How to Lead Better Through Complexity

To their detriment, leaders often mistake complex issues for complicated ones.

Groundbreaking author and consultant Jennifer Garvey Berger explains that addressing a complex issue is different from addressing a complicated one and calls for a different strategy. Complicated situations are replicable, and once you solve them, they stay solved. For example, when CPAs do your taxes, even if you have several income streams, their expertise ensures that (although the job is complicated) it gets completed each year. In contrast, you cannot replicate complex situations, and they’re often uncontrollable. Solving a complex problem requires involving many people, experimenting, and letting go of any expected results.

This is difficult because, as studies confirm, people naturally want to control their world and predict what will happen to them. For example, research found that “seriously ill” people who have “an excellent chance of recovery” but must face uncertainty are less satisfied with their lives than those whose illness...