VIEWING COMPLEXITY THROUGH A DISTORTED LENS

Leaders long for clarity, and in most cases, they’re not going to get it. This isn’t just because they have too much information to process—the standard definition of complexity. Rather, it’s because various other elements distort the view of complex matters.
Take the case of the recent home mortgage crisis: Very smart, very experienced CEOs, including Chuck Prince, Peter Wuffli, Kerry Killinger, and Stan O’Neal, lost their jobs because their skill and experience did not serve them in navigating the forced choice of lower returns or higher, almost unfathomable risk. Sub-prime financial modeling has devastated more than one prominent financial services firm and killed others such as Bear Stearns ...

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