Evolve into complexity, design into simplicity

Change is something we can feel, but not easy to see. Isn’t it?

When you think of change, think of a hive. Use your imagination, picture the structure in it. Think about the design – the structure. Then, think about how the host of the hive live in it.

In the wild, a hive is a structure that hosts social insects such as bees or ants. In our modern world, we are the social beings who reside inside the social hives, such as network and communities. One of them is the organization we are part of.

A large organization is like a huge hive. Its size is massive. Its structure is complicated. It is so complicated but it is efficient for a large system, with one condition: all inhabitants follow all the roles and rules.

The hive is by nature a complicated system, where structure is made to sustain itself. Problems often times are rooted in this complicated structure. The design was meant to remain stable – to stay as it is.

To stay as it is means to not change. When change is necessary, it has to be with a good reason better than staying the same, and it has to be done properly. The change has to be designed and built based on the current foundation, and turns the hive into something new – and improved.

When someone who does not really know the structure and how it was built, try to build something, often times it becomes disaster. Why? Because the only way to make it work safely, is to build it according to the rules of the hive.

But, when we build something according to the existing rules and roles, there is not much change will come out from that, isn’t it?

So, how we change the hive?

When you want to improve it, make a breakthrough instead of continuing digging deeper. Think of a new design. A new design that will serve the inhabitants better than the current structure. A design that resonates with their needs and their hope.

A design they can believe in.

The new design will force them to adapt. But it will work only if they want it.

This will work when we change the hive based on something they want but they couldn’t get from the current structure of the hive, instead of just based on what you want to build.

Be advised, it is changing a complex system that have existed and working. It is not as simple as building a new home for your own. You need to re-innovate the structure to the next level. That next level most of the time is a simpler structure that fits with the evolution of the inhabitant.

Yes, when the evolution gets more complicated, the structure in which it exists needs to be simpler.

That is how we redesign the hive. That is how we see changes in happening.