Chapter 2: Situational Complexity

We are living in a world dominated by the turbulent “Heraclitus River” of Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity (VUCA). As the Greek philosopher Heraclitus said, we can never step into the same VUCA river twice. This makes it an imperative for communities of stakeholders to adopt flexibility of thought and structure. From the application of the methodology Structured Democratic Dialogue (SDD), the authors have accumulated evidence that leads them to propose six principles. Each principle has been derived inductively from the conduct of more than one thousand collabs with a large variety of groups, such as Native American tribes, interdisciplinary teams of companies, bi-communal collabs with Turkish and Greek Cypriots and Israelis and Palestinians, and many more. The variety of applications validates the universality of the six principles. Moreover, the connection of the six principles forms a linear structure called “The Thread.” The Thread enables groups to think systemically, effectively, and ephemerally, in order to navigate the Situational Complexity Labyrinth (vicious cycle). The chapter concludes by the authors arguing that for communities to launch any effective assault on their Problematiques, it is necessary (but not sufficient) to adopt and implement The Thread. In order, however, for The Thread to be effective, the leader of the organization must make a commitment to deliberative democracy. The mutual interdependence of The Thread with the commitment by the leadership, escalates the complexity of addressing the Labyrinth.