A633.5.3.RB - Reflections on Chaos

Reflecting on the video’s chaos exercise and chaos theory I found something very interesting. I had never seen such exercise done, but as the speaker was explaining it my brain began working trying to predict what would happen. Maybe like most people (or maybe not) I thought that it would literally be chaos, that people would not be able to accurately split the difference between their two points without messing someone else’s distance and I thought therefore it would almost become an endless chaotic loop. To add a little bit of humor, I do not know why but I pictured them trying to run to their places and them physically running into each other. Anyways, after the 2 or three seconds where all of this was going through my head the people began moving slowly, and in a very controlled fashion. They knew whom they had picked and no one else did, and as time went on they moved less and less until they all found their spot in under a minute. Assuming that they all ended up in fact, half way between their two references they accomplished this effectively and rather quickly in my opinion. They (the volunteers) became a system working together towards a final state seemingly disorganized but in fact did so in a very rhythmic manner. They were like gears turning and moving until they came to a stop. So what did this teach me? It is a real life demonstration of chaos theory in many ways! Obolensky (2010) tells us that chaos theory “shows how chaos has an underlying order and patterns which can be used to good effect”.  He also quotes the book Nature’s Numbers in saying that “to an untrained eye it looks pretty much random”. Now let’s think about the exercise. First of all was there an underlying order? Yes, although they did not move in predictable paths each person had a goal and it depended on all of the other people and that is what created their path. Those paths that each person moved probably looked completely random and unordered to someone if they were to walk in without hearing the instructions. “They are just moving around aimlessly and then stopped” is what someone might say. This is chaos theory, chaos looks chaotic because so many factors internal and external affect the underlying patterns that are occurring. These patterns actually have a bit of order and purpose but to an outsider or an “untrained eye” chaos is scary. This fact that the patterns are very hard to see and understand presents the biggest implication for organizational strategy. It is nearly impossible to predict chaos before or during it, and that makes strategizing difficult. In its nature, strategy is based on a future state and chaos theory is there to let organizations know not to get too far ahead because you don’t know or understand what I am doing or what will happen