Complexity in process consulting: a good thing?

Creativity, leadership, management, Planning
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A colleague used the word “simplistic” in describing the 10 principles of process consulting offered by Ed Schein.

I interpreted his use of the word simplistic in describing shines 10 principles as a negative thing. There’s a part of me that remembers the 10 Commandments are simplistic too.

In my studies of complexity and chaos theory there is a belief among practitioners that to successfully adapt to or manage complexity requires an equivalent degree of complexity in the manager or leader or organization’s processes themselves. There is rarely if ever evidence offered to support this contention, but it seems to be intuitive. It is the very intuitive attractiveness of that idea that causes me to be skeptical and wonder what the evidence really shows about the need to be complex in order to manage complexity.

The other side of the argument is that a combination of very simple rules in a dynamic environment can cause very complex results, and so I’m not sure that complexity needs complexity to be managed.

If you believe the 10 principles are overly simplistic where would you add some additional nuance to his general advice?

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