The Complexity Paradigm

Business today remains tethered to a paradigm that is long out of date. This mindset assumes that universal answers exist: Businesses can simply apply compartmentalised operations and follow linear paths to success. Experienced managers know business doesn't work this way. Where should they turn?

In this groundbreaking book, The Complexity Paradigm, Doug Garnett shows how complexity science reveals a new understanding of how business works that is as useful on the front lines as in the C-suite. This discipline—the study of behaviours in highly interconnected, adapting systems dominated by emergence—is revolutionising fields from biology and economics to psychology and artificial intelligence. Recognising a business as a complex adaptive system operating within other complex systems changes our perspective on everything from core concepts of demand, profit, and strategy to the nature of business success. Managers who grasp the order hidden within complexity discover not only a powerful new understanding of their role but also potential for dramatic contributions to success.

The Complexity Paradigm features vivid examples ranging from local coffee shops to major corporations like PepsiCo, Boeing, Mattel, Starbucks, and General Motors, as well as tech giants such as Apple and AT&T. Grounding eye-opening theory in the realities of business, this foundational look at complexity offers deep insight and value for practitioners and students alike.