Managing and Navigating Complexity

This is part of a series of blogs examining why people come to Hattrick Advisory Services for executive coaching and/or mentoring services. Of course, few come to us for only one thing, but these blogs examine the most common themes that arise in our confidential services.  

We live in a complex world and operate in complex systems at work. Many of our clients work in large, multi-country organisations, working across different cultures and often disconnected through time and space. We adopt a system and stakeholders-based approach with such clients, working with them on how the broader system impacts them and their stakeholders and where there are opportunities and system blockages. We help the client break down the complexity and see the whole system, their part in it as well as develop a greater tolerance for ambiguity. 

Eight years ago, research from the World Economic Forum placed managing complexity as the number one skill required by leaders then and into the foreseeable future. Forbes, who reiterated this in 2022, make these points:

• ‘Workplace complexity and work overload are rising and directly impact organisational performance.
• Over time, a chaotic workplace will not only degrade the organisation’s performance but also denigrate the organisation’s culture.

Senior leaders face a multitude of challenges: organisational culture, internal systems, partners, competitors, profit, impact, workload, keeping current, learning and unlearning, working with their board, what AI will do to my business, how to innovate, where do I spend my time…it’s hectic, and it isn’t getting any easier.

I like the characterization in this book, which we wrote about here. Leadership is about spinning plates and not continuing to search for a silver bullet that will make everything perfect or even very much better. Coaching won’t reduce your organisation’s issues or make the environment less complex. But it can help you focus more on what matters, delegate with greater effectiveness, and develop an ability to embrace ambiguity rather than fight it.

Not long ago I had a client who led a large global team of several hundred people, with about a dozen direct reports. The organisation worked in a high-risk, fast-paced industry where change was constant. In their words, they come to coaching ‘all at sea’ and ‘out of control’ and believing they lacked the skills to manage the role and were damaging themselves by putting in so many hours, thousands of air miles, and gaining many hotel loyalty points. 

Over time, we unpacked the various degrees of stakeholders they were engaged with through a tool called a constellation exercise. Often used in team coaching, constellations analyse how multiple systems are impacted by interconnections and what ‘invisible’ information exists between and within systems.  We can then stand outside the system and examine what is explicit and what may be implicit. The client saw the system quite differently when looking from the ‘outside’ and could now suggest some practicable steps they might take about various aspects of their job. 

Many leaders discover through coaching that they need to pivot in some way, change their management approach, and prioritise the challenges and opportunities they face. 

Clients come to HAS for numerous aspects of managing complexity. Ten of these are below, with an example of what we might look at in coaching:

1. Balancing short- and long-term priorities: We need to achieve something tomorrow while keeping our minds focused on the next five years. 

2. Knowing what and when to delegate: An essential skill for busy leaders.

3. Working with different cultural approaches: what words in Seattle may get you nowhere in Bangkok.  

4. Learning to say no: find strategies to focus on what you can do better than others.

5. Coming to terms with ambiguity (not illuminating it, alas!) you can neither know everything nor control everything. 

6. Focusing on high-value activities: Where can you really make a difference? 

7. Managing time effectively: Remember important, urgent, etc. It hasn’t gone away.

8. Navigating what you want and don’t want: It’s your life. Work with a coach to help you decide your priorities.  

9. Working to find an ‘and’ rather than an ‘or’:  work to move away from binary thinking.

10.  What does success for me look like? Only you know the answer, but we have some great questions to challenge you with. 

Good coaching doesn’t give you the answers to the above questions, partly because there isn’t a single answer and also because each answer is individual to you. You know what matters to you, what challenges you face, and how you see the world. At HAS, we will challenge you to be introspective, examine what is beneath the surface, and create your own path forward. 

Again, there is no magic bullet. Leaders have to learn to move forward on multiple things simultaneously. Having the right mindset, though, will help them see a holistic pattern, notice interdependencies, and move forward with solutions. Even our Coaching Services won’t provide a magic bullet! However, you will be able to add considerably to your tool kit. We will encourage embracing complexity with a positive mindset, making it work for you. Sometimes, you must navigate between competing truths, making decisions without all the information you want. We will work with you to establish your priorities and solutions, knowing that as an executive, you have many of the answers within, although you may not always know that you do.