How to Unleash your Complexity Genius | Jennifer Garvey Berger

LinkedIn: [00:00:00] Linkedin presents.

Jonathan Fields: [00:00:09] So quick question. Have you ever felt like the world around you has become just too complex, unpredictable, and overwhelming for your mind to handle? Kind of like your personal operating system just can't compute all the uncertainty and change. Well, you are not alone. And more importantly, outgrowing your current mental models may actually be the path to thriving in this maddeningly complex world and helping to guide this conversation. My guest today, Jennifer Garvey Berger, is an expert in the entire topic of how we navigate complexity, especially in the world of work and life. Imagine having the psychological fitness to embrace multiple contradictory perspectives, to navigate uncertainty without anxiety, to hold tension and opposites and find innovative syntheses. Indices. That is exactly what we'll explore in this fascinating discussion. How to develop something called complexity fitness to dance with the increasing complexities we all face, rather than contracting or pulling back from them. And you'll gain insights into the four distinct stages of adult complexity, mastery, and where you currently reside, plus the cultural norms that inadvertently keep us stunted and the small shifts that can spark perpetual growth. So if you're committed to not just surviving, but flourishing amid complexity, this mind expanding conversation provides a roadmap to get you there. Let's dive in. I'm Jonathan Fields and this is SPARKED. Hey, and before we dive into today's episode, a quick share. So if you're a coach, a consultant or a leader and you would just love to stand out more in 2024 and beyond with a powerful new credential and a set of results driven superpowers.

Jonathan Fields: [00:01:58] We have got something for you. With nearly a million people now discovering their profiles, the Sparketypes have become a global phenomenon. People want their work to light them up, and oftentimes they would love some help along the way, which is why we developed our certified Sparketype advisor training. As a certified advisor, you will discover cutting edge tools that spark profound work life client transformations. Stand out with a highly unique credential and skill set in a crowded market. Find ease and flexibility with templated engagement flows. You'll become a part of a global network of change makers, and you'll rack up 40 ICF continuing education credits. Our fall cohort is enrolling now with visionaries just like you, and we would love to invite you to uplevel your capabilities as a coach or consultant or leader by becoming a certified Sparketype advisor. To learn more about the fall training and see if it's right for you, just click the link in the show notes now or visit sparketype.com. Pros. So? So I just want to dive right in. You know, the fascinated by just what happens in organizations from an individual level and a leadership level. And I think certainly everyone is grappling with how those two come together these days. Your concept of complexity fitness I think is really fascinating. So I think it's a good jumping off point. Take me into what are we actually talking about when you use this phrase complexity fitness.

Jennifer Garvey Berger: [00:03:26] Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Usually when we think about fitness we think about going to the gym and getting physically fit. But actually it turns out that there are ways for us to get kind of psychologically and emotionally fit for handling complexity. And you would think that we were good at that automatically unless you actually checked in with yourself lately. Well, as the world is getting more and more complex, you might notice there are some times when you feel like I'm exhausted. Like my my whole body is sore because my emotions are kind of sore or I feel to somehow small like this. This whole thing overwhelms me. It's bigger than me. And when you when you feel either of those things, you can imagine that actually your ability to contain the complexity inside you, to make sense of it is just a little smaller than the complexity of the world in this moment.

Jonathan Fields: [00:04:19] So that would be, I think, the feeling of complexity. But talk to me about the fitness side of this. So when when we think about, as you describe, when we think about physical fitness, okay, so we kind of know what happens. We feel maybe less strong, less able, less capable if we basically completely ignore our physical body. And so the idea of fitness is relevant. Okay. There's sort of like a prescribed set of things that we might do. Complexity, fitness. I think we've all felt the weight, the burden of complexity in our work, in our lives. But the notion of, quote, having to like, how do we get fit to actually be able to live with that, to move through it, to maybe even flourish in the context of it? Like take, take me there, take me to that side of it.

Jennifer Garvey Berger: [00:05:00] Yeah, yeah. So I think of our complexity fitness as the thing that helps us hold more, just as our physical fitness helps us lift more weights, complexity. Fitness helps us hold more complexity. And basically, if you imagine there's a kind of like a flex and release of physical fitness, there's also a kind of motion of being able to see more, hold more in you, take more perspectives, be able to see more of the things that drive you, being able to discern without judgment what's going on for somebody else, and to kind of hold tensions inside ourselves. And instead of having to, like, collapse into choosing one or the other of those tensions, to be able to reconcile them in a way, to be able to choose both to or choose a third thing that gets you the best of both of those things. So it really is like a set of muscles we need to exercise and we can exercise on purpose.

Jonathan Fields: [00:06:03] So I want to dive into what that might look like. But before we even get there, you know, continuing on with this, sort of like the physical fitness analogy, oftentimes when somebody decides to start into any kind of program, one of the first steps is to get a baseline to benchmark. Okay, so where am I really? Where am I starting from? So does this make sense in the context of understanding our own personal complexity? Fitness also as a starting point?

Jennifer Garvey Berger: [00:06:30] Yeah, I think it does. I think it does. How am I seeing the world now? What can I handle and what can I not handle? And there is a map of adult development, which is basically a map of our complexity fitness. It's a map of where am I like a baseline? Where am I now? What am I able to do now and what can I not do? But I can imagine being able to do. And then what can I not even imagine? And as you, as you kind of interact with the map, you can check yourself and see, can I do that? Can I do that? Oh, I can do that. Which is kind of helpful.

Jonathan Fields: [00:07:06] Yeah. So what are some of the on that map, what are some of the questions or some of the things that we might start to examine within ourselves to start to get a feeling for like where we are with our own personal complexity, fitness as, as a starting point.

Jennifer Garvey Berger: [00:07:20] Yeah. So the first question I like to think about is, how much am I being written by the world out there, and how much am I writing my own world? Right. This is the difference between like, am I looking around to others to see how am I doing now? How am I doing now? Is this right? Is this okay? Or am I checking in with myself to say, how am I doing now? Is this okay? Am I right about this? So it's kind of the first question is where do you look for knowledge and approval about how you're doing? And of course, all of us have to check in with the world to see, or else that would be unhelpful. But the question is, do you do you rely only on that? I was talking to a client yesterday who was explaining to me that he needed to understand all the factors in this decision that he was making, about which there's no possibility to understand all the factors. Right. This is a classic complexity situation, right? He wants more information, more information, more information, because he's never made a decision like this before, because there's never been a decision quite like this before. And he doesn't have enough data because there aren't enough data for him to attack it. And so I watched everything he did was to try and go outside Sighed himself to see if he could find more things, more data out there. Somebody who has experience out there, somebody who could have some kind of a rubric to tell him whether he's making the decision right or not. Actually, he what he what he can't do yet is look inside and say, okay, I have this much data, I have this much experience. I think I can process that in a way that helps me have some sense of what I should do next. And he didn't. He just doesn't quite have that yet. He doesn't quite have the fitness to look inside and author his own decision.

Jonathan Fields: [00:09:19] Yeah. And as you describe that, I think that's a situation that so many of us find ourselves in, you know, especially when you're pushing the bounds of both what you've done before and what has done before in general, like when you hit a circumstance where literally there is no way to actually determine all the variables and have complete information, but you still have to make a decision. You still have to allocate resources and time. We really tend to not do well, I think like in those scenarios. Um, um, it's interesting that years ago I was exposed to this thing which has become often known as the Ellsberg paradox, where effectively you have to make a decision and one option, you have a little bit more of a known set of variables, and the other, it's completely unknown. It could be much more beneficial to you, but also much more detrimental to you. And then you have to make a wager and sort of like choose which one you're going to go by. And with no rational basis, most people choose the one that just has more known variables, even though it might actually be a lot worse because we just were. So, you know, like our brains just don't want to go to the place of uncertainty. It sounds like that's a lot of what you're describing here.

Jennifer Garvey Berger: [00:10:29] It's exactly right. It's exactly right. Yeah. We our our nervous systems actually really dislike uncertainty. It's it frightens us. It tells us that we're not safe. And so a piece of developing our complexities. Fitness is getting able to talk to your own nervous system and say, you know, I know your automatic response is to be afraid right now, but actually we're safe. It's a tricky decision, but I can soothe myself and I can feel like it's going to be okay, and I can I can take responsibility for this. Even in the unknown space. I can take my responsibility inside myself and know with limited information I can make a decision. And it might be right or it might be wrong, but I won't know that I can still make the best decision I can make given where I am today.

Jonathan Fields: [00:11:19] Yeah, no, that makes so much sense. And which means. So if one of those early questions is sort of like figuring out where where's my baseline complexity, fitness is really looking at, where do I look for validation. Like, do I go inside? Do I go outside? It seems like part of this. Also, another part of the questioning would be really examining your own tolerance for uncertainty for sure.

Jennifer Garvey Berger: [00:11:40] For sure. And and even examining why do you have that tolerance for uncertainty? Like the cool thing about complexity fitness is it's filled with these why questions where we get to ask ourselves, why do I? Why is that true? Why is that true for me? What, like noticing that I'm angry about some situation is one thing, but trying to trace it? Why am I angry? What is it? Because very often we think, oh, I'm angry because you made me mad. Well, actually, that's not that's kind of early complexity fitness, right? Because then I can't do anything about it. You have to change for me to not be so angry for me to understand. Oh, I'm angry because something you did triggered something in me that I really didn't like. I need to figure that out in myself. And then suddenly the power for my reaction lives inside me. I author that, which is why we talk about that as self-authored, right? Because I get to choose. It's up to me.

Jonathan Fields: [00:12:35] Yeah. I mean, I feel like that brings us into also this concept of, of, I guess you describe it as the four sort of forms of mind, you know, and self-authoring or self-sovereign sort of being on. Well, I guess it's a little bit different, actually, because you're really what you're really talking about here is having more of a sense of, of agency. It's like, okay, so things may come my way or happen to me, but how I process them actually is a big part of how I experience them. And and it sounds like also a big part of my like, whatever my baseline level of complexity fitness is. But talk to me about also how this concept of the the, the four minds plays into this whole experience.

Jennifer Garvey Berger: [00:13:13] Yeah, yeah. So earlier in our lives and sort of like in our kind of most elementary form of complexity fitness, we have a sense of ourselves as like kind of a lone, I call it self-sovereign because you're, you're sort of the king or queen of a country of one person. Right? And everything that you control is just here. You don't have a sense of people's internal motivations. You don't have a sense much of abstractions. You're just like a kid who who kind of knows what he wants and will kind of maneuver to get that thing without thinking that much about the person you're dealing with. And then over time, that gets kind of overwhelming, particularly in a complex world. We can't really live that way and deal with all the perspectives and all the people around us. And so at some point, we tend to grow into a place where now we're kind of breathing in. We're taking in the perspectives or views or ideas or values of some other person, family, church, synagogue, organization, profession, some collective. We take them inside us and then they Become our guide. And so here, here's this kind of next place. I call it the socialized mind, where in this moment I, I breathe you in. But with without you around I don't know like I don't know what to do. And then over time. Yeah.

Jonathan Fields: [00:14:49] So it's like you're always dependent on that external that's sort of like set of expectations and beliefs and perspectives. Yeah.

Jennifer Garvey Berger: [00:14:55] That's exactly right. So I need you to let me know how I'm doing. I need you to let me know if I'm doing a good job. I need you to when I come to a decision that I've never made before, I need you to tell me what the right decision is. Or give me a rubric, or give me all the data so I can analyze it in the way that you've taught me to analyze it. Right. Like I need to follow the steps. And for most of human history, that was probably okay, right there. There weren't that many steps there. There wasn't that much data. There were things that were known and knowable and things that were unknown and unknowable. And, you know, we look to our churches or our leaders or whatever to tell us about the unknowable ones. And we knew the others. So now that's dangerous. And a lot of in a lot of times, right. It's dangerous if if I need you and you're not with me all the time, or if I need you and you get distracted, or if I need you and you're not that reliable, suddenly I'm in trouble. And so this idea of, can I pick up the pen and write my own story? Can I pick up the pen and make my own choices and author my own life? Then is the next of these four adult stages, and then some people even find that one too limiting. Some people think, you know, it's not really true that I write the story of my life. It's sort of co-written because it matters that we're together. It matters to me what you think. I'm different because we are together and therefore they're sort of a way that we're collaborating on everything. And that I call the Self-transforming mind, because it's in that moment when you really are kind of in the complex space, kind of jammin with it right where it becomes a dance you're doing, as opposed to a series of cliffs you're trying to scale.

Jonathan Fields: [00:16:54] Mhm. I mean, it's so fascinating as you're describing this, I'm nodding along because it all makes sense to me. And you can see how like, you know, like you start in one place and then if you do the work, if you get exposed to it, you move to the next and the next. And then this other thing kind of interesting overlay just dropped in, which is this sounds like the business equivalent of spiritual transcendence. You know, it's almost like a similar progression. We start very myopic, self-centered. It's all about us. We are the world as we know it, right? Then we look for the teachers to tell us what is right, what is wrong, how to behave in society Like, how do we look for the rules, the the dogma, you know, because this lets us feel comfortable. We're okay. Like we know how to act. And then we realize that that's actually limiting us as much as it is enabling us. Well, not everyone, but, you know, like, you know, if you're really questioning and pushing and then you get to that self-authored stage, which, you know, is sort of like, huh? Like, what do I actually feel and think about this, you know, like how how am I going to participate this and write the story in a way where it actually feels like it fits me and not just what I've been told I'm supposed to fit into. And then there's that self-transforming or transcendence, where it's like, what if we actually it's almost like, blow all of this up and move beyond it? Yeah. And see what's genuinely out there and bring in all perspectives. So it's not just self-authoring now. It's like, let's just bring it all in and see what that suit feels like. And does that does that land with you?

Jennifer Garvey Berger: [00:18:18] Yeah, that's exactly it. And and so you, you see as you're interacting with it, you can see that this theory is actually thousands of years old, right? Like, yeah, it is while we're using it here in a more research based way. And, you know, now we have data and graphs to describe what's going on. People have kind of had a sense of this kind of progression across culture and across time for thousands of years.

Jonathan Fields: [00:18:49] Yeah. I'm curious when you look at those the the four stages or the four forms of mind, do you have a sense or have you seen when most people actually like make this journey, whether it tends to be sort of like a smooth line, or is it like they're existing in one domain and something happens, it kind of shakes them out of it and says, there's got to be something different that jars an inciting incident, almost, that makes them look to sort of like explore and move to the next level.

Jennifer Garvey Berger: [00:19:17] Yeah, yeah. So I think most people tend to experience development in a series of disorienting dilemmas. Right? Exactly. As you're saying, something happens and their previous way of understanding the world somehow begins to crack. It doesn't quite hold the world as it is right now. And they often we try to hold on to that. We try to like, like hold our old way of making sense together as it like trembles and shakes and breaks, and some people can manage to just hold it and not grow. But many of us like, kind of say, I need to remake myself to understand what's going on here. And so we do have these kind of fits and starts. One of the, one of my hopes for writing this book, changing the job is, is that if we have a sense of the map and we have a sense of kind of the reps, we need to walk the map, then maybe we could practice those and our growth could be a little bit more gentle, and we wouldn't have to crash into the wall in order to discover we're maybe a little bit too small for what the context needs. We could be growing and growing and growing in smoother and hopefully less painful ways.

Jonathan Fields: [00:20:40] Yeah, I mean, I love that because it sounds like what you're describing almost is you're normalizing the experience of like, oh, I've just hit a wall. This feels bad. Like my head is spinning a bit, but I'm not actually broken. And this isn't that something is wrong. It's that maybe this is actually just the natural progression of growth. Like and so so feeling this isn't necessarily a thing to back away from. I see that there's some place that I can go from here. So now I'm going to be more likely to actually say yes to that. Does that land?

Jennifer Garvey Berger: [00:21:07] Yeah. And I think it's so helpful to understand that when our sense making feels really constrained, when we can't make sense of our lives, it's actually our life inviting us into a bigger us, right? It's saying, yes, I know you can't right now, but that's actually the challenge, right? It's the it's the challenge to see what would I need to do to be able to contain this thing. I think often we just think, oh, like I need a nap or I need that to change, or I need people to stop talking, or I need my boss to stop making these crazy decisions or whatever it might be. But actually, each of those is an invitation for us to see the edges of the terrain. We can right now walk on and put our toes right up against it, and then begin to push into the next place.

Jonathan Fields: [00:22:00] Mhm. So which begs the question, you know, if creating these, these windows, these transformative learning opportunities experiences is, is really important in the process of growing. How do we actually do that. Like what are the qualities that would allow us to create a container or an experience that allows somebody to step into it and actually have it lead to growth, rather than retreat or contraction?

Jennifer Garvey Berger: [00:22:27] Yeah. So I think the first thing is some combination of challenge and support, right? Without any challenge, you won't grow. But without any support. It's awfully hard to take that step. And so do we have trusted communities? Do we have people we can talk to? Is there a space where you can actually say to somebody, I can't make sense of this, and somebody else can help you make a new kind of sense of it? Because what we're often saying is, I feel lost, and there's something in our culture that suggests that lost is sort of shameful. We should hide that. We should pretend we don't feel that. And so we need a context that feels safe enough where we can say that and somebody else can help us understand how we're lost, and then how to get a little bit better, a little bit bigger. There's probably a limiting belief we don't even know we have. There's some way of seeing the world that's too constrained. We need to release that. But first we need to find it. And it's through these challenges and a supportive presence or context that we can find it.

Jonathan Fields: [00:23:36] Yeah, I mean, that sounds like that would be the fundamental thing. And as you're describing it, I would imagine a lot of people listening to this are also sitting there saying, that's not the culture in which I work. And I think therein lies one of the really big friction points here. It's like even if personally, we're willing to go there and we want to grow, we want to go to that place where we don't know the answers and our head is spinning a little bit, but we sense on the other side is something kind of yummy. Um, we feel like we're constrained by the culture. Who doesn't? Wouldn't necessarily support us saying that or feeling that or like going to that place. I mean, do you see that happening on a fairly regular basis?

Jennifer Garvey Berger: [00:24:14] I see it all the time. It's it seems like a kind of collective insanity in our organizations very often that organizations say they want the best of us, right? That of course they do. Why would they pay you to come in so that you could use 10% of your skills and capacities with them, right? Like, it's not a great idea. And yet organizations often organize to make us more anxious, more, more afraid, less willing to say I'm lost and less. Less safe to be able to find some of these edges. And so they make us smaller and smaller instead of helping us be bigger and bigger. Now there are ways. I mean, I think great leadership is about making the contexts that help people grow, right? Help people find their biggest selves, which sometimes means making the context that allow people to be in these smaller places and be frustrated and feel kind of trapped by them until we break out of them. I think great leaders allow that.

Jonathan Fields: [00:25:18] So, you know, I think this all begs the question then also, like if we zoom the lens out a bit and we look at we look at culture, we look at leadership in general, like, and, and I think a lot of individual leaders would actually love to create these opportunities for the people on their teams as they lead, and they would probably still like it for themselves. They still want to grow as leaders. Bigger picture. If we look at culture, what are some of the key, the core norms or tenets on a cultural level that might that we might examine to really see if we can move more into creating the space for growth and, you know, better complexity, fitness.

Jennifer Garvey Berger: [00:25:57] I love this question. So I think there's this kind of buttoned and polished like the the idea that you should be buttoned up and polished when you get to work. You shouldn't, um, you shouldn't admit to weaknesses. You shouldn't say, I don't know. I had a I was teaching about asking new questions and I had a leader say, but Jennifer, I can't ask a new question that I don't know the answer to. Right. Like that would be shameful.

Jonathan Fields: [00:26:28] Why would you ask any other kind of question?

Jennifer Garvey Berger: [00:26:30] Right. Right. It's like. So the only questions you ask are the questions you do know the answers to. And he was like, absolutely, because otherwise what would that be like? All of that kind of, um, myself as a performance that needs to be perfected for you is very complexity friendly and it's very, um, growth friendly.

Jonathan Fields: [00:26:54] Mhm. So what if you were to, as we sort of start to wrap up our conversation, if you were to offer, um, sort of a starting point for somebody who's listening to this and saying, oh, this all makes sense to me. And I would like to see change both individually and myself, and also as a leader in the team that I'm working with within the organization. Like, where do I even begin? Like what's what is an intelligent sort of opening move that that you've seen be effective?

Jennifer Garvey Berger: [00:27:23] I think the first thing is just to understand that we're growing, changing people and that the way we see the world fundamentally changes and people mostly forget. They mostly forget that I was really very different. And because of that, they also mostly don't have a sense of, oh, in the future I'm going to be very different again. So the first thing I would say is know that you are a living, changing, growing human and that you will you will be able to contain new things that you can't contain right now. That's the I think that's the the baseline first step.

Jonathan Fields: [00:28:04] Mhm. Yeah.

Jonathan Fields: [00:28:05] I mean if we can't even accept that, then we're not going to accept anything else. Which sort of would lead us to change, which, you know, it has to happen if growth isn't going to be on the horizon. As a writer, I've sometimes said I've looked back at work that I've written like a decade ago, and if I don't roll my eyes, I get a little bit upset because. It means. I haven't grown or changed in any meaningful way in the last decade. So it's sort of like a signpost to me to keep pushing a little bit. Any any final thoughts or imitations as we wrap up?

Jennifer Garvey Berger: [00:28:39] Yeah, I think, I think once you know that you're a growing, changing person, which sounds obvious, but I can't tell you how many people I work with really struggle with that idea. Then you can be a little bit softer with the things you don't know, with the assumptions you have that limit you, because none of it feels like it's forever. And you can have a sense of like, up until now, I'm the kind of person who. But maybe in the future I'll be a kind of person who does this other thing. Up until now, I've been really constrained by the way I think about my dad. But maybe in the future I won't have that constraint. Up until now, I have been a person who is super self conscious, but in the future I can grow out of that. So just, um, treating us and others as if we are not like fully formed humans that are not going to change. But oh, this is who I am today. But there's another me waiting for me. I think that that gives us a more hopeful and helpful context to treat ourselves and to treat other people.

Jonathan Fields: [00:29:45] Mhm. Yeah I love that frame. It's I'm going to think about that a whole bunch and see, see what different parts of my life also in context I can bring that to. Thank you so much. I really enjoyed the conversation.

Jennifer Garvey Berger: [00:29:56] Thank you. Me too.

Jonathan Fields: [00:29:59] And remember, if you're at a moment of exploration, looking to find and do or even create work that makes you come more fully alive, that brings more meaning and purpose and joy into your life. Take the time to discover your own personal Sparketype for free at sparketype.com. It'll open your eyes to a deeper understanding of yourself and open the door to possibility like never before. And hey, if you're finding value in these conversations, please just take an extra second right now to follow and rate SPARKED in your favorite podcast app. This is so helpful in helping others find the show and growing our community so that we can all come alive and work in life together. This episode of SPARKED was produced by executive producers Lindsey Fox and Me, Jonathan Fields. Production and editing by Sarah Harney. Special thanks to Shelley Adelle for her research on this episode. Until next time. I'm Jonathan Fields and this is SPARKED.