Customer Reviews

Leadership and the New Science: Learning About Organization from an Orderly Universe (Right Livelihood)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Margaret Wheatley explores the reasons for the apparent failure of numerous contemporary managers to understand the nature of organizations. By drawing interesting parallels with new science, she challenges the traditional assumptions of organizations and leaves the reader with alternatives.
She urges redesigning organizations where relationships are valued, processes are allowed to flourish at varying speeds, with appropriate structures being formed to support these processes that ultimately help achieve organizational goals. Information flow is fundamental in this process.
She explains that a viable, open system in a state of non-equilibrium, constantly changing and morphing is preferable over a stable, balanced system in equilibrium or stasis. It implores organizations to change form constantly to meet the changing needs of the environment, arguing that organizations develop greater freedom from the environment through this very change process.
Wheatley has made a great attempt to validate and provide legitimacy to new management principles by providing connections to important scientific discoveries of the last century. A "must read" book for new age leaders.

This book is beyond five stars, and not just for business, where it is receiving all the praise it is due, but within government, where it has not yet been noticed. It was recommended to me by the author of Building a Knowledge-Driven Organization and I now recommend it to everyone I know. If there are two books that can "change the world," these are the ones.

Although the Chinese understood all this stuff centuries ago (Yin/Yang, space between the dots, the human web), the author is correct when she notes late in the book that the commoditization of the human worker (Cf. Lionel Tiger, Manufacture of Evil: Ethics, Evolution, and the Industrial System) and the emphasis on scientific objectivity and scientific manager (Cf. Jean Ralston Saul, Voltaire's Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West) were perhaps the greatest error we might have made in terms of long-run progress. Coincidentally, as I finished the book, on the Discovery channel in the background they were discussing how the leveeing of the Mississippi blocked the Louisiana watershed from cleansing the Mississippi naturally, as it once used to.

It's all about systems--the author does cite Donella Meadows' 1982 article in Stewart Brand's Co-Evolution Quarterly, but does not pay much heed to the large body of literature that thrived in the 1970's around the Club of Rome.

There are perhaps three bottom lines in this book that I would recommend to any government leader who hopes to stabilize and reconstruct our world:

1) Information is what defines who we are, what we can become, what we can perceive, what we are capable of achieving. Blocking or controlling information flows stunts our growth and virtually assures defeat if not death. It is the optimization of listening--being open to *all* information (and especially all the information the secret world now ignores)--that optimizes our ability to adjust, evolve, and grow.

2) Command & control is history, block and wire diagrams are history. General Al Gray had it right in the 1990's when he talked about "commander's intent" as the baseline. Leaders today need to be disruptive, to look for dissonant views and news, and to empower all individuals at all levels with both information, and the authority to act on that information.

3) Disorder is an *opportunity*. We have the power to define ourselves, our "opponents," and our circumstances in ways that can either inspire protective, constricted, secretive, "armed" responses, or inclusive, open, sharing "pro-active" peaceful responses.

EDIT of 12 Dec 07: Haver ordered and will be reviewing several books that highlight the importance of diversity as a foundation for innovation.

The author is to be praised for noting early on in the book that "Ethical and moral questions are no longer fuzzy religious concepts but key elements in the relationship any organization has with colleagues, stakeholders, and communities." I would extend that to note that social ethics and foreign policy ethics are the foundation for sustainable life on the planet, and we appear to be a long way from understanding that it is ethics, not guns, that will stabilize and fertilize...Cf Jonathan Schell, The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People.

It also merits comment that the author essentially kills the industry of forecasting, scenarios, modeling, and futures simulations. I agree with her view (and that of others) that early warning is achieved, not through the theft of secret plans and intentions or the forecasting of behavior, but rather by casting a very wide net, listening carefully to all that is openly available, sharing it very widely (as the LINUX guys say, put enough eyeballs on it, and no bug will be invisible), and then being open to changed relationships. Trying to maintain the status quo will simply not do.

I give the author credit for carrying out an extraordinary survey of the literature on quantum mechanics, and for developing a PhD-level explanation of why old organization theory, based on the linear concepts of Newtonian physics, is bad for us, and how the new emergent organization theory, understood by too few, is let about the things and more about the relationships between and among the things.

This is an elegant essay and a heroic personal work of discovery, interpretation, and integration. While I would have liked to see more credit given to Kuhn, Drucker, Garfield, Brand, Rheingold, and numerous others that I have reviewed here for Amazon, on balance, given the academic narrowness of her Harvard PhD, I think the author has performed at the Olympic level. This is a radical book, somewhat reminiscent of Charles Hampden-Turner's book, Radical Man: The Process of Psycho-Social Development. which as I recall was not accepted by Harvard as a thesis at the time. Perhaps Harvard is evolving (smile).

For other key books that complement and precede this book, see my lists on information society, collective intelligence, business intelligence, and intelligence qua spies and secrecy in an open world.

Read this book BEFORE you read her new collection of essays, Finding Our Way: Leadership for an Uncertain Time

EDIT of 12 Dec 07: I must say, I am both astonished and disappointed that more of us have not found and absorbed this great work. Margaret Wheatley, whom I have not met (but I have met Tom Atlee, Juanita Brown, and Robert Buckman) strikes me as the "Mother" of a new form of continuous global education and innovation. Not sure what the answer is, but we have to pay more attention to this person's reflections.

Wheatley does a fine job of explaining the implications for organizations and management philosophy of the shift away from the mechanistic worldview that grew out of Newtonian physics. She does a good job of explaining how quantum physics and chaos theory together demolished all the asusmptions of the mechanistic worldview. This mechanistic view fostered the idea that organizations are impersonal machines. It also gave credence to the nonsensical idea of the commodity theory of labor applied to the people hired to fill the "job-parts" of those machines. The mechanistic view excludes concepts such as esprit de corps or team spirit. It ignores the communal loyalty that goes with teamspirit that helps foster cooperative self-motivated teamwork so vital in achieving top performance.

The new (postmodern) worldview is organic rather than mechanistic, is holistic rather than parts centered, is participatory rather than impersonal and manages much more via networks than through top down hierarchies. As Capra points out in his book, The Web of Life, all living systems are mainly coordinated by networks, not hierarchies. All this fits well with the new postmodern management philosophy that stress empowerment of employees on the local level, self managed teams, and organic systems. And as Wheatley points out the reality of such new thinking lies in the relationships that arise from them

If Wheatley is great on philosophy and of the importance of relationships, she is more than a bit light on the specific policies that in fact create a mechanistic or an organic set of social relationships within an organization. These policies are not at all mysterious. If you want to create a mechanistic (read bureaucratic) organization then as a matter of policy establish an employment relationship between the firm and employee based on the buyer-seller relationship. You will then hire people to do designated jobs complete with detailed job descriptions. And thus though autopoiesis (that Wheatley well describes but does not much apply)you almost will guarantee that your employees will become job defensive, especially in times of change which will be seen as threats to one's (job-based)identity because autopoiesis drives all life at all levels to remain self consistent including the integrity and consistency of one's identity. The employee is thus driven to job-defensiveness. The bureaucratic employee will also sub-optimize behavior around the job-part, rather than the whole organization. To be promoted, one must be promoted in job, motivating most bureaucrats to lobby constantly for more levels of management in the administrative hierarchy to create more rungs on the administrative promotion ladder. Then too turf battles between departments full of jobs routinely break out for lack of a holistic focus on the enterprise. (The word bureaucracy is the same as saying departmentocracy and is itself an indication of a fragmented focus.) But it is important to realize, as Wheatley does not seem to, that all such pathology is policy-driven more than attitude-driven. After all, the attitude of suboptimization itself arises from the policy to depend on hired labor paid to do particular jobs in a buyer-seller relationship. It is this parts-focused relationship that creates bureaucratic reality. It does so the world around quite apart from cultural differences.

You want out of this bureaucratic box? Then go organic and pay the person, not the job. Make the employee a "member of the firm" as if the firm were a sort of extended family. Let the income of all such members rise or fall together in sync with the firm's performance. The the employee is no longer an impersonal hireling, but an organic member of the whole. As such he or she is free to focus on the whole firm. Indeed they have every motivation to do so. Thus organic members tend spontaneously to develop a team spirit. They are free to participate as a team member cooperating for the better good of the whole, because, to do so is not threatening as it often is to the hired job-holder. William M. Wallace's book (Postmodern Management) which is also available on Amazon.com makes all this clear.

Still in the end Wheatley is worth reading and I for one read it several times. Thus I anxiously await her updated version which apparently will appear next month.

I noticed that the other reviewers make much about Wheatley's comments about quantum mechanics vis-a-vis management, but little about her much more relevant comparisons to chaotic behavior. Chaos requires basically two things- at least three variables and a process of feedback. I guarantee that both conditions are met in business. She has hit the mark about why things go wrong in the way they do, despite (or perhaps because of) what managers do to try to prevent them.

Some readers have stressed the lack of concrete directions in the book, but that is really much of the point- you CAN'T strategize directly for chaos. You can only set up organizations that are robust enough to grow and change and survive when the chaos comes.

One of the most enlightening books I have read in years.

By relating quantum mechanics, self-organizing systems and chaos theory to how organizations function, Margaret Wheatley succeeded in moving my frame of reference around a little bit.

The concept I liked best was that while personal relationships and other matters often have a chaotic, random nature when viewed individually, they still function within definable, predicitable boundaries when viewed from a distance.

However, this is where Dr. Wheatley's analysis starts to break down. She seems to have a longing desire to extrapolate quantum phenonena to larger and larger systems -- for example, her desire for "leaving behind the clocklike world of Newton" (Paperback, pp147) when looking at organizations.

The problem is that while quantum mechanics explains events at a very small scale (like electrons or people), it does poorly explaining events at a larger scale (objects or organizations). We can no more throw out the teachings of Newton than we can thro! w off any other law of nature.

Another concept where Dr. Wheatley misses the point is entropy. Although self-organizing systems sound great, the second law of thermodynamics says they can only overcome entropy when additional energy is added. Just like in an organization -- entropy can only be overcome by hard work, not by wishing it away or pretending it doesn't exist.

All that being said, this is one of those books that makes good airplane reading. It's a pretty easy read and it does make you think.

The thing I don't like about Meg Wheatley's book is its bland title. The heading of Chapter Two of the book would have been a more meaningful and accurate title: "Newtonian Organizations in a Quantum Age." Wheatley says that many of our models and metaphors about effective management are explicitly or implicitly derived from a Newtonian perspective. She says: "The universe that Sir Isaac Newton describe was a seductive place. As the pendulum swung with perfect periodicity, it prodded us on to new discoveries. As the Earth circled the sun, we grew assured of the role of determinism and prediction. We absorbed expectations of regularity into our very beings. And we organized work and knowledge to fit this universe. "It is interesting to note just how Newtonian most organizations are. "Until recently, we really believed that we could study the parts to arrive at knowledge of the whole. We have reduced and described and separated things into cause and effect, and drawn the world in lines and boxes. "A world based on machine images is a world filled with boundaries." This essentially Newtonian view of management conflicts with the current knowledge we are deriving from quantum physics and chaos theory. In years to come, the metaphor for management will be chaos theory and quantum physics. This elegant book helps the novice manage begin to understand these complex ideas in terms of how they can influence your perspective about the management of people and events. This book is a testament to Wheatley's command of writing, command of the scientific subjects she explains, and her practical experience in organization behavior. She pulls of a complex exercise off with grace, interest, and practicality. We are selling the audio tape, but you can go into www.amazon.com to order the book itself. The book has some wonderful pictures which illustrate chaos theory. Laurence J. Stybel. Board of Directors Resource Center Boston, MA

Ms. Wheatley succeeds admirably at her chief aim: forcing the reader to re-think assumptions concerning organizational behavior which are almost never challenged. While attempting to lead several sacred cows to a philosophical slaughter (controlling a situation leads to stability, equilibrium is a desirable organizational state, disorder leads to ineffectiveness, etc.), she explores the possible corallaries of quantum physics and organizational structure.

The author's "arguments" are really philosophical statements. Her proof consists of asking "What if" and "Could it be that . . . " As long as the reader accepts this method of developing a proposition, the book succeeds admirably as a departure point for further discussion. However, do not expect tightly written arguments which show concrete examples of her theories in practice at the organizatiopnal level.If one hopes to find proof for the hypotheses advanced here, disappointment will likely be the result. It is possible that such proof will never be forthcoming and may even be antithetical to her position that systems change so quickly that they defy discrete analysis.

However, those who read this book in hope of opening their mind to new possibilities will not be disappointed. Her thoughts on systems analysis, information flow and team work are enlightening and provocative. The descriptions of quantum physics and chaos theory are informative and mind-stretching, if scant on details. I will be re-reading this book several times; that by itself says a great deal.

The new change in millennium which we will soon be experiencing, will be with out a doubt an era of organizational transition that will break with established ways of thinking and behavior with in the organization. This change will mark the end of the "mecanisista" way of thinking and the arrival of the new organization. Margareth Wheatley in her book "Leadership and the new science" offers new ways to perceive the new organizational dimensions that we might have imagined but have not reflected enough upon them. Ms. Wheatley is with out a doubt a pioneer of the XXI century's organization who help us to experience these little known dimensions in the context of the new organization. This fast pace book has short but profound descriptions of the transcendental stages that science has gone through in the XXth Century. It describes how the principles of Quantum Theory, Cybernetics, and Chaos Theory among others have secure a place in the new organizational context. It does not try to create a new truth but provide new adequate models to interpret our new reality. There are no magic formulas in this book to focus on the customer, or reduce costs or even know how for continuos improvements. This book however will provide the spark for deep reflection on the basics for the new organization. It is about the new rules to play in a rapid changing environment through "administracion inteligente", that develops in a nonlinear world. It is about the communication that must take place internally between all relevant parties to adapt to the ever changing requirements of the business climate. A business climate that is ever more competitive and that --- changes the rules of the natural selection at a faster pace. Wheatly talks about living organizations capable of self-direct when they are free from the excessive controls that tight them. This new vision of the future organization underlines the importance of the focused participation of every part of the organization. Only then will it be able to exec

Read from a businessman's perspective, this book illuminates some of the basic issues that creative firms have with business organization.

Anyone who runs their business on a "need to know" basis will have considerable difficulty getting their minds around the larger ideas that are discussed here. The author's parallels to our real-world experience gave me confidence that she was on the right track. These ideas could change the way you spawn creative thinking in your firm.

Provocative and insightful, however the author perhaps puts too much confidence in evolution all the while pestering our Newtonian linear and clockwork view of the universe. Her grasp and application of quantum physics related to organizational systemic management is worth pondering. One would wish she had made more connections to leadership and organizational culture and behavior. But then, I will re-read this more than once to get the "picture" she is trying to paint. I am attempting to apply her work to pastoral and church ministry and have God in the equation. I think she has discovered God's quantum designs centered in relationships and order in the universe made by Himself, the clockmaker.