Complexity & The Crisis of Development

Last time, I started talking about complexity and uncertainty, and how the rapid increase in both has made the world a very hostile and confusing place to many people. Why would a rise in these two things cause the world to look hostile? The study of adult development gives us the reason - people only develop the ability to understand and deal with complexity and uncertainty at later stages of adult development. Until people reach those stages, they will seek certainty, or at least the illusion of certainty. 

When that illusion is shattered, as it so often is these days, people need to re-form their illusion of certainty around different things - maybe my job is no longer certain, but at least my family is stable, and so on. When this happens again and again, people feel that their defences against the world are constantly under attack - the the world is against them. Their view of the world, one that might have served them perfectly well in the past, is now constantly under attack. All the old certainties that people used to rely upon - job, family, community, identity - are being continually challenged.

We live in a world of casual or contract employment. Old, stable jobs are being eliminated or moved offshore. Yes, new jobs are being created in their place but they look very different. They are often unstable, gig economy jobs. While they may pay the bills, they give no certainty of future income, no career path. The old job for life has been replaced by the new job for today. While wages are rising, they are doing so very slowly for most people, while at the same time they watch the few get richer faster and faster. They see others getting wealthy from their labour but can't see any way to profit themselves.

Old family and community bonds are unravelling. We no longer expect to live close to our parents. Housing affordability and uncertain jobs push children far away and spread families far and wide. Political classes demand labour market flexibility and a mobile workforce - move to where the jobs are - while at the same time promoting "family values". The same family values that a mobile workforce helps to destroy. At the same time, the mobile workforce is changing the face of communities. Old working class areas are being gentrified and those stable communities disbursed to cheaper areas and replaced by a far more transient workforce that doesn't form the same strong community bonds. Once homogeneous areas are now rapidly becoming diverse. 

Social change is becoming more and more rapid. Many of the changes we are seeing are good - diversity, inclusion and rights are being extended to many groups that didn't have them before. But the sheer pace of change is proving to be challenging and confronting to many. Social media now bombards us with more information that we can handle about other people's much more perfect and exciting lives, while encouraging, or even demanding, that we show our own perfectly curated faces to the world. 

All these things are important because they are what we build our identities from - our relationships and families. Our job. Our position in society. We can cope with a shock to one of those - we lose our job but our family and community supports us while we get back on our feet - but a continual assault on all at once means people's sense of identity is being continually challenged.

While this is OK, and expected at the later stages of adult development (indeed part of the process of adult development is in challenging and reforming identities) those at earlier levels need that stable identity to function.  Particularly for the younger people just entering adulthood, people whose identities are not yet well formed. In this environment, they may never form a stable identity. They may never have that stable base to operate, explore and grow from. 

I think it is no coincidence that our rates of depression and anxiety are skyrocketing. Yes, better knowledge and reporting does play a part in that, but the constant challenge to people's identities caused by the complexity of the modern world must play a part.

In the face of such constant challenge to identity it is no surprise that many people are turning to leaders who promise to maintain those things that build identity. They have simple, attractive messages that allow people to cling on to their identities in the face of challenge - it's not the complexity of the globalised economy that has taken all the jobs in this town - it’s the foreigners, or the greenies who have destroyed your jobs. All we need to do is build the wall, stop the boats and get brexit done and all will be well again. Jobs will return. Communities will stabilise. Social change will slow down. We can ignore climate change, it’s just a conspiracy to take your jobs. We don't need to change the way we do things. All will be well.

Except that it won't.

We are, I believe, in a crisis of development. Those early stages of development that used to serve many people well for their whole lives are no longer OK.  Those early stages are now actively harmful to our mental and physical health.  It is actively preventing us from getting to grips with (or even recognising) many of the problems that we are facing as a  society and as a species. 

While we accept the need for childhood development and put resources into early childhood programs and schools to build children into young adults, we do nothing to develop young adults into well developed adults. We do nothing to help people grow once they leave school. Even the programs we have for the young are being undermined by an education system that is geared around turning out employees rather than adults. 

We need to actively develop people. We need to give them the tools they need to make sense of and navigate the world we have built. This is where I believe our duty lies as coaches. We need to be doing all we can to develop individuals, organisations and communities. To help them develop and grow. To help them build new stable identities in a changing world. 

My call to the coaches out there is to focus less on tools and processes, less on organisational change. Focus on growth and development. Development of individuals. Development of teams. Development of organisations. Development of communities. And most of all, development of yourselves.