I am Karan from Olympia, WA.
Almost every other name used here is a pseodonym pseudonim pseudonymn alias.
The rest of it is true - mostly - and all of it is my own.
Don't even think about taking any of it, unless of course, you want to pay me.
Random Wisdom: Don't stay in bed, unless you can make money in bed. - George Burns
The counter says that 2843257 have been flummelized, but I personally think it's all a big lie.
This morning my friend wrote to me asking me tune in my thinking cap and help her come up with a five minute meeting opener based on this quote by Margaret J. Wheatley in Leadership and the New Science:
“The more I contemplate these times, when we truly are giving birth to a new world view, the more I realize that our culture is presently journeying through chaos. The old ways are dissolving, and the new has not yet shown itself. If this is true, then we must engage with one another differently, as explorers and discoverers. I believe it will make the passage more fruitful if we can learn how to honor each other in these roles. We can realize that no single person or school of thought has the answer, because what’s required is far beyond isolated answers. We can realize that we must inquire together to find the new. We can turn to one another as our best hope for inventing and discovering the worlds we are seeking. After all is said and done, we have the gift of each other. We have each other’s curiosity, wisdom, and courage. And we have Life, whose great ordering powers, if we choose to work with them, will make us even more curious, wise, and courageous.”
My friend wanted to tie this quote into her organizations five core values (Respect, Compassion, Justice, Excellence and Stewardship)
Well…not having had to put much thought into anything more complicated than if we should bar-b-que chicken or hamburgers, I was sort of stumped and I was intrigued. This little project occupied a chunk of my day as I investigated its origins and struggled to come up with something meaningful for my friend to use. As it turned out, the connection came from Meg Wheatley herself who had something of an epiphany one day when she realized that real science could help explain organizational theory…in particular quantum physics and chaos theory.
I first heard of chaos theory in the first Jurassic Park movie and since then, I’ve struggled to learn more about it and basically, I have to say that I like chaos theory….I don’t fully comprehend it, but I like the whole concept of interconnectedness that flows from the very core of this realm of thought. Chaos theory formally defined as the study of complex (a multitude of variables and equations within equations) non-linear (the equation cannot be solved like a simple equation) dynamic (ever-changing, depending upon perspective) systems. Pure chaos theory is a mathematical theory but many, including Meg Wheatley, have adapted it to other systems.
Robert C. Hilborn examined this theory in his 1990 book: Chaos and Nonlinear Dynamics: An Introduction for Scientists and Engineers. In it, he uses the phrase Butterfly Effect to describe how something as seemingly insignificant as the wake caused by the flap of a butterfly wing can affect the space around it. It is a very cool, very descriptive analogy….and it’s what led to my suggestion to my friend’s need for a tiny leadership activity.
My suggestion? I wrote to her and said: Meg Wheatley’s comment reminds me of how linear we are in our thinking about all things….leadership is a top to bottom sort of view and in some rare cases bottom to top. Problem solving is rarely more than one dimensional…..problem….stuff happens….solution. Chaos theory places the world into a space filling multi-dimensional world where one flap of a butterfly wing can affect multiple changes …this whole thing got me thinking….maybe you can give everyone a butterfly … representational or not…and talk about leadership and the butterfly and how the five elements of your core values don’t stand alone…but in effect are affected by even the smallest of decisions…and maybe not so obviously at first, but as the consequences spread…so does the impact.
Golly Molly…that’s cool ain’t it?
