Chaos Theory
As I watched a video of professional
people playing the chaos game, I first thought that there was no way that it
would work the way the instructions implied it would. It seemed as though it
would have continuous fluidity to it as each member constantly moved to
position themselves the exact distance from their “marker”. Then, just like a
bouncing ball eventually stops bouncing if untouched, the people just stopped,
each of the them an equal distance from their marker. It took me by surprise at
first, not because they stopped moving, but because of the reason the stopped
moving…they had all successfully achieved their goal.
I was also curious about
the fact that they were all given the same instructions, they were simple, and
everyone understood what was expected of them. There was also no leader helping
guide them. This was the most fascinating part to me because as I thought about
what it would look like had there been a leader and I actually believe that it
would have been really chaotic and would have taken a lot longer to achieve the
goal.
I believe the reason this is the case is because one of the five
principles Obolensky mentioned, “discretion and freedom of action” (2010, p.
2670). Because each person was able to think about their own actions and use
their own brain power to accomplish the task, they gave the power to
themselves. If there had been a leader involved, most likely there would have been
a great deal of them that would have waited for conformation from their leader
before proceeding with their actions.
People, companies, and people within
those companies interact with each other, as well as outside influences. These interdependent
reactions are strategic since the action taken by one person is done so with
anticipation of a reaction from the other. It would be hard to calculate these
types of movements within an organization. Since organization are constantly
changing and evolving, the movements cannot be calculated by any model. This would
make it hard for any company to look toward the future and build a strategic
plan based off what they anticipate might happen.
Levy, D. 1994. Chaos Theory and
Strategy: Theory, Application, and Managerial Implications.
Vol.
15, 167-178. Retrieved December 20, 2016, from
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/c5db/10f69cf4a47101620905d1dcca43bb7d329a.pdf
Obolensky, N. (2014). Complex adaptive leadership: Embracing
paradox and uncertainty. Farnham, Surrey, UK: Growler
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