Driving in India

A friend sent me this video the other day. It's wildly compelling to watch in an almost funny sort of way. In fact, I think some of you will watch it waiting to see a horrible crash. However, I want you to look at it from an organizational behavior standpoint. I think there are some lessons here. Give it a go and see what lessons you can draw.

Driving in India

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This is an excellent example of organizational behavior based on ideas borrowed from systems thinking and complexity theory. However, before I get started, and because we're so early in the lifecycle of this blog, let me explain something.

I've long been a proponent of looking at life, especially organizational life, through the "lenses" of complexity theory and systems theory. That is, using those theories as metaphor for understanding how organizations work.

I'll get further into the details of that concept as I post more to this blog. For now, consider the possibility that one will get richer, more complex behavior out of a system governed by a few simple rules than one will get out of a system governed by an over-abundance of complicated rules.

In this video you see a system governed by a few simple rules. Perhaps rules such as: take turns, fill the voids, avoid collisions (maybe that one's too obvious), all entities (vehicles and pedestrians) have equal right of way, etc. But very efficient, no? And surprisingly safe - at least for the 2 minutes and fourteen seconds of the video.

What do you think would happen if they threw in a trffic light? A turn lane? Imposed a 'No U-Turn' rule?

I'm looking forward to your comments.