Studio Non Troppo

“Complexity” and “chaos” are commonly used words that have both everyday and technical meanings. In their technical incarnations, both complexity theory and chaos theory deal in part with cases in which it’s difficult to predict what’s going to happen next.

For chaos theory, think “butterfly effect.” Tiny changes in the initial conditions of a system can have (under certain circumstances) immense effects down the line.

For complexity theory, think “network.” A free, viral YouTube video can have a profound effect on the public’s perception of a company in spite of the company’s multimillion dollar advertising budget.

Even if your system is complex (and not all systems are), that doesn’t mean you can determine in advance which YouTube video will go viral, and even if your system is chaotic (and not all systems are), that doesn’t mean you can tell which huge effect the butterfly will have down the line.

When the system you are in is complex or chaotic, you’ve got to get over the idea that you’re going for mastery. Mastery, predictability, and control just don’t stack up in complex or chaotic systems the way they do in other contexts.

Instead, cultivate fluid response and resilience.

It’s called “eighty-twenty” or the Pareto Principle: you get 80% of the bang from 20% of the buck. That’s one way to think of it. Here are some others:

• the top 20% of your customers provide 80% of your orders
• the worst 20% of your clients provide 80% of you headaches (OK, that might be an understatement!)
• the last 20% of “getting the job done” takes 80% of the time (whether or not you’ve budgeted that much time)

Photo: Denzil~

Eighty-twenty is a rule of thumb, not a rule of law (or even of mathematics), so instead of feeling sentenced to the consequences, you can use it as a starting point to reflect on what you’re doing and not doing.

Sometimes, it’s worth doing all 100%. Other times, it’s worth stopping after you’ve done the big-payoff 20%, using elsewhere the resources you’ve freed up by not continuing into the diminishing-returns region of the remaining 80%. Using eighty-twenty as one of your reflective tools, a tool to help to decide what to do and what not to do, can give you back the feeling that you have a choice.

Photo: akunamatata

Working on a big project can be compared to climbing a big hill.

The thing is, with many really big projects, the experience goes something like this: 1) you start climbing, realizing it’s going to be a long trip, 2) you push onward and upward, push, push, push, putting one foot in front of the other, 3) you see the summit before you, and just as you reach the top, 4) you discover it’s not the top at all, just a brief leveling off before angling upwards again.

The psychological effect of this is heavy fatigue. We tend to allocate the energy to ourselves that we need to accomplish the task we have identified, so if the work doesn’t let up where we think it should, that can be a heavy blow.

Imagine a marathon runner reaching the finish line tape, only to read a note pinned there: “today’s marathon is 30 miles instead of the usual 26.2 miles. Thanks for your understanding.”

In these really big projects, such as starting a business, you need to approach it as a long haul. In particular, think of it as a haul indefinitely longer than you think it will be. It’s not that you should be trying to play a mind game with yourself, trying to trick yourself into lasting longer. Instead, make sure every work step, on average, includes the rest and nutrition you need to keep going.