I’ve just returned from a few weeks’ leave in Europe, including the beautiful Alsace region of France. And while I thought I was driving the route de vin for fun, it turns out I was learning something about complexity too.
The Alsace has long been a strategic cross-roads and has been claimed by both Germany and France at different times. It is a famous wine growing area, with the foothills of the Vosges Mountains draped in vines around beautiful, ancient towns.
High above the vines sit many famous castles and forts, built to safeguard the townships and trade routes below. And this is the thing that has been on my mind. While the townships continue to thrive, the castles high above are for the most part in ruins. And I can’t help but see this fact through the lens of complexity.
Here is my naïve and un-testable hypothesis. Towns arise more-or-less organically as people find ways to make life work together in a complex world. As times change lifestyles change too in an endless process of reinvention and emergence. Nobody is in charge and everyone is a decision-maker in their own small ways.
Consequently, the towns are still here and look likely to be here for another 1000 years.
But what of the castles? Unlike townships, castles don’t arise organically. They are planned, designed and built as a specific solution to a specific problem. They work while they work, but because castles exist in a complex World, that clever, fixed solution inevitably becomes a problem in its own right. Eventually, the castle is abandoned and the world moves on.
So to my questions from the Route de Vins: are towns a good example of how to make progress in the face of complexity? And do castles represent the risks of treating a complex problem as though we can solve it with a single ‘smart’ solution? One survives while the other is in ruins. Which brings me to my final question: In your organisation, are you building a castle because you ‘know’ the problem and ‘know’ the answer, or are you encouraging a town to emerge because you realise that emergence and constant innovation is essential?
I recommend the Alsace for further research….