A633.5.3.RB_SiegmundWayne

Reflections on Chaos

     Obolensky's (2008), Who Needs Leaders? was a phenomenal exercise in showing how complexity can be seen as a chaotic dance of indeterminate inter-activities of agents at one level. The individuals took Obolensky's direction to select two other individuals as reference points without ever letting on who they are while moving about within the confines of the space provided, keeping equidistant from each others' selected reference points until all agents have settled into a balance of meeting their objective in relation to everyone else. Then, my thoughts went down a rabbit hole when Obolensky asked what would happen if he had selected one person to be in charge! Everyone began laughing, at what I could only imagine be for the same reason I was laughing. It would have been a messy and near impossible task for any one person to control all agents as they moved, attempting to control each three-agent group as they constantly shift and move, being affected by other three-agent groups.

     Considering how the dynamic, complex and unpredictable behavior of Obolensky's  (2008), groups may appear at varying levels, I can see how each three agent group creates an ever-changing series of geometrical shapes that intertwine with all other three agent groups moving about within and without these other elements placing forces on one another which in turn will determine the course of all the other three agent groups. At one level, the groups may simply represent people milling about where their location affects everybody elses schedules in time and space. At another level, these individuals could represent decisions made within an organization and understanding that each decision has an affect upon many other agents and decision being made by them that would render unpredictable results. In the ways of chaos, in a complex system, each part has the potential to randomly shift between order and disorder, rendering a forecast unpredictable (Mulder, 2016).

     Trying to picture how these three agent groups would fare when attempting to accomplish their objective; to find themselves individually equidistant from one another, while being controlled and micromanaged by a single leader seemed as if it would make a beautiful and fluid complex environment into a truly chaotic dynamic with little to no fractal representation. Mason stated, "By allowing people and groups within an organization some autonomy, businesses encourage the organization to organize itself, enacting multiple iterations of its own functioning until the various pieces of the organization can work together most effectively" (n.d.). A single leader cannot be everywhere at the same time, and in fact, would benefit by having 'other' leaders steer the course of their own piece of the organization, by focusing on accomplishing objectives in relation to all other potential stakeholders, obstacles, and opportunities in support of the overall organization's vision.

     This brings me to another consideration; the perception of the existence of chaos in a dynamic complex environment. If these environments are proven to show mathematical order of sorts, then how chaotic can it be? If chaos lacks order by definition, and order is discovered to be an underlying phenomenon within these environments over time, then perhaps chaos actually does not exist in these environments, and is only used to vaguely describe an unpredictable environment. In contrast, the Fractal Foundation (n.d.), claims that chaos is not simply disorder, but rather investigates the changes between order and disorder, and can occur in very surprising ways.

     If leadership can understand the value of the underlying order found in many of these nonlinear, dynamic, complex environments, it would only seem to make sense that they would adjust their approach on strategy using the concept that the sum of the parts is greater than the whole. If an organization is looked at only from a single reference point (oligarchical leadership), how can all the sub-systems of an organization ever truly grow over time? Levy (1994), explains, "The notion that long-term planning for chaotic systems is not only difficult but essentially impossible has profound implications for organizations trying to set strategy based on their anticipation of the future" (p. 170). However, on the other hand, he states, "Short-term forecasting is possible because in a deterministic system, given the condition at time 't,' we can calculate the conditions at time 't+1' " (Levy, 1994, p. 171). While some implications on strategy may be tough to derive, others can play vital roles during times of uncertainty and in need of resiliency. In the end, I feel the greatest takeaway is to understand that small events initially within the dynamics of a nonlinear complex environment can render very big results over time that cannot easily be forecasted, and that strategies based on this understanding can help mitigate large losses.


References:


Obolensky, N. (2008, April 12). Who needs leaders? Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41QKeKQ2O3E&feature=youtu.be


Obolensky, N. (2010). Complex adaptive leadership: Embracing paradox and uncertainty. Surrey, EN: Ashgate Publishing Inc.


Fractal Foundation (n.d.). What is chaos theory? Retrieved from http://fractalfoundation.org/resources/what-is-chaos-theory/


Levy, D. (1994). Chaos theory and strategy: Theory application and managerial implications. Strategic Management Journal, 15. 167-178. Retrieved from https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/c5db/10f69cf4a47101620905d1dcca43bb7d329a.pdf


Mason, W. H. (n.d.). Chaos theory. Retrieved from http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/management/Bun-Comp/Chaos-Theory.html


Mulder, P. (2016, June 21). Chaos theory. Retrieved from https://www.toolshero.com/strategy/chaos-theory/