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BOOKS It’s Not


Complicated The Art and Science of Complexity in Business


by Rick Nason University of Toronto Press 212 pages; $29.72


THE YEAR WAS 1985; the Coca-Cola Co. decided it was time to change its recipe for Coke. The company put to work the best available engineers, food scientists and marketing analysts to develop the smoother-tasting “New Coke.” But New Coke triggered an uproar among consumers — not because it didn’t taste as good as Classic Coke, but because the company failed to acknowledge that consumer behaviour isn’t strictly rational. The product was promptly pulled from shelves. Refl ecting on the failure, Coke


executive David Keough observed: “The simple fact is that all of the time and money and skill poured into consumer research on the new Coke could not measure or reveal the deep and abiding emotional attachment to original Coca-Cola felt by so many people.” In his book It’s Not Complicated: The


Art and Science of Complexity in Business, Dalhousie University fi nance professor Rick Nason makes a compelling case for how trying to control for and measure every aspect of business leads compa- nies astray, like it did with New Coke. The crux of his eye-opening argument is that managers and leaders approach business as if it were complicated when they ought to think of it as complex. If that sounds like splitting hairs, it’s not. Nason skilfully describes the chasm between complicated and complex


tasks. Simply put, complicated thinking “assumes that everything works by some type of formula or grand design that can be manipulated if only enough brain- power and understanding are applied,” Nason explains. Manufacturing a car or preparing a fi nancial statement, for example, are complicated tasks: success is easily defi ned and measured, and specifi c steps are taken to reach the desired outcome. But most business today isn’t complicated; it’s complex. That is, there aren’t steps or rules one can follow to achieve success. Rather, there are elements of randomness and uncontrollability that can only be managed through adaptability, creative thinking and empathy. The author uses myriad case studies


— including the 2008 fi nancial crisis — to describe how approaching complex scenarios as if they were complicated systems can garner catastrophic results. In doing so, he acknowledges the temptation to fi nd order in what are innately messy scenarios: uncertainty and lack of control are unsettling, particularly in business.


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Rather than alarming the reader — whose entire business philosophy Nason calls into question — the author manages to instil hopefulness. For one thing, readers should take solace in knowing that complex jobs are safe from automation: there’s too much emotion and randomness involved for robots to grasp. And while complex business is unpredictable, it presents great opportu- nity for success, as seen with companies such as Google and Facebook. But the question remains: how


valuable is a book about ambiguity in business? Like complex tasks them- selves, It’s Not Complicated off ers no clear steps for how to manage complexity; it’s more philosophical than instructional. “Complexity requires an open mind and the ability to be humble and fl exible,” Nason writes. “It also requires a willing- ness to try things, to experiment, even at the risk of being wrong.” For leaders looking for a quick-fi x approach to business scenarios, that advice can be deterring. It shouldn’t be. In fact, those are the folks who need this book the most. — Catherine McIntyre


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NOVEMBER 2017 | CPA MAGAZINE | 53 sales team filler new 2016.indd 1 11/3/2016 12:19:24 PM


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