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| Planners
as Nonlinear and Complex Explorers
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Planners as Foolish Trekkers In his N/K Models, Kauffman identified situations in fitness landscapes where low values of the K parameter (representing coupling among traits) lead to adaptive modifications getting trapped in local minima and thereby never arriving at peaks with adequate fitness. This is analogous to organizations or work groups getting stuck in equilibrium attractors which Goldstein (1994) blames on the presence of self-fulfilling prophecies which link organizational attitudes, expectations, behaviors, and results in vicious circles. For example, a self-fulfilling prophecy may link an organization's sense of identity and its market with actions congruent with those "prophecies" and which lead to results which confirm the original expectation. Self-fulfilling prophecies, though, can trap the organization or work group on very suboptimal short peaks. To free adaptive processes from
their entrapment in local peaks, Kauffman has suggested a certain amount of "foolish
adaptation" or "going the wrong way" referring to going down instead of up
peaks. That is, to get to a peak with a higher adaptive value, first there must be a
descent from a lower peak. As Maguire puts it, an escape from suboptimal peaks opens up
the possibility of a uphill path to higher fitness peaks (Maguire, p. 13). Kauffman points
to simulated annealing in models in condensed matter physics which is a kind of thermal
bath which loosens up this kind of entrapment process. Again, the analogy is to
far-from-equilibrium conditions in organizations which serve to interrupt those
self-fulfilling prophecies which trap organizational functioning in suboptimal routines. |
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Hence,
organizational planning can include the encouragement of a type of foolish adaptive walks.
Here, planners in their Trickster role would facilitate a work group to "go the wrong
way", do things unexpected and out of the ordinary even though these activities seem
to be counterproductive to achieving the organization's goals. From a linear and simple
perspective, this sounds like sheer idiocy, even dangerous to an organization's success.
Yet, "going the wrong way" is precisely what creativity specialists often
call-for. For example, participants in creativity seminars are often encouraged to go on
excursions away from, even in opposite directions, to what they think they should be doing
(Gordon, 1961). These foolish excursions or treks tend to loosen the grip of familiar and
comfortable walks in creativity space. |
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In terms of organizational planning, such foolish treks could consist of conducing meetings where, instead of good ideas, foolish notions for strategies could be entertained. (This after all is what "brainstorming" is supposed to facilitate but often doesn't because of strong pressure for group conformity). But foolish notions need not only be entertained in fantasy, planners as Tricksters need to try out some of these foolish directions. Again, because we don't have a God's Eye view of the future, complex systems need to experiment a great deal, and sometimes, with modifications of existing practices that at first sight seem foolish.
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