Keith’s own background was within a government environmental organization and he had, over many years, noted how the context in which environmental management was occurring had become increasingly complex as bracketed by legislative aspirations of a high order (in New Zealand). This complexity included the shift from environmental management to sustainable development, increased accountability, rise in the extent of group participation, more litigation, larger scales of impact, intensifying exploitation and so on. Inspired by the work ‘In Over Our Heads: The Mental Demands of Modern Life’ by Robert Kegan, which suggests that the demands of modern society outstrip (as a generalisation) peoples’ ability to actually deal with it, and using the work of another cognitive/educational thinker, Michael Basseches (‘Dialectical Thinking and Adult Development’), alongside his own experience, Keith asked the question: if we need more complex approaches to the complex problems we face do we have in our (environmental) organizations and the people within them the actual capacity to meet that need?

If I was to sum up Keith’s presentation, the answer is no. Keith took us through his empirical research with 31 managers of environmental organizations and of the organizations themselves, and showed the way in which environmental managers could be grouped into a small number of cognitive levels and how developmental processes may operate to encourage people to increase their thinking and practical capacities. These levels, to compress a broader discussion, ranged at the low(er) end from straightforward thinkers who accepted the order of things without much questioning of such, internalised organisational ideology, did not break through or re-organise boundaries and had minimal self-reflection, to an upper end of complex thinkers who were comfortable with chaos and complexity, sought to question assumptions, saw connections, were open to learning, found self-reflection easy and where able to re-order boundaries as necessary. The ability of organisational contexts to foster complex thinkers was minimal (effectively only 1 amongst all the managers), although organisational
capacity existed to move people from lower level thinking upwards to some degree, it did not exist to move people more fully towards truly complex thinking.

Keith’s research was of a high order and reflected the inherent complexity of the topic. It will be with great interest to see what he does with it in the future and hopefully too, we will see Keith back in the forum again sometime down the track for a further installment on this topic.

Few decision makers face complexities that are as persistent and pervasive as those who are tasked with managing the environment or managing human impacts on the environment. Does this mean that managers working on complex systems, such as these, need to be especially good systems thinkers and able to engage with the perspectives and thinking of multiple communities of interest?

After many years as a senior manager in New Zealand’s Department of Conservation, Keith Johnston is completing a PhD with the ANU’s School of Management, Marketing and International Business. His thesis studied environmental managers working in New Zealand. The over-arching question he set out to address was: What is the level of complexity of thinking and meaning making that might be required to sustainably manage the environment and how does this compare with the levels demonstrated by existing managers?

Using theories and methods from the field of adult development, he argues that managers need a high level of complexity of thinking and meaning making, or this at least needs to be present within management teams, if sustainable management is to be attained. He developed a framework for environmental management and leadership, providing indicators of systems capability and meaning making at different levels of management. But he did not find the levels of capability that he expected were required, even amongst the teams that were judged to be the most successful. What are the implications of these findings?”