Complexity Can’t Stand Up to Collaboration

“Collaboration is multiplication.” John Maxwell

It would be hard to find someone who thinks the world is simple. When people talk about real life problems, they usually mention complexity as a contributing factor. Ken Burns, the famous documentary filmmaker, has a sign in his studio that says, “It’s complicated.” As he works to bring history to life, he has to wrestle with great complexities and strive to make them simply understood. 

Our world is full of breakneck innovation, competing ideologies, diverse cultures, and countless causes all seeking to address the world’s problems. As these distinct forces get mixed together, they become a big ball of string with no discernable beginning or end. 

What is the answer to this frustrating reality? The Missional Innovator Network believes that collaboration holds the key. We define collaboration as “Coming together to get things done.” 

Here are three ways that collaboration addresses complexity:

1. Integrated Perspective: When distinct people from different organizations, cultures and contexts come together, they bring different perspectives to the work. By coming together each person offers up their perspective to the effort and the problem gets looked at from each of those perspectives. This effort to look at the problem from different angles, overcomes some of the complexity because the nuance is understood by those around the table.
   
   

2. More Bandwidth: Collaborating throws more people, skills and hours at the problem . . . plain and simple. Many times the complexity simply requires more time and effort to overcome. That might be hard to do for one organization or individual. But in collaboration with others, they might just have the bandwidth to find the answer.
   
   

3. Expanded Opportunities: One of the keys to overcoming complexity is simply being able to run more experiments in different settings in order to identify the right solutions. When we collaborate around solutions, we expand the potential opportunities to test our solution to the problem. Multiple people and organizations will bring varied and new opportunities to the effort. As we test our solutions in different contexts, the complexities will fade as patterns emerge. 

Do you want to gain new perspectives, more bandwidth and greater opportunities? Consider joining the Missional Innovator Network for some unique events in 2026. We will be hosting Missional Innovator Colab Days in select cities across the United States. These days will be designed to address complex challenges through the lens of collaboration.