Reading again my recent post on complicatedness and
complexity, it occurred to me that perhaps I had not provided the clearest of
examples.
Riding my bike along a canal towpath the other day it
suddenly came to me – the answer was chess! Not that I play chess, you understand … or even understand it much.
I am told that people keen on chess often record important
games – so they can revisit the ‘action’ and learn from mistakes. They often
use an algebraic notation to list the moves of each player. The result is a very
complicated log of what happened in
the game.
It’s complicated, but it is not complex because it is a determinate.
If you use the log to reproduce faithfully the moves on a real chessboard you
will slowly but surely recreate the game exactly as it happened. It might be
tedious, but if you do it accurately you will end up with a true picture of the
game, move by move by move.
Compare this to the chess game in real time. When one player
makes a move, the other player has to decide whether that player is embarking
on a brilliant gambit, bluffing, perhaps, or just making a sad mistake. Each
player has to assess the other and try to predict her or his behaviour. There
is no one right response to an opponent’s move - just a judgment. Nobody knows exactly how the game will work out
until someone calls ‘checkmate’.
In real time the chess game is complex, not simply complicated. There is reciprocal causation
between the players – “s/he knows that I know that s/he knows” etc. etc. Even
the best-informed predictions may be mistaken. The outcome is always uncertain.
It is a dynamic, non-linear situation.
That’s like the complex
nature of child protection services. We can’t use a recipe book or a procedural
manual or a checklist to get the right outcome. It’s a matter of experience and
judgement and wisdom. Understanding that is the first step on the road to
creating better services. Sadly there are a lot of people who don’t seem
prepared to take it.
