I am reminded of the song, “If I loved you” from “Carousel,” the Rogers and Hammerstein musical. Near the end of this beautiful duet, the female lead (Julie) comments on the leaves falling from the grove of trees in which they are standing:
You were right [Billy] about there bein’ no wind.
The blossoms are comin’ down by theirselves.
Just their time to, I reckon.
Much as it is time for Julie and Billy to fall in love. While it makes no sense for these two star-crossed characters in Carousel to fall in love, the mystery of love leads them to immediately marry. And face the hardship of a troubled and ultimately tragic relationship. From nothingness (the mystery of loving attraction) comes something (marriage and life together).
While this is a highly dramatic example of a mystery (love) being transformed into a nested and polarizing set of problems (marriage), the attempt to turn a mystery into a problem is not unusual in human enterprises. National politicians try to “solve” the mystery of climate change by debating isolated solutions that are often built on top of simplistic climate-related puzzles (“the problem is inadequate insurance on seaside homes”).
Business leaders look at the mystery of a volatile market, with some of their products being a big financial hit and others being a costly flop. A new product-development guru is hired to “solve” this mystery and doesn’t do much better than the one that was fired. Perhaps a new marketing campaign will provide the solution; or maybe we just need to paint that chair a different color.
And then, sometimes, we get it right. As astute politicians, we look for diverse solutions to the complex mysteries we confront. We acknowledge that over which we have control and over which we have no control. We think systematically and find the leverage points to bring about fundamental change (Meadows, 2008) As a business leader, we are creative in finding new solutions to an old problem or a newly emerging problem. Or we create something startlingly original and find there is now demand for what was previously unknown.
So, with systems thinking we shift from the unknown or elusive nature of things to a sense of what is really happening in the system. From the unknown (seeming nothingness) dynamics of a complex system, we come to at least a partial understanding (somethingness) of this system as it operates in a rugged and often dancing landscape (Miller and Page, 2007). And it is from a creative, innovative rethinking and reframing of a mystery to transform it into a vibrant, shifting set of initiatives that we find startling beauty alongside the ability to live comfortably and with agility in the rugged and often dancing landscape.
Creativity
It is in nothingness that creativity is often fostered. It is in the gaps, stumbling, and confusing collaborations that new products and services emerge. We see this creativity emerging from the mutations occurring in the evolution of species, the cracks and crevasses within organizations, and the intersections between ideas and institutions. I briefly reflect on each of these sources.
