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In business, complexity gets bad press. That’s not surprising. It can be cognitively demanding to understand how a system or organization made up of many very different interconnected elements actually works. But the fact that such systems or organizations are difficult to understand doesn’t make them inherently bad. In addition to its more obvious costs, complexity confers critical benefits, especially in dynamic and uncertain environments. In the following pages we draw on our experience and perspectives in business, biology, and physics to offer some reflections on the nature, benefits, and costs of complexity and provide some guidance on managing it in business organizations.

Author(s)
  • Martin Reeves

    Chairman, BCG Henderson Institute

  • Simon Levin

    James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology; Director, Center for BioComplexity at Princeton University

  • Thomas Fink

    Director and Trustee of the London Institute for Mathematical Sciences, a nonprofit institute for physics and mathematics research.

  • Ania Levina

    Alum Ambassador (2018-2019), Strategy Lab

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