It's Complicated
We all want simple answers.
Every new client who comes to see me wants a simple solution to their problems. “I just want to be happy,” they say. Or “I just want to stop smoking.” “I just want to get rid of this anxious feeling.”
The truth is, there is no “just” involved. Everyone is different, and their concerns are often complex. One person heard that I use hypnosis for some patients, and wanted me to treat their obsession with checking the locks and doors in their house every night before going to bed. His wife was getting frustrated because he would spend almost an hour going outside, trying the doors, coming back inside, checking the locks on the doors and windows, and then repeating the process. He “just” wanted to get hypnotized so this behavior would go away. What he didn’t mention when he made the appointment was that he had been stationed in Iraq at a forward outpost that had been attacked in the middle of the night, or that his first apartment when he returned to the states was robbed while he was at work. When I told him he likely needed treatment for PTSD, he said, “So you can’t fix this today?” No, I said, it would take more time. His issue was too complex. He never came back.
Many of the problems that we face in this world are not simple. Political issues are not simple. If they were, we would all have cheap health care and safe streets at night. Peace in the world is another example. If we could all just become non-violent overnight, things would be much better. But conflict occurs for a great variety of reasons. Resources are not distributed equally. People can be ruthless or illogical. It turns out that these problems are not complicated, exactly, either. Instead, they are complex problems. Let’s look at the differences:
Simple processes
A simple process is like putting together a piece of furniture from Ikea. There are instructions, and if you follow them closely, the great majority of the time you will end up with a table or a cabinet or whatever. Parts of the process may fail, like a screw may break, but there will be a clear reason for the failure, and the fix will be easy to identify. In simple systems, there may be a number of steps to follow, but the result will always be the same. If you put piece A into slot B, you will get a table. In simple systems, cause leads to effect.
Complicated processes
A complicated process has many of the same characteristics as a simple process, but the number of steps required for the desired outcome is much greater. Building an airplane or a car or a computer is complicated. Most of the time the process is broken down in to a series of parts. While it may take thousands of operations to complete, if the instructions are followed exactly, the end result will be a Maserati or a rocket ship or an iPhone, much like the Ikea furniture. Complicated questions have a limited number of answers.
Complex processes
A complex process has unlimited complexity, with a huge number of variables. There is no cookbook solution, no matter how complicated, that will do. The human brain, the stock market, and politics are all complex processes. You can make the same exact change to these systems multiple times and get different results each time. Why can’t we make traffic flow at a consistent speed all the time? Why can’t we cure cancer or the common cold? Why do weather forecasters get it wrong so frequently? The answer to all these questions is that these are complex systems, and there will never be a guarantee of success. To engage in a complex problem, it requires a lot of adaptation to change as it occurs, experience in dealing with the problem at hand, some artistry, and possibly a little luck. This is why we value people who have expertise in areas like medicine, law, and natural sciences. Their experience can lead to better solutions even in the face of complexity.
Some of the messiness of a complex process comes from the fact that small changes can have large effects that are unpredictable. All of the parts of a complex process feed into each other and can create loops that multiply the effect of a small change. Complex processes can’t be solved, like complicated ones. They have to be managed, which requires human expertise and the flexibility to make decisions on the fly as the system is working.
Managing Complexity
The biggest difficulty that many of us have in facing a complex problem is the uncertainty involved. Unlike a complicated problem, we can never be sure that we are doing exactly the right thing, or that the problem will ever be solved. Think about raising a child. We do the best we can, but our kids are eventually on their own.
As our world gets ever more complex, we are going to have to get used to living in a gray area. This may help explain why so many people are polarized — being on one side or the other is more comfortable than being in the middle, where the messy reality is.
