@Mark_the_Harp

complex processes can happen in milliseconds

You're talking about databases here- or rather their latest iteration: the expert system which handles medium levels of complexity (like staff rosters) quite nicely but when its algorythm is given free reign it can indeed become scary!

On the other hand, individuals continue to handle complexity badly; Parkinson's law goes on to say we can easily choose the best employee out of ten applications but when presented with a hundred applications we tend to choose the first application near the top of the pile and which seems OK, so we end up with a worse employee.

Can you imagine a modern company with a human, "first off the pile applicant choosing" CEO, who's dependant upon running quite inhuman system algorithms developed by human systems analysts whose advice the CEO can't understand?

I'd like to think this sort of thing doesn't happen but then I see that sort of thing in the news. (eg Murdoch)

creativity in business or the arts is the result of accidental meeting

Sounds like you might be interested in Disruption Theory.

Good thoughts. When things get difficult, companies tend to stick with what they know, even though just because something has worked in the past, it doesn't guarantee it will work in future, especially if conditions change.

I have done quite a bit of work with businesses to get them thinking about complexity (complex responsive process) which is about people responding to events based on what is happening in the moment, and then other people responding to the responses etc. The result of complexity is unpredictable because complexity and people's response to it is also unpredictable. Businesses are reluctant to take it too seriously, because this sort of process doesn't fit conventional notions of businesses controlling, planning or accounting. For those that can work with complexity, it can (but not always) lead to innovation.

I think a lot of creativity in business or the arts is the result of accidental meeting, conversation, ideas, experiments, etc etc.... Not something you can predict, and if it was it wouldn't be creative. Difficult for businesses to cope with that, especially when they get too big. There was a company in Brazil (can't remember which) who did innovative work in that field: they had a rule that when any department got beyond a certain size it had to split into two.

At the moment we're faced with frightening levels of complexity and also the results of it can be very quick to propagate. In things like markets, these complex processes can happen in milliseconds, affecting other things which also respond in milliseconds. I find that pretty scary.