Uhl-Bien’s team has researched many organisations and observed most try to manage complexity by controlling it. This is precisely what makes it worse. Complexity comprises many moving and interacting parts, and the best way to work with complexity is through complexity itself in what she calls Adaptive Space. What this means is bringing in intermingling constantly reforming and interacting networks of multi-perspectivity into conversation. In an organisation, Adaptive Space sits in between the entrepreneurial / innovative system and the result-driven / operational system. This is currently missing in the structure of most organisations.
