Buzz Holling - a Great Canadian

In the last few days, I've come across a number of good finds related to the work of C.S. (Buzz) Holling. First of all, you can watch a hour-long video of him giving a talk at the Stockholm Resilience Centre - a good investment in terms of learning how he has applied complex systems theory to ecology and human organizational process (panarchy model).

A second lead was a notice about Holling being awarded the 2008 Volvo Environment Prize for his contributions to ecology. The value of good 

ideas in discussions about environmental policy, human impact, change and adaptation seems obvious enough but being recognized for that contribution fuels his original ideas. Congratulations.

There is also the Stockholm Resilence Centre video content site where they have posted talks from a number of other valuable contributors to ecology, resilience and other complexity-driven approaches to environmental and social challenges. Those of you familiar with the TED talks will see that there are some TED-worthy candidates in this mix.

Finally, here is a recently released report about Canada's relative ranking in a variety of areas from economics to social fabric. According to this Canada Conference research, we haven't fared well in a couple of categories. What do you think?

iTeams Report

I had a great time going over the iTeams concept/outline with some very fine people at the Banff Centre. Their interaction, experience, feedback, and ideas have given me new energy in pushing this concept further down the tracks. Questions about how this process integrates with organizational and personal values, how it might look in different contexts, how it scales for various settings, were all part of the evening dialogue.
As a result of the evening I was alerted to Thomas Homer-Dixon's keynote speech that will happen here in Calgary on October 22. I'll be attending and have already let Tad know that I'll be bringing my well-worn The Up Side of Down for a signing.
Monday night I also learned that I did not make the cut for City Council. I had been campaigning hard for the last month but all the encumbents were running and regained their seats. The up side is that a number of other projects that I'm passionate about will get a great deal more attention as I will have more time to devote to them.

Resilience and Adaptability

Assessment of systems is an art. In the case of an organization, the possibility of generating data about the organization is without limit. Like a baseball commentator, statistical information can come from anywhere and, through recombination, can be multiplied ad infinitum - "The Toronto Blue Jays have never won a game when they were behind by one run at 3:00 p.m. in the afternoon." Data generation alone does not equal insight or good judgement.

Information about an organization can be valuable but if we think that information will tell us what to do and how to do it, our confidence is missplaced. One reason for this is the limited nature of generated data. Information tells us something but it leaves out everything else not captured in that data. And we know that what is left out is enormous, even if the research and data are high quality.

Data and information are not substitutes for the art of leadership. Leadership requires an ability to gauge the relative durability or fragility of an organizations systems - the networks, connections, flows and influences that it shapes and is in turn shaped by internally and in its wider relationship with factors on the outside. Statistical information can be an important contributor in developing this judgement. If durability and survivability are important to systems and organizations, then leading with a knowledge of how these higher order dynamics function becomes more critical than leading through data analysis.

Leading in a dynamic and complex environment is centred around the idea of fragility, durability and adaptability. Can we learn the art and practice of reading these dynamics? Effectiveness in our leadership roles will depend on how we answer this cluster of questions.