Change: Chaos or Opportunity?

Article that appeared in The New Leaf ™.

How does your organization view change? Many organizations unconsciously approach change from a mechanistic point of view. The ideal organization runs like a well-oiled machine, and changes are acceptable only if they are engineered, controlled, predictable. In addition, change is generally a top-down process; management plans, the workers are expected to execute.

In practice, this model fails repeatedly. There is too much information at large in the world today, too many interrelating processes, too many shifts in the marketplace, for change to be a highly engineered and managed process. Workers resent edicts from on high, and are capable of creating logjams in the flow of products and services.

What's a manager (or a worker) to do? Embrace chaos? Well, yes. Increasing numbers of organizational development consultants, management trainers and business visionaries are doing just that. They realize that order is not the opposite of chaos, rather order is implicit in so-called chaotic structures. More and more leaders are coming to grips with the fact that the best way to maximize the benefits of change and minimize the costs is to -- as the old adage says -- go with the flow.

This week, in On The Web and Recommended Reading, youll find resources for expand your thinking about change, order and chaos. I hope you'll take up the challenge to think in new ways about whatís up with your own organization.

A special word to those who are frustrated by management: one of the most exciting principles of chaos theory is that a tiny change in one element of a system can cause huge repercussions. Donít think for a moment that you are unimportant or powerless. No matter where you are in the organizational hierarchy, you have the capacity to catalyze remarkable and far reaching change.