As individuals, people are complex ¾ a mixture of genetic personality traits, influenced by an environment full of experiences. Put several people together in a group, and complexity increases. Put several groups together into a community, such as an organization, and complexity increases even more dramatically. In fact, every time you add another person to a group, another group to a community, complexity increases substantially.

Add to this equation ferocious competition, globalization, technology, and speed, and suddenly you have complexity beyond anything that people can comprehend. Because complexity is also unpredictable, we can only guess at what is happening, thus increasing uncertainty. This can leave us feeling overwhelmed and hopeless, grasping at anything that might help to ease the situation. To deal with this increase in complexity, we often run even faster, trying to compress time, until we have no time at all!

Who believes they have the time to slow down to think about a complex situation, to gather data, analyze the data, and understand what the data tells us? Even when we know we should take the time to think things through, we do not believe we have enough time. And yet, we have enough time to make mistakes over and over again. We have enough time to be overwhelmed, to be frustrated, and to feel out of control. We even have enough time to put up with mediocre performance, and to settle for less. We are caught in the tidal wave of complexity and change, and we so often act as if we have to run faster and faster before it sweeps us under.