A complexadaptivesystem is something that is, in addition, self-organizing and emergent: its behaviour is difficult to predict from first principles.

Why do I care? Because your argument rests on an assumption that something complex and adaptive must necessarily also be self-organizing and emergent. Perhaps this is not so? In which case, it seems much more useful – instead of wondering whether integration is useful or not – to wonder how much of what kinds of integration are useful. Which requires a cultural understanding, not just an economic one…

When we go to the broader context of organizational performance, however, I must demur. Integration of some sort is crucial, and in fact is the only justification for having people work in anything but arm's length fashion. The confusion here is between the possibility of parallel initiatives and the need for complementary behavior.

If you have enough resources, you may be able to run parallel activities like GEICO's ad campaigns or Peter's scenarios. But WITHIN each activity, there is likely to be a need for integration–the GEICO media planners might need to be aware of which ad stream goes with which audience, for example. And think about the marketing/IT interface–all those data warehouses purchased in the '90s with no idea about how to use them effectively.

When one thinks about product design or operations, the frequent need for integration is overwhelmingly clear and supported by lots of in-depth research. It's hard for me to think that good iPods could be designed if the hardware, software, manufacturing, and design groups weren't integrated in some way. The LA Times just reported that Airbus's A380 catastrophe was caused largely by a lack of integration between the French and German technical groups (and their different design software). The Mars Climate Orbiter went awry in the '90s when the probe pilots were insufficiently familar with the systems engineering aspects of the craft.

When designers come up with forms that are hard to manufacture, or products that are hard to sell, even though the manufacturing and sales folk could explain these flaws if their warnings were understood and heeded, you are seeing costly integration failures. Non-integrated firms are also often anomic to work in, because one's efforts seem futile as they are cancelled out or hindered by others' choices. Everything form "hurry up and wait" to "your last three months of work are being tossed out" to "our evaluation system punishes you for doing a good job in certain respects" ultimately flows from a shortage of integration.

So I guess I have to be a player-hater on Grant's new guru career. But if he rephrased it as parallelism, or "consistency within multiplicity" I could maybe get on board and applaud his rise to mega-celebrity consultant.

Tom Atkins, thanks for that ethnographic illumination. It feels like they should work together, but I think that marketing got too big for its bridges and forget that if you have a person to person connection, no brand can beat. And this must be way we are now trying to build brands that restore that person to person connections. Thanks, Grant

aj, this is a great point, and I should know (and reference) this book better than I do, thanks for supplying the perspective. Sometimes, I think the consumers entertains conflicting expectations. We want a corporation with human qualities. But we also want big company perfection. Hopefully, we'll get over this. Mind you, with so many people banging the anti-corporation drum, this won't happen anytime soon. Best, Grant

Jens, thanks, something for my reading list, I don't know his name, a measure of my new world centricity, I'm sure. Best, Grant

Peter, this is a brilliant idea, to have several models in the works at any given moment, so that we don't have to start from zero. Not one but several skunk works! Sorry it didn't get embraced. Thanks! Grant

David, this is exactly right, the story does have room for complexity, indeed, it demands complexity, (and the idea of story helps us sell it to marketers and senior managers who are inclined to "keep it simple, stupid.) Thanks goodness for Characters.

But I think that the idea of story is itself needlessly confining. Doesn't it mean that all means well have to be mutually acknowledging, if only in moments of tragic recognition. I think there might be a "layering" approach here to constructing the complexity of the corporation that would test even the story's capacity for multiple meanings.

Thanks, Grant

If you look at the idea of Brand though the metaphor of science then yes, a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin, etc., etc. But if you move around to the other side of the problem and look at a brand through the lens of story then complexity and consistency are not incompatible. In fact, story is the principle tool for understanding and communicating complexity. The difficulty is that most marketers continue to confuse the story telling and the story framework. The story framework – the meaning of the story and the principles for expressing it – should be clear and immutible. The story telling can vary wonderfully from audience to audience and from occasion to occasion.

Story is driven by conflict and the most powerful, iconic brands all manage to hold apparently conflicting energies in dynamic tension. For example, Nike seems to hold "Triumph of the Human Spirit" and "Victory at all Cost" at the same time. In its storytelling the brand presents a thousand faces, but the underlying meaning of the story doesn't change. (Except during the crisis over Nike's offshore labor practices, which was a case of celebrating victory at all costs and leaving the human spirit side of the story in the dust.)

In the 90s, I consulted to several intending global mobile satellite communications network operators. The main feature of that industry was the long lead times — 10 years between raising the investment and actually providing commercial services (satellites have to be designed, built, deployed and connected).

While 10-year market forecasts are common in some industries (eg, energy), this is an absurdly long time in mobile telecoms. Nobody, but nobody, has any clear idea what the market and technology landscape will be like in 2 or 3 years, let alone in 10.

The only solution, I argued, was for an intending operator to choose several forecasts (call them "scenarios"), and build businesses based on each one simultaneously. In other words, don't put all your eggs in one basket, but in 3 or 4 baskets. Maybe, to the outside world, you only present 1 forecast at any time (perhaps important to re-assure investors and regulators), but internally work to several. This clearly has psychological, technical and managerial challanges galore, but the losses from a wrong bet are so large, these challanges are worth dealing with.

Unfortunately, this idea proved to be too post-modern for the typical telco executive running the satcom operators, and none was able to sustain it. Later, McKinsey picked up the idea — I don't know whether they were more successful at persuading clients to run with it.

usualy europeans become gurus by copying american business authors.

now you have got the once in a life time chance to turn the brain train around and copy the writings of Gerd Gerken if you really believe in the fragmented organisation. i am dead serious. enjoy.

If anything, I think we expect corporations to be more human – compared to the apparently omniscient godlike things they were in the 60s and 70s, we want them humble, transparent, willing to admit mistakes, and less willing to do dumb, shortsighted or criminal things because they know a) they're being watched and b) it's really bad PR. Once you break down the shell of the Invulnerable Corporation with that single-face Identity, you see it as a collective of people that do things, and you can then hold those people to the same standards we hold ourselves, friends and neighbors to — and they usually go along with it because it's in their own self-interest.

Tom