The Management Theory Toolbox

Episode 3: Navigating Complexity with Dr. Harold Langlois

• Season 1 • Episode 3

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Experience the transformation of leadership and management with us as we trace the lineage of these concepts from the divine right of kings to the nuanced interplay of today’s corporate strategies. With the guidance of time-traveler George and insights from Dr. Harold Langlois, we dissect the evolution of command and control, scrutinizing the legacy of figures like Frederick Taylor and the impact of scientific management on our modern workplace. Delve into the fabric of management theory and unearth the significance of adapting to the living organisms that are our organizations, beyond just solving problems with pre-packaged solutions.

We challenge the very notion of control, and question if the traditional hierarchy still serves us in a world that resembles a jazz ensemble more than a rigid orchestra. The shift from certainty to adaptability is at the core of our discussion, encouraging leaders to embrace the unexpected with the same finesse as improvisational musicians. Join us as we reimagine leadership not as a solitary command but as a collective symphony, where every member plays a critical role in harmonizing the complexities of today's dynamic business environment.

Harold Langlois [Guest] has been working with decision makers in the financial sector for 25 years. As a professor teaching management at Harvard University, Division of Continuing Education, Harold continues to inspire graduate students in the areas of Change, Leadership, and Team Challenges, and in 2002 was the recipient of the Joanne Fussa Award for Outstanding Teaching. Known for his dynamic and motivating presentations, Harold has been a featured speaker at national and international conferences, and is recognized as a thought leader utilizing research on neurobiology, leadership, and communication to enhance skill sets for today’s decision makers. 

Travis C. Mallett [Host],  is  a Masters of Liberal Arts (ALM) candidate at Harvard University Extension School, where he has also earned Professional Graduate Certificates in both Organizational Behavior and Strategic Management. Travis previously received undergraduate degrees in Electrical Engineering, General Mathematics, and Music from Washington State University. He also served as an Engineering Manager at Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories, where he led a team responsible for developing and maintaining SEL's highest-selling product line. An innovative force in engineering, Travis holds numerous patents and has authored papers and books across diverse subjects. His passion for continuous learning and organizational excellence propels him to explore and illuminate the intricacies of management theories. Through his podcast, "The Management Theory Toolbox", he offers valuable insights on effective leadership, business innovation, and strategic methodologies.

Want to dive in even deeper? Visit the full show notes for this episode.

Harold Langlois:

But we've really not prepared our leadership in very sound ways. Unless we're aware of the complexity of things, then we're not ready to make the adjustments we need.

Travis Mallett:

Welcome back to the Management Theory Toolbox, your top destination for uncovering the wide behind management and business concepts. If you're an executive manager, consultant or business student and you want to dive deep into a scientifically rooted discussion of management theory, then you're in the right place. In our last two episodes, we started exploring organizations. We found that we shouldn't be thinking about organizations as machines. Instead, we should be thinking about them as living systems, and that opens a whole new avenue to explore, one which is remarkably complex, as we discussed with Dr Warner Van Zyl in the previous episode, and it's that complexity that we want to focus on today. But if you're expecting three easy tricks to navigate complexity, the secret to managing in a complex world or five ways to get control of your business, then you're going to have to look somewhere else, because here at the Management Theory Toolbox, we know there's a lot more under the surface than can be captured in a couple quick tips.

Travis Mallett:

Before we dive into the complexity of it all, I think it's valuable to understand the history of management theory that got us here. Were thoughts about management and leadership always centered on complexity. Understanding this history not only gives us a sense of where we came from and the trajectory of where we're going, but we might even recognize in ourselves some past ways of thinking that are perhaps less useful. But the history of organizational behavior spans a long time, so we're going to need some help from our time travel guide, george. Hi, george, are you up for helping us today?

George the Time Travel Guide:

My dear friend, where might we venture today? Or, to be more precise, to which moment in time shall we journey?

Travis Mallett:

We want to explore the history of organizational behavior. Do you happen to know where we should start?

George the Time Travel Guide:

Ah, a quest of profound intrigue. Let us travel to the 1600s, a time when kings claimed divine authority, when the notion of the divine right of kings reached its most mature form. Come now, let us take a seat. Who?

Travis Mallett:

are all these people? This looks like the English. Parliament. All hail King James I.

George the Time Travel Guide:

Indeed, but let silence fall upon us for the king is about to speak.

Parliament Announcer (1610):

France and Ireland. Defender of the faith sovereign of the British Isles. Esteemed lords, ladies and gentlemen of the parliament, attend now to King James, whose guidance is both our duty and our honor to follow.

King James I Speech to Parliament (1610):

The state of monarchy is the supremest thing upon earth, for kings are not only gods' lieutenants upon earth and sit upon gods throne, but even by God himself are called gods. If you will consider the attributes of God, you shall see how they agree in the person of a king. They make and unmake their subjects. They have power of raising and casting down, of life and of death, and yet accountable to none but God only. To dispute what God may do is blasphemy. So is it sedition in subjects to dispute what a king may do? I will not be content that my power be disputed upon. Did you get that?

George the Time Travel Guide:

Here we witness that infamous moment. King James I declared himself a god, reinforcing a rigid paradigm of command and control which had profound influence on the theories of leadership and management in all organizations. Echoes of this still reverberate in our modern organizations today. Now let us leap across four centuries, to the heart of the Industrial Revolution, and witness how management theory changed.

Travis Mallett:

Oh, this looks like an early 20th century factory.

George the Time Travel Guide:

Ah, there he is at the other end. Our next encounter awaits. Let us hasten. I shall introduce you to Frederick Taylor, the father of scientific management. Come swiftly, oh good day, frederick. Allow me to introduce Travis, a seeker of wisdom, in the annals of management theory.

Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856–1915) :

Nice to meet you, Travis. How can I assist?

Travis Mallett:

I'm wondering about your views on management. I understand that in the past, leadership was thought to stem from divine authority, but what do you think?

Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856–1915) :

We are much more scientific these days. In fact, my theory of scientific management is all about using scientific methods to determine the most efficient way of doing work. I believe that there is one scientifically verifiable best way to organize our work and manage workers, but to make that happen, we need our managers to do all the thinking, while the workers just do implementation. See this worker I don't even know his name and I don't need to, as long as he keeps grinding these pieces for the assembly line. My theory is that we can see and control the scientific processes more clearly when we ignore the human messiness.

Travis Mallett:

That sounds really interesting, but how is it working for you?

Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856–1915) :

Just look at this factory. Our production has never been higher, and my theories about management are at the heart of the industrial revolution.

George the Time Travel Guide:

Our gratitude, Frederick. Come Travis, there is more to glean.

Travis Mallett:

I think I recognize the scientific management approach. It still plays a large role in today's organizations right.

George the Time Travel Guide:

Indeed, scientific management persists as the bedrock of industry today. Yet its greatest strength is also its Achilles heel it reduces the worker to a mere cog in the grand machine, overlooking the potential of employees. Such impersonal methods, while sometimes valuable for streamlining processes, often fail to harness the true potential of human capital. Alas, I'm late for my next appointment and I don't have time to travel again. What do you mean? We don't have time? A quaint irony, isn't it? A guide through time. Constrained by time, let me briefly illuminate the path ahead. In the wake of scientific management's rise, a revelation dawned, observing that sometimes a team's motivation can triumph over systematic optimization. As a result, management theories erbed and flowed, now probing the depths of motivation, now championing the welfare of the employee. And thus we arrive at the present time, an era marked by complexity theory. Here, in recent decades, the concept of complex adaptive systems and organizational dynamics matured and came to the forefront.

Travis Mallett:

Does that mean that all those other elements of organizational behavior don't matter? O?

George the Time Travel Guide:

contraire. Every piece of this intricate puzzle is vital, such is the complexity that enmeshes us all. I suggest you speak with someone more familiar with the field of contemporary organizational behavior. Fare thee well in your endeavors and remember the chronicles of yesteryear are but prologues to the stories yet to unfold.

Travis Mallett:

Thank you, I think I know just who to talk to. That was very interesting how organizational theory has changed over the centuries, from structured authority to dynamic leadership. We are now in a world characterized by complexity, which is the focus of this episode. I first heard a presentation of this history of management theory in a class called Leading Through Change with Dr Harold Langlois at the Harvard Extension School, and we're fortunate enough to have him here to help explore the complexity of modern management. Hi, harold, and welcome to the show. Thank you, travis, it's nice to be here. So before we get started, go ahead and introduce yourself and tell us a bit about your background and your work.

Harold Langlois:

Well, my name is Harold Langlois and I'm the founder and president CMS Associates. I'm a consulting group working in the financial industry and I received my PhD from the University of Connecticut in organizational development and have more than 30 years of consultant experience focused on behavioral finance, organizational restructural, performance improvement, program integration and team development. I continue to teach graduate courses at Harvard University the division of Continuing Education. Those courses are in organizational development and team dynamics.

Travis Mallett:

Excellent and thank you for joining us. So in today's episode we're really wanting to focus in on complexity, the complexity of management and leadership. Can you tell us a bit about some of the tools that you find useful for navigating the complexity?

Harold Langlois:

Well, that's an interesting question in terms of having an answer to something that is, in fact, complex. So if I were to be testing somebody for something, the easiest type of testing would be true and false, or none of the above. But complexity has evolved over the centuries out of organizational theory. So what you've got is this notion of things. Being complex means you can't predict completely what's going to happen. There's a dynamic quality to it, an organic, dynamic quality that evolves as it goes. So if you're going from New York to Boston, best thing to use is a map or some guidance system, so you can pretty much calculate what that's going to take.

Harold Langlois:

If you're going from New York to, you don't know where, now you're in a complex situation Because you're going to say why am I doing this? Where is it going? The questions are totally different than how do I navigate from A to B, but when we're in a complex situation, we're really looking at what is driving the overall process. What am I intending to do? What can I learn in getting there? How do I manage the process in a way which is as efficient as possible? Not having a map, because you don't want to get lost in the process, and it's very easy today to get lost when you're dealing with a lot of complex issues.

Travis Mallett:

So, in an organizational context, especially a for-profit business, where we're talking about strategies and we've got our strategic plan, we're going to be producing this product. Here's our roadmap, here's where we want to go. Now, of course, there's all these uncertainties in the business environment. Of course, that's never going to go away. We don't actually know where we're going and where we're going to end up, but we are trying to carve out some sort of a path in this messy, complex web of a world. And how do we do that without getting tunnel vision?

Harold Langlois:

Well, I mean, you're doing something even more than tunnel vision. Your question is part of the problem. When you get caught in the question, your assumptions are being driven by the question, and so I'm sitting back and saying you say you know this and know that, and so those are stabilizing events, right, and I'm simply suggesting that in my mind, that doesn't exist. It exists in your head as a desire to calm your intensity and to calm yourself down, to be able to recognize the ability to have to maneuver. I mean, our brain's been around a lot longer than the theories that we've got today. In order to crawl out of the Serengeti, we had to have certain certainties in mind who's going to attack us, who's going to procreate with me? Where are we going to live? Those were all things that had to be stabilized in order to evolve. Now what's happened is that the world hasn't just changed technically, it's changed in complexity, and with all the complexity piled on one another, you don't have the same level of predictability, though your brain wants it.

Travis Mallett:

That brings up an interesting question for me, which is as a leader, we might understand or recognize or be aware of this complexity that's going on, but from a group psychology level, do you think that most people can handle that amount of uncertainty when it's thrust upon them? Is the organization as a whole going to become too unstabilized, or should it just be? Well? Leaders really need to be trained in this. I don't want to create some sort of a class difference in intellectual capability here, though, but there is.

Harold Langlois:

I mean, that's the problem we've got. I'm not going to get too engaged with politics, but when you don't have a lot of complexity in people running from office, you'll end up in a terrible situation because you're arguing things which are not relevant, and so if you can't frame it correctly and recognize that the complexity is in there and that you have to adapt to the complexity as well as to the direction that you want to take it, then you're stuck. You're like in a position where the steering wheel can't move because you're too confused about what's going on. Which way do I turn? Do I stop? Do I go left right? Do I back up? We don't know that. We don't know the answers ahead of time anymore, and so because of that, we live in a much more complex world now than it was 50 years ago.

Travis Mallett:

I wonder if it's useful to recognize the bigger history of organizational behavior as it's mirrored in different leaders in terms of leadership development levels, like situational leadership, for example, and saying this leader is stuck and I think you do this with your class too you call us out and say you are stuck in a modernist mindset on this question.

Harold Langlois:

Right, that's exactly right. And the longer we stay there, the worse it gets. We're not solving a problem by staying there, because most of the time the problem is us most of it, and once we recognize that there is genuine problems, then we can address it. We're constantly in the process of defending ourselves through the way in which we're approaching and we attack to the problem and the worse it gets.

Travis Mallett:

I think it was Descartes who said that the only thing that we have control of and of course this makes sense with his meditations is our own thoughts.

Harold Langlois:

And we don't always control those. Yes, because you're not aware of your thoughts and your brain will actually be select. Reject, because you're not ready to handle the fact that you don't know when you're going.

Travis Mallett:

That's part of what I think our listeners might be struggling with Getting thrown into this sea of complexity but still having the expectation or the job description that tells them they must still steer something. We still have to stop on the brake or press on the gas or turn left or right, and that's what I was getting to earlier when talking about carving out some sort of a path through this. But you were saying that even the assumptions underlying that is incorrect.

Harold Langlois:

What I'm suggesting is that unless we're aware of the complexity of things, then we're not ready to make the adjustments we need. The more certainty we require, the less aware we are of the complexities because they have to be blocked out. So what I'm suggesting is that we get used to complexity as a reality, versus used to adapting it by taking an old model which is certainty. So I know where I'm going and I'm going to get there the most efficient way possible. It's just as it exists in most cases and what we just saw at Harvard, with all its assumptions, with all its tariff and all its pomp and circumstance. Here we are fighting a racial issue.

Travis Mallett:

Speaking of the organization, that these complexities can hit organizations. I think sometimes we might focus a lot on how us as individuals might handle the complexity and this is a little bit of speculation on my part, but I wonder if the complexity of the world is too much for us as individuals. Even the complexity of our jobs is too much, and should we spend some time focusing on not just how us as individuals navigate the world, but should we be focusing on how our teams or our organizations are set up? Are there structural things that will handle complexity better?

Harold Langlois:

That was a very good question. We're looking for ways of dealing with teams in a more complex way. Instead of here's what I want you to do, here's the list Sit down and say what could get in our way. What's out there that we haven't thought about because we're in denial of, or we've avoided it or unaware of it. So we've really not prepared our leadership in very sound ways. The leaders at the top telling everybody what to do. Bad model Leaders should be at the top telling everybody around them how to behave.

Harold Langlois:

I thought I would read this epitaph of a tyrant. This is WHOU Bon. He signed this book for me and I had it bound, so it's a very special book for me. So this is the epitaph of a tyrant. Perfection of a kind was what he was after, and the poetry he invented was easy to understand. He knew human folly like the back of his hand and was greatly interested in armies and fleets. When he laughed, respectable senators burst out with laughter, and when he cried, little children died in the streets.

Harold Langlois:

Now that, to me, has the same implication of what we were talking about a moment ago. So instead of the person at the top knowing where they're going and controlling the direction and all of everything else going on. Everybody ought to be feeding back what is actually happening instead of where we're going, and so the more organic it becomes, the more positive it is. What you're trying to do and what I'm suggesting is you're trying to build the capacity to tolerate more uncertainty because you're trying to build people's capacity to understand what's necessary in a complex world, and so you feel less and less and less like an authority figure and more and more like a scientist looking at a problem. What are the options you will get? Reduces. The authority issues and who's in charge and who's running it. They're not treating it well, like an orchestra or everybody's playing their own instrument, but they have a script, and if we can follow the script, with everybody contributing their expertise to that script, then we get a fine piece of music. Otherwise, we get noise.

Travis Mallett:

It's an orchestra just to change the analogy a tiny bit has a lot more of that authority that conductors up there directing everybody and everybody is following perfectly. But in jazz setting the leader is not facing the group and giving these orders but is side by side with all the other performers, helping facilitate these interactions.

Harold Langlois:

Yes, that's a very good analogy. Well, I'm also assuming that the thing I was talking about equally applies, because if people don't know what other people are doing with their music, then they're out of sync. I don't assume that you're static, since I've had you in class and I know how you think and I know what you're capable of. That could be very different than this person sitting next to you. So when I'm orchestrating the class, I'm trying to have everybody contribute to it, in a way that's meeting with person sitting next to you who's kind of rigid and looking for the right answers and all instead of me confronting them, I'm going to have you end up with a conversation with that person.

Travis Mallett:

This is a complete aside. The way your class is structured in some ways mirrors the complexity that you're trying to eliminate. Yes, and the sense that I got was recognizing flat out that none of us can handle that complexity. We have all these frameworks, but every framework simplifies, every framework is an abstraction, and so we take a framework, that's a simplification. So let's add another framework on top. That's a simplification. Let's add another one. We get this kaleidoscope of 20 different frameworks.

Harold Langlois:

It's like what's going on here? What's going on here? What's going on is movement and intentional lack of direction, because as soon as you provide direction now, you're going from New York to Boston. So really, what you're asking people to do is intuitively know they can't do that. Today. There's too many unknown variables at play at any one time, and those variables are shifting because they're all controllable. So what you have to do is build the capacity to build tolerance for the complexity.

Travis Mallett:

At the same time, if you have a goal in mind, recognizing that complexity, looking through that kaleidoscope, you'll start to see some of the variables that are going to have the biggest impact in making strides towards your goal. In that sense it does give a sense. Going through all that exercise does give a sense of clarity, Momentary clarity. I'll give you that Right.

Harold Langlois:

Look, when you're tolerating being right, all the time, your brain is selecting out information that says you're on it. So that's going on over a bridge. It may not be connected to the other side, but every time you take a step, you're more certain to get in closer to the other side and all of a sudden and that's what I'm trying to have people in my classes understand that there's nothing wrong with identifying an objective, but that is a very, very transient activity, and so what we're moving toward is the ability to be more fluid in being certain. We're dealing with fluidity versus certainty.

Harold Langlois:

Think about it surgically right. If you have to go under the knife and you've chosen somebody who's done also a lot of work, taking out an appendix, and that's the only person present who knows how to be a surgeon, and they go in and there's nothing wrong with appendix, there's other complexities of handling that you've never seen before. Now I don't want that person alone staring at me, and so what you're looking to do is to hire somebody a surgeon who's open to seeing what's going on. Instead, I'm here to take your appendix out.

Travis Mallett:

Yeah, and that gets sent to team diversity and the value that that adds, but even aside from that, to diversity of thought frameworks that we were just talking about.

Harold Langlois:

Right, and it's how you take any information from the people you're working with versus giving instructions, because I'm an authority figure. Those things just are embedded in the systems. Well, that's the biggest problem with medicine today is you don't know, and so you want to have the surgeon and his or her staff be aware that we're trying to find out what's going wrong versus what are we supposed to do. Different question I'm dealing with adaptability versus being right.

Travis Mallett:

That makes a lot of sense. Well, thank you very much for joining us and teaching us about complexity. I feel like I learned a lot. Before we sign off, can you tell our listeners how they can find you and your work?

Harold Langlois:

You can find me on coachingmindfulsystemscom, as well as on the Harvard University Faculty Directory. Thanks for listening and, travis, thank you for having me on. Thank you.

Travis Mallett:

Before we wrap up, I want to talk a bit about that kaleidoscope I mentioned because it made such a big impact on me. In Dr Langley's class, we discussed a ton of different frameworks or ways of looking at complex problems, each highlighting a different part of the problem. Some frameworks focused on evaluating the perceptions, beliefs and ways of thinking of people involved in the situation, including ourselves. Other frameworks categorized the type of complexity or determined whether we should take an emergent or planned approach, and still others focused on fundamental philosophies regarding how we view the world, such as through the lenses of modernism or postmodernism. The method of dealing with complexity used in that class is to take a problem maybe a management problem or a personal issue and analyze it using multiple frameworks. And what I found for myself was that looking at the same problem through multiple lenses helps clarify some of the interdependencies which were not obvious at first glance. And what I thought was even more interesting was that multiple frameworks would often highlight clusters of closely related variables, allowing us to focus in on those elements that are most problematic, and that's partially what this podcast is all about. At the Management Theory Toolbox, we'll be going through a lot of topics related to management, organizational behavior, strategy and more. And you can think of each episode as a lens through which we can view our problems. One episode might discuss employee emotions, another may look at organizational structure. And what, if you analyze your management issues through a plurality of lenses, even some which may seem less applicable at first, you may just find that a key to your business success lies not in the specific features of your next product, but perhaps in a less obvious facet of organizational behavior. So just to recap, the history of management theory has undergone massive transformations over the centuries. From the idea that managerial authority was a God-given right, to attempting to scientifically optimize efficiency, to focusing on employee well-being, the theories have culminated in the present-day focus on complexity. This recognizes that the objects which we study the people, the organizations and their environments are ever-changing, ever-influencing and being influenced by each other. And why is this important? Because if we understand the dynamic and complex nature of organizations and their environments, we can better prepare for the unpredictable.

Travis Mallett:

While there are many voices out there calling for simplicity, here we flirt with the idea of embracing complexity. Why? Because we can't expect the world to just bow down to our simplistic models. This shift in perspective enables a more holistic approach to management, where uncertainty is not seen as a threat but as an opportunity for growth and innovation. In this environment, leaders are encouraged to foster a culture of learning and experimentation, where failure is viewed as a stepping stone to success.

Travis Mallett:

This approach also emphasizes the importance of diversity and inclusion, recognizing that a variety of perspectives and experiences enrich decision-making processes and enhance creativity. Ultimately, the evolution of management theory towards embracing complexity equips today's leaders with the tools and mindset necessary to navigate the ever-evolving business landscape, ensuring that organizations are not only efficient and productive, but also adaptable, sustainable and capable of thriving in an increasingly interconnected and rapidly changing world. So, with that, thank you for tuning in to the Management Theory Toolbox. Together, let's embrace the complexity of management, equip ourselves with a diverse range of tools and thrive amidst the complexities of the managerial landscape. Stay tuned for our next episode. Until then, keep exploring, keep learning and keep building your Management Theory Toolbox.

People on this episode

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Travis Mallett, ALM

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Harold V. Langlois, Ph.D.

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