImagineElephantHoldingFeather>.