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Book Review
New science and management
LEADERSHIP AND THE NEW SCIENCE — Discovering Order in a Chaotic World (First Indian Edition): Margaret J. Wheatley; Viva Books Pvt. Ltd., 17, Aziz Mulk Seventh Street, Thousand Lights, Chennai-600006. Published by arrangement with Berret-Koehler Publishers Inc., 450, Sansome Street, Suite 1200, San Francisco CA 94111-3320. Price not mentioned.
THERE IS good reason to believe that the "New Science" which Ms. Margaret Wheatley is writing about and the demands it has been making on the "leadership" capable of perceiving and interpreting them, had actually emerged in the earlier decades of the last century itself with Albert Einstein's formulation of the Theory of Relativity.
The heights of imagination and understanding to which scientists have to rise for going ahead with a discovery already made could be seen from the world having had to wait for more than two centuries for the arrival of Einstein to proceed further on Newton's trail for getting an integrated view of the space-time continuum.
What this continuum is like came out in a stunning perception by a scientist: "The Universe is not more mysterious than we imagine. It is more mysterious than we can imagine — Just as striking is the truth — which seems to have come to light only recently — about chaos being as much a part of space-time phenomena to remind us that what is `out there' is not orderly and it baffles our understanding by being susceptible to recurring destabilisation".
"Disorder", says Ms. Wheatley, "becomes a critical player, an ally that can provoke a system to self-organize into new forms of being". It is just not a matter of continuous updating of our knowledge of what is going on but the shedding of what we had come to believe as true and as having already happened.
We are told right at the beginning that chaos is the necessary process for the creation of a new order. It would seem that chaos remains long after the Big Bang and it would be there forever.
Among the many arresting parts of Ms. Wheatley's book is her presentation of the famous Schroedinger's cat, which is so placed inside a box with solid walls so that nobody can see what is happening to it. (A variation of this obviously aimed at making it simpler is the story about a black cat inside a black box in a dark room — dinned into the listener to throw him into a state of confusing questioning about whether the cat really existed if there was no possibility of his seeing it). The purpose of throwing up such conundrums is obviously to put one's thoughts in a whirl about illusion and reality and to push them into greater perplexity about whether they are the same.
Ms. Wheatley discusses this teasing story of Schroedinger's cat to examine questions to the importance of "objective information" which is of direct interest to her as a management consultant. "Objective information" which is being sought from a "constantly expanding array of data" often turns out to be as elusive as the cat. She is also highly critical of the rigid and destructive control of information by managements. How many CEOs will be receptive to such advice?
Writing about the futility of trying to build a "neural network" even remotely comparable to the brain, she throws light on how the most powerful computer is nowhere near what its makers are trying to take it. "The neural nets simulate in a meagre degree by assembling more than 60,000 computers and linking them to do parallel processing".
The failure to simulate a neural network is attributed, to the human brain, being "rather messy, higgledy-piggledy wiring design where everything seems randomly connected to everything else". Which is a pathetic admission about artificial intelligence not having the capability to construct a seemingly "messy" wiring.
She writes that the invisible electrons have a message and a very simple one at that. "It is not difficult to recognise ourselves as electrons in organisations, moving, merging with others, forming new wholes, being forever changed in the process. We experience this when we say that a team has `jelled', suddenly to work in harmony, the ragged edges gone, an effortless flow to the work". It is actually a plea for camaraderie on the shop floor and transparency in communication for striking down of opaqueness at every level.
Ms. Wheatley's discussion of disequilibrium projects it as a well-ordained state of reality for bringing about change and progress through chaos. "Chaos succeeds in creating newness because it takes place in a system that is non-linear". The linear state is very rigid and exclusive and it blacks off a great deal simply because of its presenting a deceptive, poorly informing tidiness.
She gives us a striking example of the unmatched skills of nature in its engineering of clouds: "After all, how do you hold a hundred tons of water in the air with no visible means of support prior to a downpour?" An astonishing aspect about the behaviour of "non-living" chemical reactions of molecules she writes about is their ability to communicate with one another "to generate new order and this had for a long time remained unexpected until an accidental discovery". This should start a very exciting run of thought on whether there are really "non-living, inanimate things" as they have long been thought of.
The author has written a very enriching book, the second edition of which is completely revised and expanded to make it roses all the way.
CVG
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