How do systems grow? How do they become more complex? How does amoeba evolve into homo sapiens? How do societies evolve from simple entities to complex network of relationships? How do organisations evolve from simple structures to functional structures to more complex network forms?...
Perhaps the most confounding process in life is the growth of the foetus in the womb. The whole process starts with a single cell, and culminates into the formation of a complex organism, in which the various organs - heart, lungs, brain, blood vessels, etc. - are differentiated from each other. The single cell which starts this process, multiplies itself into two cells. These cells split again, creating two facsimiles of themselves, which again split, and so on. Each new cell contains the same message coded in its DNA molecules, which was there in the original cell. This process continues for a long time, till there is a large sea of billions of identical cells in the womb, pulsating in some kind of a rhythm.
And then, on one predetermined day during the gestation period, structures start emerging out of this chaos. Cells begin to come together, joining each other to create blurry semblance of the future organs. They float through the plasma and get attached to each other. As this new order becomes more and more clear and distinct, the organs also find ways of establishing linkages with each other. For instance, the cells which come together to form the blood vessels, somehow "know" that they have to join the cells which are forming the heart and lungs; they also seem to be aware the particular manner in which this connection has to be made, so that the cells which are forming the blood, can circulate to the right places in the body. Similarly, the cells which form the separate sensory receptors (eyes, ears, tongue, skin, etc.), those which finally become the nerves, and the ones which become the different brain centers, inscrutably find each other and create the intricate web of the nervous system.
It is far from clear as to how all this happens: how do identical cells with identical DNA codes become different, and start doing entirely different kinds of functions; how do cells know what they have to do; how does each of the billions of cell adapt itself in such a way that finally the grand design of the total organism emerge....
In his book Beyond the Quantum, Michael Talbot describes an interesting episode about how the Hawaiian Creole language developed (Creole is a generic name given to the mongrel way of speaking when one culture is forced to work together with a great number of people of an entirely different culture; there are hundreds of Creole languages across the world).
In 1875, when the US signed an agreement with the Hawaiian monarchy. the sugar industry in the islands began to bloom, and workers poured in to man the sugar plantations. At first these workers whose native tongues were Hawaiian, Korean, Japanese, and Spanish, spoke various kinds of "pidgins" - makeshift and clumsy attempts at communication that employed the vocabulary of the English-speaking overseers mingled with the grammatical features of the native tongue. As a consequence the various pidgins comprised a sort of Babel, with no grammatical features common to all of the workers.
Somewhere between 1980 and 1910, however, the children of this first generation of adults suddenly began speaking an entirely new language, Hawaiian Creole, complete with its own syntactical sentence structure and grammatical rules. Although this new language borrowed words from all of the various languages represented in the workers, it was a brand-new language, incomprehensible to both the adults of the first generation and the English-speaking plantation owners.
What was even more surprising was the fact that the Hawaiian Creole had similar syntactical sentence structure and grammatical rules as hundreds of other Creole languages around the world, even though their vocabularies were entirely different.
The conventional organisational theory offers two theoretical models of organisational change: The Mechanistic Model and the Open System Model. Both treat organisations as equilibrium-seeking entities. While these models describe how organisations operate and change incrementally, they treat quantum transformations only as an aberration to the theory. Their major focus (and utility) is in explaining how organisations incrementally grow or decline, in terms of build up or break down of certain parts, changes in some functions, or integration of new parts into the organisation. Changes (are supposed to) occur well within the limits of rationality.
An alternative is the Dissipative Structure Model which provides a framework of understanding discontinuous organisational transformations. According to the Dissipative Structure Model, transformation occurs when the internal or external processes of a system fall into recurring positive feedback loop cycles. These conditions create turbulence, pushing the system out of the limited parameters where it was able to maintain equilibrium. In such a situation, the system can either dissipate amidst disorder or can attain a more complex and appropriate alignment. A new more complex order emerges which is far from its initial equilibrium.
The transformation process involves complex and simultaneous interactions. In this process, a variety of possible forms can emerge. Each of these forms is a possible alternative future of the system - which may range from complete destruction and annihilation of the system to a complete transformation to a higher level of complexity.
There are some distinctive characteristics of dissipative structures, which define the elements of system transformation. These are:
1. Disequilibrium 2. Symmetry-Breaking
3. Experimentation 4. Reformulation
1. Disequilibrium
It is necessary for the system to generate sufficient disequilibrium within itself to create the degree of freedom within which the system's change can take place. Disequilibrium can be produced by a small jolt or major fluctuations, depending on the initial levels of tension within the system. According to Nonaka (1990): "...more chaos or fluctuation an organisation has inside its built-in structure, the more likely it is to have a lively information-creation activity... In order for an organisation to renew itself, it must keep itself in a non-equilibrium state at all times."
There are three conditions which create disequilibrium in an organisation:
1. A (real or simulated) crisis: A crisis can be the beginning of the end. But, in general, some form of crisis is needed to generate an entirely new, innovative product concept or to abolish a company's existing patterns and replace them with a new order.
2. Stretch Targets
3. Internal Variety: According to Pascale (1990): "...a system requires "internal variety" to cope with external change... internal differences can widen the spectrum of an organisation's options by generating new points of view. This, in turn, can promote disequilibrium; under the right condition, self-renewal and adaptation can occur."
2. Symmetry Breaking
For a new order to emerge, the old order must be demolished. Symmetry Breaking is a concept similar to Lewin's "unfreezing". It implies breaking down of existing functional relationships, patterns of interactions or system habits that have previously been the source of equilibrium for the system. The systems which get transformed are more likely to consciously and actively engage break symmetries, experiment with new configurations, and reinforce self-renewing processes than the systems which disappear into entropy.
Examples of this process can be as varied as Amtrex Appliances' system of questioning the rules, GE's and ABB's drastic retrenchment and portfolio smartsizing, Tandem Computer's "Critique's SIG", etc.
3. Experimentation
Breaking symmetry alone can lead to chaos unless it is also supplemented by activities which will generate new forms or configurations around which the system can reorganise. The system must produce new alternatives (or reproduce alternatives which were earlier seen as inappropriate) to generate new choices for regeneration. This is possible only when the system increases its throughput, i.e., it imports more energy, ideas, and knowledge from outside. It experiments with these ideas to arrive at new alternatives and combinations, which can deal with the increased complexity of the system's situation.
During this period, the system is extremely fluid, with its parts resonating with each other (more meetings are held, emotions are charged, people move in and out of the system, etc.). It is a autocatalytic process, in which change builds upon change in a positive feedback cycle. On the other hand, it is the resonance among the elements (people, departments) of the organisation, which acts as the glue and holds it together. This resonance - in combination with what appears as an intentional movement towards greater openness to change - are crucial for reformulation around a new configuration.
4. Reformulation
The experimentation process leads to the development of new possible configurations, around which the system must reformulate. During this final stage of the dissipative process, experimental activities take precedence, since the system must try out new configuration until it finds one (or some combination) that will become preferred. The preferred configuration will be one that will optimise the degree of energy throughput in the system, and increase its openness or communicativeness to other systems within its environment. Two aspects which characterise this process are:
1. The new configuration is more evolved than the previous state of the system. It is able to deal with a greater throughput of energy (information), is more open to environment, and is more flexibly integrated in terms of connectivity among its parts.
- The change from one state of the system to another appears to be an orchestrated, simultaneous leap. The whole system reorganises around a new preferred configuration - not unlike the click! with which new structure gets formed in a kaleidoscope.
LASTLY... the managerial wisdom
System transformations (and not Entropy) are likely to occur more when there is a:
* normative support to experimenting
* normative support to experiencing disorder
* high level of bonding/communication between system elements
* greater awareness of dissipate process within the system
