#22 The language we need to leave behind
...and what we might be able to learn from the Tower of Babel.
I’m Luke Craven; this is another of my weekly explorations of how systems thinking and complexity can be used to drive real, transformative change in the public sector and beyond. The first issue explains what the newsletter is about; you can see all the issues here.
Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech 1
Hello, dear reader,
I am interested in the way that language shapes how we understand and interact with complexity. My hunch is that our use of language limits our ability to think and act in complexity-friendly ways. Like many others, I strongly believe that if we don’t change our language, we won’t change the way people think.
As part of my own systems practice, I have made a number of changes to how I speak and what I say. I suspect there are whole books to be written on building a language and syntax for complexity and my thoughts here are barely introductory. Nonetheless, my sense is that we need to confront the elements of our current linguistic system that we should leave behind to take complexity seriously. Here are three I am doing my best to jettison.
Solution. Complex problems cannot be solved. They have no stopping rule. As much as we try to say that solutions are provisional or point-in-time, the word still creates expectations that a fixed or finite result is possible. In my own work, I’m intentional in my use of language that complex problems can’t be solved, but we can attempt to understand and respond to them in an ongoing process of co-evolution. As Donella Meadows famously put it “We can't control systems or figure them out. But we can dance with them!”
Root cause. It's impossible to identify a root cause in a non-linear system. The core assumption of a root cause analysis is that we can connect an observable pattern or symptom to a single cause and that, if we address that cause, the symptom will disappear. Root cause analyses commonly show up in design practice as the Five Whys and in program design as a results chain or program logic model. The reframe is to focus less on hunting out the root cause of a symptom in a complex system, and more on attempting understand the patterns and constraints that give shape to the system itself.
Outcome. Much like root cause, the common use of the word outcome is based on linear cause-and-effect thinking. Much like solution, we imagine outcomes as fixed end states. They are not dynamic or fluid. The reframe is that complex systems have behaviour, not outcomes. We can attempt to understand and respond to that behaviour, iteratively and reflexively, treating complex systems as dispositional and not causal.
Some of these reframes might feel small or inconsequential, but it’s hard to convince me that language doesn’t matter. It’s important for us to confront how our linguistic system enables and/or constrains our ability to deal with complexity.
At the same time, we should all be wary of attempts to create a shared, consistent, common, or standardised language for complexity. I expect to be able to challenge people on their linguistic choices and their consequences, but not at the expense of cultural and linguistic diversity in systems practice. The lesson I take from Babel is that, despite what we may think, a common language will not get us to the heavens.
The diversity of language and expression is part of what gives systems practice its power. The work is in attempting to give structure, at varying levels of abstraction, to the grey; constantly iterating and experimenting with the boundaries and overlaps of different languages; striving to make sense of the complexity we can never fully grasp. At the end of the day, perhaps it is in our shared limitations that we will find our common ground. Confusion is the price we pay for the gift of diversity.
Not unrelated miscellany…
A piece I wrote at the height of the COVID-19 crisis in 2020 that highlights several limitations in the language we use to express the concept of “change” in complex systems.
Some thoughts on how we might push our cognitive, linguistic and cultural limits to help us engage with the complexity around us.
Dave Snowden’s talk, How leaders change culture through small actions introduces the language necessary to apply his Cynefin framework to practice.
By the way: This newsletter is hard to categorise and probably not for everyone—but if you know unconventional thinkers who might enjoy it, please share it with them.
Find me elsewhere on the web at www.lukecraven.com, on Twitter @LukeCraven, on LinkedIn here, or by email at <luke.k.craven@gmail.com>.