Complex Thinking Book

Springer Briefs in Complexity

Performing Complexity:

Building Foundations for the Practice of Complex Thinking

Ana Texeira de Melo


Print length : 86 pages

Publication date : April 28, 2020

Publisher : Springer; 1st ed. 2020 edition

ISBN-13: 978-3030462444

ISBN-10: 3030462447

About the book

  • Presents a framework for the practice of complex thinking applied to the management of change in complex systems

  • Lays the groundwork for a cross-disciplinary investigation of the practice of complex thinking in various domains

  • Introduces an interdisciplinary approach to the development, selection, and evaluation of strategies and tools for complex thinking applied to change management in complex systems

Publisher's Blurb

In the face of growing challenges, we need modes of thinking that allow us to not only grasp complexity but also perform it.

In this book, the author approaches complexity from the standpoint of a relational worldview. The author recasts complex thinking as a mode of coupling between an observer and the world. Further, she explores the process and outcome of that coupling, namely, meaningful information that may have transformative effects and impact the management of change in the ‘real world’.

The author presents a new framework for operationalising complex thinking in a set of dimensions and properties through which it may be enacted.

This framework may inform the development and coordination of new tools and strategies to support the practice and evaluation of complex thinking across a variety of domains.

Intended for a wide interdisciplinary audience of academics, practitioners and policymakers alike, the book is an invitation to pursue inter- and transdisciplinary dialogues and collaborations.

Table of Contents

  • Introduction: Thinking Complexity

Pages 1-11

  • A Relational Framework for Complexity and Complex Thinking

Pages 13-32

  • Complex Thinking as the Complexity of the Coupling Observer—World: Processes and Outcomes

Pages 33-48

  • An Operational Framework for Complex Thinking

Pages 49-63

  • Discussion: From Thinking to Performing Complexity

Pages 65-68