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| Planners
as Nonlinear and Complex Explorers
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| Planners as "Noise Makers" The Utilization of Random Events in Complex Systems Besides its crucial role in adaptation, randomness has been understood as a powerful source of the new structures (e.g., dissipative structures) emerging during the process of self-organization (Nicolis, 1989). Examples of such emergent structures are the hexagonal cells arising in the Benard liquid when a critical temperature is reached, or the life-like patterns emerging in cellular automata and random boolean networks. Random events are unpredictable, unplanned occurrences that a system, under a far-from- equilibrium condition or unstable state (i.e., near bifurcation), will notice, respond to, and amplify as a major component of the new emergent structures. For example, the hexagonal convection cells emerging in the Benard system are partially the result of the amplification of random currents in the liquid so that the specific directionality of the emerging convection cells is unpredictable. According to Prigogine and Nicolis (1989), nothing in the experimental set-up permits a prediction beforehand of the state that will eventually ensue: "Only chance, in the form of the particular perturbation that may have prevailed at the moment of the experiment, will decide..." (p. 14).
The planner as Trickster
would act to first turn the bowl inside out by challenging the assumptions of the current
attractor, and, then, stand on top of the peaked bowl on the right to facilitate the
influence of random events in pushing the system away from its current attractor. |
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Principles
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If a system is open to the effect of random events to the point where it can undergo modification of key aspects of its processes and structures, then the system may be able be more adaptive to the environment as it changes. Indeed, random-inspired reorganizations may represent an evolutionary response of the system to changes in the environment but only if the system is in vital contact with its environments (Allen, 1988). This vital contact is what enables the system to try out its new modifications in the changed environment. Moreover, Allen and McGlade (1985) state that in order to learn about the world around them, it may be the random departures of systems from norm-seeking, average behavior which are decisive. Nicolis (1989) has evidence that permanent and rigid structures or processes in a system which is interacting with an unpredictable environment will bring the system to a less than optimal condition. Whereas, a system which has a high rate of unpredictable explorations (i.e., influenceable by random occurrences of its unpredictable environment) can develop temporary structures or processes suitable for any occasion that may arise. Furthermore, chaos and complexity, according to the physicist Robert Shaw, turn out to be a generators par excellence of information which can be understood as a potent mixture of randomness and redundancy (Shaw, 1981). Shaw interprets the source of this new information as a matter of the transfer of information from a micro-to a macro-scale. The chaotic attractor magnifies the random occurrences on the microscale upwards into novel information available to the system on a macroscale. According to the physicist Joseph Ford (1989): "chaos is dynamics freed from the shackles of order and predictability. It permits systems to randomly explore their every dynamical possibility" (p. 354). In fact, randomness permits the emergence of real novelty in a complex
system because by its very nature a random event is unpredictable and not the result of a
pre-set plan (for then it wouldn't be random). Consequently, randomness seems to be a
necessary component at some stage in the process of organization innovation. For if
innovations are truly novel they must be unpredictable and what better source of
unpredictability is there besides randomness? Similarly, in an interesting parallel, it
has been repeatedly pointed out that unplanned events (i.e., random) have often played a
crucial role in scientific discoveries (Austin, 1977). Examples are numerous: the
discovery of penicillin, radioactivity, Teflon, and so on. Perhaps, the process of
scientific discovery can be understood along the lines of self-organizing systems. In both
cases, that of organizational innovation and scientific discovery, randomness can function
serendipitously in the formation of new, possibly more adaptive modifications of
pre-existing patterns. But of course, the organization or the scientist must be open to
and ready to make use of the random event. As Pasteur once said, "Chance favors the
prepared mind" Ñ therefore, the organization must be primed to take advantage of the
random event, and such priming is one of the roles of the leader/planner as a Trickster.
Tricksters help make a system unstable in order for innovation to emerge. This is
certainly a far cry from the traditional role of leaders as organization stabilizers.
Certainly, there is a time for stability, but there is also a time for instability, and
when organizations find themselves in an unpredictable environment, it is likely a time
for instability and here is where the Trickster can play a major role. |
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Planning and Serendipitous "Noise" Making Random events in organizations are what Ciborra
(et. al., 1984) call organizational "noise", i.e., phenomena occurring in or
around the organization that are usually ignored and whose effects are presumed to be
restrained by organizational control mechanisms. But, in unstable conditions
"organizational noise" may assume a critical role in the evolution of the system
through nonlinear amplification and self-organizational processes (Goldstein, 1994). But,
of course, because emergent patterns result from random effects, they cannot be predicted,
nor can it be established ahead of time just what particular "organizational
noise" will have a transformative rather than disorganizing effect. The role of
planners, then, could be that of facilitating an organization's experimentation with
noise. Figuratively speaking, planners would be acting like Trickster-inspired "noise
makers" (e.g., children and adults on New Year's Eve making a lot of noise, the
louder and more cacophonous, the better). This means that leader/planners as Tricksters
would aid an organization in exploring its "noisy" elements, events that
spontaneously depart from the norm, and instead of the normal attempt to dampen the
effects of such noisy elements, actually amplify these effects. |
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But
this means that planners would simultaneously need to facilitate those unstable conditions
that allow noise to have an impact. Again, this is a Trickster role in upsetting the apple
cart. The author of this article (Goldstein, 1994) has discussed such methods for
generating instability under the term, borrowed from Prigogine, far- from-equilibrium
conditions. Examples of such Trickster noise-making would included methods that highlight
the differing ideas and attitudes existing among people in a work group (not generating
conflict but admitting it is there and utilizing its tremendous energy), or that challenge
currently held deep beliefs about what an organization is and how it should function, or
that upset the apple-cart by the facilitation of what seem absurd or foolish activities
(again see Goldstein, 1994, Chapter 10). |
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Along the same lines, following Shaw's lead about the transfer of information from micro- to macro-scales, planners can expedite processes in a business for magnifying the creative endeavors of its individual members and incorporating these creative ideas and actions into the macro-scale of how the organization does its business. Included in such Trickster tricks is also the technique of Wicked Questions suggested by the organizational complexity researcher Brenda Zimmerman (see Zimmerman in this volume).
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