PART I –
Summary
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. 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 and is both a
breath of fresh air and a monumental challenge to organizations to rethink and
change how they view organizational structure, leadership, and individuals.
Wheatley purports to search for “a simpler way to lead organizations,” but
introduces a new level of complexity to the leadership equation that, while
making me cheer out loud personally, may cause some to shake their heads in
puzzled wonder. It’s one thing to introduce ideas to human consciousness. It’s
quite another to put those ideas into practice. However long it takes for Wheatley’s
ideas to be translated into practical form, it will be well worth the wait.
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. Wheatley introduces the concept that principles underlying
organizational structure can and should be equated to recently-discovered
principles governing the subatomic world of quantum physics. She observes that
“science has changed”—or at least our understanding of science has changed—and
our understanding of the principles of organization should change accordingly.
The backdrop for this analysis is the collective reality of the current
organizational world that is divided into parts and hierarchies, where
communication breakdowns and process failures are the daily norm. The end
result (and the current reality) is continual dissatisfaction and stress.
If, as
Wheatley says, we can begin to see things differently, perhaps we can begin to
do things differently as well. Wheatley’s first controversial assertion is that
systems should be “understood as whole systems, and attention given to
relationships within those networks” rather than to the individual parts. The
organizational world is likened to the quantum world where “relationship is the
key determiner of everything” and where subatomic particles “come into form and
are observed only as they are in relationship to something else” rather than as
“independent ‘things.’”
This view of
organizations as integrated, organic systems is just now emerging in corporate
consciousness. It stands in stark contrast to what Wheatley calls a “Newtonian”
orientation where boundaries, predictability, and individual expression are
considered key factors essential to order and corresponding success. According
to Wheatley, the Newtonian view is out-of-date and inaccurate at both subatomic
and organizational levels.
In contrast
to this outdated Newtonian orientation, Wheatley sees organization structure as
a “world of relationships” that is “rich and complex” and where
“predictability” is traded for “potentials,” as is the case in the quantum
world. In Wheatley’s organizational world, as in the quantum world, no single
individual exists independent of his or her relationships with others. In both
worlds, there are both individual components and relationships, and neither
exists without the other.
“To live in
a quantum world, to weave here and there with ease and grace, we need to change
what we do,” Wheatley writes. “We need fewer descriptions of tasks and instead
learn how to facilitate process. We need to become savvy about how to foster
relationships, how to nurture growth and development. All of us need to become
better at listening, conversing, respecting one another’s uniqueness, because
these are essential for strong relationships. The era of the rugged individual
has been replaced by the era of the team player…. The quantum world has
demolished the concept that we are unconnected individuals….Every organization power
is purely relational.” Arguably, understanding this phenomenon is essential not
only to comprehending how things happen in the real world, but also to
translating what might otherwise be regarded as failures into opportunities and
creative processes.
Out of this
new organizational view, principles arise that leaders can potentially use to
govern organizations more effectively. For instance, whereas creating a mission
or vision statement is generally seen as identifying a desired state or
ultimate destination, rather it should be seen as “creating a power” that
“permeate[s] through the entire organization as a vital influence on the
behavior of all employees,” according to Wheatley. In this sense, vision and
mission is more present than future, and more about who we are than what we
hope to accomplish. This takes the focus off of outcome and places it more on
means, which is a decidedly deontological shift in contrast to the business
world’s generally more utilitarian stance.
Another
principle that emerges is the view that because organizations, like subatomic
systems, are self-correcting, chaos, failures, and other events or phenomena
otherwise be deemed in a negative light actually set the stage for more
positive developments. What matters is participation and engagement, as well as
all the methods we use to facilitate interactive, coordinating elements in
organizational settings. Equilibrium is no longer the goal, and dissipation is
no longer the enemy. Process is everything, and adaptability is the pathway for
process.
“We do not
have to fear disequilibrium, nor do we have to approach change so fearfully.
Instead, we can realize that, like all life, we know how to grow and evolve in
the midst of constant flux,” she writes. This implies that managers should no
longer be pressured to impose control, constrict individual employee freedom,
or inhibit change. In fact, all attempts at imposing rigid, outdated ideas of
order may actually prevent it. Individuals need freedom to think, express, and
relate for themselves.
“It is not
difficult to recognize ourselves as electrons in organizations, moving, merging
with others, forming new wholes, being forever changed in the process,” she
states. This can happen because “we live in an intrinsically well-ordered universe.”
The bonds that form these new wholes occur as a result of the exchange of
information among individuals and within organizations, making communication
the ultimate means to Wheatley’s glorious end.
In a sense,
Wheatley introduces a new era of “scientific management” that no longer treats
work and workers as an “engineering problem” but instead sees them as essential
aspects of the greater “participatory nature of reality” that, quite simply,
encompasses information and relationships. This view rejects a mechanistic
world of efficiency, obedience, and standard operating procedures, which
Wheatley regards as a “manmade, dangerous fiction that destroys our capacity to
deal well with what’s really going on.” She makes her case by pointing out the
difference between how organizations function in the day-to-day and how they
function when faced with crisis or disaster. In essence, they tend to become
“incapacitated by the very means they normally use to get things done—chains of
command, designated leaders, policies, procedures, plans, regulations, and
laws.” Instead, small, efficient, self-organized groups quickly form that make
sure immediate needs are met and resources get where they need to go.
Interestingly, these small networks function both to build up, as when disaster
strikes, and to tear down, as when terrorism strikes. Either way, real
“progress” occurs at the “subatomic” level at every level of reality.
PART II –
Application
If Wheatley
is right, then one of the most important takeaways is that faith has a place in
the business world. It’s my impression that Wheatley has seen the face of God
and failed to recognize it. She is, in essence, like the moose she describes,
hiding behind a skinny tree, thinking it can’t be seen and staring cross-eyed at
the tree while ignoring the larger reality. Whatever our eyes fixate on, we
see. Perhaps she has swung the pendulum back from the extreme of the Newtonian
era to another extreme in terms of understanding organizational structure. For
me, it is a call to stand back and look at the bigger picture, and that bigger
picture encompasses all I have come to know about God and His intervention in
human affairs, including those things Wheatley reveals about Him, however
unwittingly.
My renewed
faith in the Creator of adaptive, orderly, self-correcting organizational
systems causes me personally to commit to avoiding a habitual fall into
panicked, knee-jerk reactions. The “system” of life itself is set up to
cooperate and to achieve certain ends despite change and flux. In this I can
trust, and that includes in the business world. If I truly believe that God is
in control, that belief must play out in my business plans and actions. It
should result in a level of calm that is generally nonexistent in most business
settings. It should also empower me to
be the kind of leader that I personally admire most—a transformational leader
who pays attention to the concerns and needs of those I lead; who helps them
gain awareness of issues by helping them look at old problems in new ways; and
who excites and inspires them to achieve larger goals.
This changed
perspective on leadership fits with self-assessment tests I’ve taken recently
that indicate my preference for organic organizational structures. In my view,
leadership is merely enhanced participation. In that sense, I will be more
willing to work “in the trenches,” so to speak, even when I find myself in
formal leadership positions. I will value the network and the synergy of the
network over personal, individual achievement, recognizing that I cannot
function as a distinct island, no matter how hard I try.
These ideas
have inspired me to reassign value to various workplace elements. It is easy to
see people and events as hurdles and roadblocks rather than as partners and
opportunities. My changed view on organizational structure necessitates a
changed view on organizational “structures” or elements. If I expect harmonious
results from coordinated efforts, I am more likely to realize such results, and
everyone can benefit from my reformed expectations. If chaos and instability
are stepping stones to change and newly formed processes, I don’t have to stand
in the way. The underlying order that characterizes the evolving processes will
not disappear, regardless of my attitudes or actions, so I need not throw
myself in the path of oncoming threats to save the day. My plans need not
dictate pathways to specific outcomes, particularly in light of the fact that
God’s plans are greater, and His ways are not my ways.
This view is
especially pertinent to how I regard “human resources,” practically and conceptually.
Wheatley says, “As we learn to live and work in this process world, we are
rewarded with other changes in our behavior. I believe we become gentler
people. We become more curious about differences, more respectful of one
another, more open to life’s surprises. It’s not that we become either more
hopeful or pessimistic, but we do become more patient and accepting.” That is
as it should be. In my experience, this metamorphosis happens with age in
general. Admittedly, though, it may be a result of deliberate, individual
choice. Some harden and jade with age. Others become softer and kinder,
regardless of context. Choice dictates whether we participate in networks that
build up or ones that tear down.
Reading
Wheatley’s book reinforced my personal commitment to teach and write from a
Christian perspective, shedding additional light on the deeper implications of
these “new”—yet very old—realities. Current generations still, to some degree,
reject the idea of interconnectedness and interdependence in the natural world,
much less the business world. They are trained to euthanize and dissect organic
things into parts and pieces, and to learn about life in neatly-sliced
disciplines. They leave school with a suitcase full of sliced-and-diced dead
realities that cannot be put back together again by all the king’s horses and
all the king’s men. They fail to study organizations in their living, organic,
interconnected form. As such, they graduate unprepared to function organically
within those organizations. This “problem” fuels my vision for living and
teaching.
As Wheatley
points out, information generates life, just as the Word of God spoke the
universe into existence long ago. I agree with Wheatley that we “need to have
information coursing through our systems, disturbing the peace, imbuing
everything it touches with the possibility of new life. We need, therefore, to
develop new approaches to information—not management but encouragement, not
control but genesis.” This helps define my role as an educator and as a conduit
of information relative to organizations. Wheatley points out that any system
that has the capacity to process information possesses the quality of
intelligence, whether or not there is any discernment of that process.
“Intelligence is a property that emerges when a certain level of organization
is reached which enables the system to process information,” she writes. “ The
greater the ability to process information, the greater the level of
intelligence.” As such, my job as an educator is to facilitate the processing
of information, equipping minds to process information to better prepare them
to participate in life. It is also my job to introduce them to awareness of
this process, thereby introducing them to the One who created it. In so doing,
I better prepare them for both the surprises and predictabilities of life.
Ultimately,
I have been empowered by these ideas to relax in the downward spiral into
entropy that is inevitable in this iteration of life. I have been granted only
so much usable energy, and at some point a disturbance must occur, and matter
and energy must be exchanged. I can accomplish only so much, and can find peace
in recognizing that, in the end, it will have been enough. In change, there is
growth. Stability is not the goal—at least not yet. This world has not yet
reached a settled state that any of us would want to be stuck with for
eternity. Change is welcome, and transformation brings hope that someday matter
and information will finally come together exactly as the Lord originally
planned it, and the end result will be eternal life.
