By Adam Turteltaub

It’s a complex world, we all know, and we all try to simplify it and our lives, at least from time to time. Nitish Upadhyaya, Director-Behavioral Insights at Ropes & Gray’s R&G Insights Lab and podcaster, wants compliance teams to appreciate complexity and, if not embrace it, at least understand how to work with it.

For him this journey started many years ago with the recognition that disincentives don’t always work. He wanted to understand why. This led him to an understanding of complexity, which explores the connections between people and systems and how nonlinear and unpredictable things can be.

Appreciating that knot of connections is important for compliance teams, he argues, since the nature of the job involves affecting individual behavior and culture.

He outlines several principles that compliance teams should follow:

Move away from the idea that you can map everything.

Context matters. Understand the human dynamics and stories.

The only real rule in a complex system is it will have unintended consequences.

When dealing with a complex system, think of the direction you want, not just the end point.

It's about managing energy in the system and following natural contours

Anomalies are helpful. Outliers can be your next risk or innovation.

Map constraints, the things that connect or limit people, such as fear of retaliation or cultural issues,

And when it comes to a root cause analysis, dig until you find not just the root, but the several roots that likely underlie it.

Listen in to learn more about approaching and harnessing complexity.

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