Productive Chaos

[Christoph J.W. Schmees]

At 08:19 10.1.2001 -0800, you wrote:
>Christoph,
>
>Your question:
>
>What conditions are necessary to enable a productive chaos? What skills
>does a leader need to create and maintain(!) those conditions? Where is the
>right balance between control and let loose? Which factors determine this
>balance?
>
>This is articulated very well in Harrison's  new book The Power of Spirit
>- How Organizations Transform. Although I'm still not completely sure I
>understand what I need to know about proactive, reactive and/or
>interactive organizations, Harrison's did a great job of linking chaos
>theory with Open Space. - check it out
>
>Don Ferretti

Hi Don,

maybe I wasn't clear enough - sometimes it is difficult to express the fine
undertones in an 'foreign' language: My questions were of more rhetorical
nature. I think I know those conditions already, in a broad sense.
Nevertheless I appreciate your hint and sure will follow it and have a look
at the book. BTW, I love the book of Margaret J. Wheatley "Leadership and
the New Science: Learning about Organization from an Orderly Universe".

My current opinion is the following.

Prof. Ilya Prigogine, a Russian now living, researching and teaching in
Belgium, was awarded with the Nobel prize for his work on self organizing
systems in physics and chemistry. He found out that basically two
condidions must be met to enable spontaneuos order in chaotic systems.
These conditions can easily be translated and transfered to social systems.
They are:

First - The system has to be far from equilibrium. You need an excess of
energy, and a clear direction of energy flow. In social systems: You need a
leader with a vision and the ability to transport the vision to his people.
Call it CI, call it mission.

Second - You need the possibility of free, omnidirectional energy flow
inside the system. Organisation: You need free flow of knowledge. This is
where knowledge management comes into the game and immedieately becomes a
leader's task.


Can you step into that?

cu,
Christoph

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