Complexity and the Credit Crunch
An intriguing article by John Kay about the credit crisis and the amount of control that the “big heads” actually had: none! In any crisis or success (e.g. Seven Habbits of Highly Effective People) we tend to attribute causality to the people at the top because it is easier that way:
Our desire to see history through the lives of great men blinds us to the real complexity of politics, business and finance, and leads us to find intentionality and design where there are only chance and improvisation. The philosopher, Alasdair MacIntyre, put it acerbically: “When imputed organisational skill and power are deployed and the desired effect follows, all that we have witnessed is the same kind of sequence as that to be observed when a clergyman is fortunate enough to pray for rain just before the unpredicted end of a drought!†He also said: “One key reason why the presidents of large corporations do not, as some radical critics believe, control the US is that they do not even succeed controlling their own corporations.†That was the experience of Chuck Prince, former Citigroup chief, and Stan O’Neal, former head of Merrill Lynch.Could Napoleon have coped in a credit crunch?
Reality is too complex for simple causal links…
