1. Occupy Complexity: Using Complexity To Examine The
Occupy Wall St. Movement
Brian Davenport
ABSTRACT
The Occupy Wall St. movement started off slowly in
September of 2011. After a few short weeks,
however, it appeared to be everywhere. This
movement, which seemed to come out of nothing
before spreading across the planet, has a great deal
to offer the careful observer. By looking at the
history of the Occupy Wall St. movement and its
emergence out of a chaotic and complex
environment, it will become apparent that there is
much we can learn from complexity science that
can be applied to this movement. Additionally, we
will see that these lessons also have important
implications in leadership.
OBJECTIVE?
COMPARING TWO EVENTS IN ZUCCOTTI PARK
Empire State Rebellion
Date: June 14, 2011
Objective: Occupy Zuccotti Park
Attendance: 4 People
Occupy Wall St.
Date: September 17, 2011
Objective: Occupy Zuccotti Park
Attendance: ≈ 2,000 People
WHAT CHANGED?
EXTERNAL FACTORS
It is important to understand the external forces
that have an impact on any given social system
(Castellani & Hafferty, 2009).
•National unemployment rate was at 9.1% and had
been over 9% for just over two years. There hasn’t
been an unemployment rate over 9% since 1983
(Bureau of Labor Statistics).
• Success of the “Arab Spring”. After seeing the
success of the numerous revolutions that took place
in North Africa, it only makes sense that a
frustrated populace would see beginning a protest
movement as a viable option.
INDEPENDENT AGENTS
• Independent agents are necessary for complex
realities to emerge (Castellani & Hafferty, 2009;
Plowman & Duchon, 2008).
• For any idea to truly spread a few select types of
people need to be involved performing specific
functions, people he called connectors, mavens,
and salesmen (Gladwell, 2002).
• Connector: Someone who knows a lot of people in
different social groups.
• Adbusters served as the connector (see
image at left)
• Mavens: People who are “information specialists”.
• David Graeber introduced the idea of the
general assembly to the people who were
early participators in the planning of
Occupy Wall St.
• Salesmen: People “with the skill to persuade us
when we are unconvinced of what we are hearing”.
• For the Occupy Wall St. movement this role
was played by a group of hacktavists known
collectively as Anonymous.
•Specific agents, not specific people, are necessary
for an idea or a movement to emerge from the
complexity.
RESEARCH POSTER PRESENTATION DESIGN © 2011
www.PosterPresentations.com
IMPACT OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY
• The connection of independent agents is essential
to the emergence of complex adaptive systems.
• The use of the general assembly in the Occupy
Wall St. movement allowed for each person, or
node, involved in the movement to communicate
with other nodes.
• “Each person in a network is a “node” and
through talk and interaction “connections” among
the nodes are formed. The addition of new nodes or
changes in the nature of the connections between
the nodes can lead to changes that have enormous
consequence” (Plowman & Duchon, 2008 p. 132).
• If a problem couldn’t be solved in the general
assembly, a working committee was formed to
continue working on the problem with the goal of
reporting back to the general assembly (Bennett,
2011).
• Each social system is compiled from networks of
attracting clusters.
• The working committees allowed for the creation
of attracting clusters around specific ideas
• General Assemblies and working committees
allowed for process wisdom (Vaill, 1998).
• This process wisdom allowed the Occupy Wall St.
movement to develop a system that facilitates intime responses to both internal and external
stimuli.
• This allowed for a positive response to the
disequilibrium created by numerous external stimuli
and the injection of new energy into the system.
LEADERSHIP IMPLICATIONS
For leaders, it is important to understand that
people will interact in organizations. As discussed
earlier, people begin to cluster around one another
and this allows for the exchange of ideas. These
clusters cannot be forced, and are often not what is
expected. When these clusters arise, they will react
to changes in the system, or to disequilibrium, and
the outcome cannot be predicted. It is important,
however, to remember that rather than being a bad
things, disequilibrium injects energy into a system
and can allow for adaptation and creativity.
Because of this reality it is important for leaders to
know that disequilibrium is not something to be
avoided at all costs, but instead is to be seen as
something that can be an asset to the organization,
resulting in innovations that might have otherwise
never been possible.
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Castellani, B. & Hafferty, F. (2009). Sociology and complexity
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Bennett, D. (2011, October 31-November 6). Who’s behind the
mask. Bloomberg Businessweek, 4254, 64-69.
Bureau of Labor Statistics (2011). Unemployment rate [Data File].
Retrieved from http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/surveymost.
Gladwell, M. (2002). The tipping point: How little things can make
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Schell, J. (2011, November 7). The beginning is here. The Nation,
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Schneider, N. (2011, October 31). From occupy Wall Street to
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Vaill, P. B. (1996). Learning as a way of being: Strategies for
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Vaill, P. B. (1998). The unspeakable texture of process wisdom. In
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Special thanks to Dr. Caroline Fu for introducing me
to the world of complexity and encouraging me to
seek publication for this work.
As always, thanks to Nika for her continued love
and support.