Summary of Leadership and the New Science

Summary of Leadership and the New Science

CRM Learning

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Introduction
In our busy work life, we are trying to manage the unmanageable and predict the unpredictable. We make all sorts of attempts to control chaos which, in fact, is managing or controlling us! While order appears to be missing in the environments in which we work and live, the natural world has an abundance of order. For example, a cloud is a natural system that changes shapes continuously, responds quickly to powerful unseen forces, and suspends 50 million gallons of water in virtual mid-air. All of this happens without one single organizational chart!
Dr. Margaret Wheatley, an Associate Professor of Business and the author of the book Leadership and the New Science, looks at natural systems such as clouds and streams for new insights into our organizational life. She indicated that she was impressed about the diversity of forms such as sand, water, grass, silt, and rocks that are part of a mountain stream. She observed that they all work together because they are each capable of change over time, yet each fulfills the function it was designed to accomplish. Nature is capable of complexity and enormous diversity.
With these thoughts in mind, Dr. Wheatley challenged us to think about what might be the structure of an organization that would lend itself to tremendous flexibility and adaptability. Before we pursue this line of thinking, we have to consider that most of us work in organizations that are built on 17th century thinking in which the focus is on the parts rather than on the whole. Throughout the centuries, we have focused on putting the parts together to arrive at an efficient operation. We have divided the organization, the people, and the work they are to accomplish into parts. We have viewed people as cogs in the machinery of the organization. We left it to the managers to integrate all of these pieces into a smoothly functioning machine. No machine has the ability to change and flex as the current day environment shifts. Cumbersome bureaucracies and complex hierarchies don’t lend themselves to ever changing environments.
Where should we look for a new model that would allow the flexibility and capacity for change that is characteristic of 21st century organizations? Dr. Wheatley challenges us to look deeply into recent discoveries in the new sciences—a world where intriguing discoveries are shattering our old concepts of the universe. The new sciences include chaos theory, evolutionary biology, quantum mechanics, and field theory. We are urged to play with these new ideas rather than view them as prescriptions, or steps, or absolutes. Dr. Wheatley encourages us to use these new discoveries to frame our thinking about organizations, to think together in new ways, and be willing to support our joint experimentations. We have to think together, share expertise, and work in new relationships in order to capitalize on our collective wisdom.
Chaos Theory:
The new sciences change our field of vision. We focus on the whole rather than on the parts or the moment-to-moment. This focus on the whole leads us to a better understanding of chaos. The original work on chaos theory was derived from scientists trying to make long term predictions about the weather using powerful computers and complex modeling techniques. When the scientists tried to apply the models, they discovered that minute happenings as the flutter of butterfly wings could influence the weather thousands of miles away. Even though long term weather predictability was impossible, they did discover that when these models were plotted in depth and in detail over time, the behavior of the model adhered to a certain boundary and certain patterns, called strange attractors emerged. These patterns or recurring shapes that never end are called the footprints of chaos. While we don’t understand these patterns, their very existence points to some unseen order. What might appear chaotic and disorganized may be a manifestation of a very natural transition to a new state of organization. Chaos may be one of many ways that nature creates new levels of order from within. Chaos is order without predictability!
What does this mean for organizations? As noted earlier, we are very good at studying the parts and we do not step back and see if there are any patterns that emerge. We fear chaos! We see it as a loss of control. We coerce team members into conformity to some hastily drawn-up plan that stifles contributions of real solutions to the problems of today’s organizations. In today’s organizations, we need to agree on the values the organization holds, determine what we want to accomplish, and let our team members have the freedom to collaborate to find the solutions that work. In other words, we need to let them find patterns that lead to solutions!
Chaos is the natural process by which systems constantly renew and revitalize themselves. How does this apply to us personally? Most people have experienced personal chaos at some point in their lives. Unless we are willing to plunge into chaos and let go of “the way it is”, we never achieve a sense of calm, peace, understanding, and a feeling of being able to handle life. Chaos is part of the process by which life creates new order and levels of understanding.
Information:
Information forms and informs us! New advances in evolutionary biology are shedding new light on our understanding of genetics. In natural living systems, information is the source of change. It provides for growth, is the primary organizing principle of the universe, and is the life-blood of an organization. Information is one of the primary organizing forces in nature.
In our 17th century organizations, information is considered a hallmark of power! It is held tightly, controlled, and pieced out only to a few chosen individuals who have the right clearance, etc. Information is a tightly guarded secret! Information is the source of energy that leads to adaptability and reorganization. To create change in organizations, we need abundant access to information. If we stop the flow of information, we stifle the potential to act with the environment and create new solutions. When two people who do not work together normally are put together, new ideas and new information are created.
Relationships:
Quantum mechanics has led scientists to understand that light is either a particle or a wave depending upon the sort of relationship in which it is involved. We don’t know who we are, what we think, or how we will respond until we meet up with another person, event, or idea and form a relationship! We are either made or broken by our relationships. The rich diversity of human relationships is an energizing force for us. We long for community, for meaning, and for dignity in our organizational lives. Our behavior in the workplace is influenced by our relationships. Different setting and people evoke some qualities and leave some others dormant. In each relationship we are different. The power in organizations is generated by the relationships individuals form as they seek to accomplish goals.
Vision:
Vision can be thought of as a field. The similarities to the magnetic field are apparent. The field is something invisible yet it has broad and significant impacts. Organizations have invisible forces that are observable only by the behavior of the employees. Have you ever walked into an office or a store and known immediately what was going on, how you would be treated, and what others thought about you? From where did this come? What types of activities and focus do we need to communicate the vision of our organization? The vision of an organization is not created by the team leader or the CEO. Vision emerges from relationships, from the thinking together and interactions of the people on the team.
Using the new sciences as the framework of our thinking about how things work in life and in organizations requires us to question the way we do things. In this questioning, we have to change our beliefs and behaviors about information, relationships, control, and chaos. Dr. Wheatley encourages us to view:
▪	The role of chaos or order without predictability as an essential process by which we ourselves and our organizations renew and revitalize ourselves.
▪	The position of information as the primary organizing force in any organization or professional setting.
▪	The rich diversity of human relationships as the greatest source of strength, creative energy, and personal empowerment for us as individuals and as leaders.
▪	The role of vision as an invisible field that can enable us to recreate our workplaces and our world.

Note: An alternative to using this summary in the Reflective Human Action Leadership Workshop, the video, Leadership and the New Science, may be borrowed from the Kappa Omicron Nu office—info@kon.org. (Care should be taken of this video as its value is $800.)

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