Creativity depends on two great universal forces; one is order, the other is chaos. Creative minds and organizations must not be quite stable or quite chaotic. Each of these forces can be best understood and managed through something called chaos theory and the sciences of complexity.
This chapter shows how creativity occurs when we are somewhat out of sync with our environment. This condition requires that we:
• Have an open system rather than a closed one
• Use rules of thumb, rather than rules
• Match our creative needs to our environment
• Know our Innovative IQ.
There is order in the universe, and it has uniqueness about it. Cups of coffee always cool off; never do they suddenly get hotter. Things tend to fall apart; never do they suddenly reconnect or reassemble. Order is something we just take for granted—that is, unless we start to lose it. Only when we have to change do we realize how difficult it is to do things differently. Change is an essential part of today’s management, but it is one that few leaders or organizations truly understand.
More and more we feel a sense of chaos, an utter sense of confusion about how to do something or even what to do. But there is help, and it comes from an unlikely source. The term chaos has another meaning and comes from the field of mathematics. Here we can begin to understand how the real world operates, what makes it tick, and how we can best adapt to the new realities of constant and unexpected change. The mathematic term chaos refers to discovery that much of the world operates in a nonlinear mode. In this world, as with our minds, one plus one does not always equal two. Rather small events or actions can have big and often unpredictable and uncontrollable consequences.
Chaos theory has wide application far beyond the field of mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, or the other pure sciences. It, along with the so-called science of complexity, will revolutionize organizations and the way we lead them because it gives us a deeper understanding of how all things work. It can also be used to build a foundation for understanding creativity.
There is a theory that creativity arises when individuals are out of sync with their environment. Nobel physicist Murray-Gell Mann, in discussing learning, noted that something must have sufficient regularity (order) for it to be able to exploit learning or adapting, but not so much regularity that nothing happens (1). This leaves out a large number of things in the universe, including many organizations and some people.
Creative thinking, as we saw in chapter 1, comes in part from asking insightful questions. It comes from challenging your basic assumptions and then redefining ourselves. All this requires that we use broad guidelines for thinking and solving problems rather than a detailed set of standard operating procedures (SOP). Yale economist John Geanakoplos and Minnesota professor Larry Gray demonstrate this type of thinking by explaining about chess-playing computer programs. Grandmasters and some of the more advanced expert system chess players use rules of thumb rather than comprehensive analysis to win. These rules can be adapted and used by organizations and individuals to facilitate creative thinking. The key is that there is some order here but not too much. Likewise, some flexibility is allowed, but not so much that thinking becomes chaotic and unpredictable. These rules are the following:
1. Favor moves that increase options
2. Shy away from moves that end well but require cutting off choices
3. Work from strong positions that have adjoining strong positions
4. Balance looking ahead to really paying attention to what is happening now on the whole board (2).
These rules of thumb start with reality. This is knowledge we can use as we begin to think about approaching problems in an innovative way. It is a way to remove the bureaucracy and when we do that, we encourage innovative approaches.
We all create patterns of behavior whenever we interact with our environment. These patterns are said to have a self-organized criticality nature. The analogy of a sand dune has often been used to describe this unique pattern. Per Bak, a Danish- born physicist came up with this vivid metaphor to explain the concept. He said to imagine a pile of sand on a tabletop, with a steady drizzle of new sand grains raining down from above. The pile grows higher and higher until it can’t grow any more.
Old sand then cascades down the sides and off the edges of the table as fast as the new sand dribbles down. The resulting sand pile is self-organized in the sense that it reaches a steady state all by itself, without anyone explicitly shaping it. The sand pile is in a state of criticality because the sand grains on the surface are just barely stable. This is where the originality, the unexpected, the creative part occurs.
When a falling grain hits, there is no telling what will happen—maybe nothing, maybe a tiny landslide or even a catastrophic one. Big avalanches are rare and small ones are frequent, but the steady flow of sand grains triggers all sizes. They follow mathematics called power or scaling laws, by which the average frequency and size of a given size of avalanche is inversely proportional to some power of its size. There are a few large ones and many more small ones, but all sizes of avalanches are represented.
Researchers at IBM’s Thomas Watson Research Center brought Per Bak’s sand- piles metaphor into reality when they built an artificial sand pile to study this behavior. In one experiment, they dropped 35,000 grains of sand onto the pile one by one. As the slope of the sand grew too steep, avalanches would occur. The size of these avalanches demonstrated what is called chaos theory because the outcome of dropping any single grain of sand could not be predicted, but the pattern of the avalanches illustrated part of a phenomenon called self-organized criticality. Grains organized themselves to slope at a certain angle. It was a precarious angle on the edge of chaos because a tiny bit of sand could knock the whole thing down (3). Like the creative mind, it was not quite stable and not quite chaotic but it was self-organized.
Biophysicist Stuart Kauffman notes that the same self-organized criticality exists in biological evolution and believes evolution proceeds between order and chaos (4). So what does this have to do with creativity? If there is too much order, we become frozen and cannot change. If there is too much chaos, the system retains no memory of what went on before. Their observations are just as relevant to the subject of creativity as they are to sand piles and biology. Chaos, messy confusion, and making new connections are essential to creativity and innovative thinking. As noted in chapter 1, our brains are also nonlinear so a small input, like a grain of information, can produce disproportional changes in the way we think and the connections we are able to make.
A STATE OF REASONABLE DISORDER IS ESSENTIAL TO CREATIVITY
Spontaneous self-organization has relevance to you and me because it means that self-organization can and does occur and not just to sand piles and biological organisms. People trying to satisfy their day-to-day needs unconsciously organize themselves into an economy through a wide range of individual acts of buying and selling. Anyone hoping to encourage a creative work climate must understand and believe that such systems do not need to be over controlled; they will self-organize. We do not need reams and reams of bureaucracy. It will give us order, but in the tradeoff we will lose our originality. Order is something that will emerge; it does not have to be over planned. Patterns and control emerge without anyone being in charge or consciously planning it. Excessive rules simply destroy the innovative atmosphere by creating a frozen, rigid atmosphere by which procedures are more important than people. How we do something becomes more important than why!
For a person or a business to be in a state of equilibrium (no change) between order and chaos would require that this state be closed to the exchange of matter or energy within its environment. Being in such a state of equilibrium is not a nice place, in fact it is a very dangerous place. Achieving such a balance between order and chaos might sound like a good idea, but it is not. The second law of thermodynamics emphasizes that any equilibrium system that begins to have a measure of disorder called entropy will inevitably increase. Things do not stay the same. Murray-Gell Mann recounts an old physics joke, which says that the first law of thermodynamics says you can’t win, but the second law says you can’t even break even. The first law of thermodynamics states that the conservation of energy or total energy in a system stays the same, whereas the second law requires the increase in entropy in closed systems. An illustration of this point can be seen in sorting pennies according to dates or nails to size. If someone knocks them over, the odds are overwhelming that the pennies or nails will become all mixed up or disordered. When you make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, the jar of jelly will likely acquire some of the peanut butter and vice versa. Another example involves two chambers, one containing oxygen, the other nitrogen. When the partition is removed, almost certainly the two will get all mixed up. These examples demonstrate the second law of thermodynamics. Anyone who tries to maintain order in their day or even at their desk understands this basic principle.
According to the second law of thermodynamics, there are far more ways for nails, pennies, peanut butter, and oxygen to get mixed up than to remain segregated. The second law even gives us an excuse for having a sloppy desk. Now you know why— it’s not your fault; it is simply how the universe operates. To the extent that chance is operating, it is likely that closed systems with some order will move toward disorder (1). A dark blue ink droplet that initially forms a sphere in a static bowl of water (equilibrium system) will eventually diffuse to a uniform light blue. It is no longer a single droplet. This second law challenges our common sense because we often assume equilibrium is in perfect balance. The truth is that order, in equilibrium systems, tends to disappear.
The second law of thermodynamics states that entropy occurs in isolated, closed, or equilibrium systems. Closed systems produce continual disintegration of randomness, whereas open systems, like our minds, groups, or organizations, overcome entropy by constantly interacting with its environment. This constant interaction is essential to creativity. To do otherwise is sure death. Executives, organizations, and other open, self-organizing systems, unlike closed systems, make use of messy disorder to create chances for growth and creativity (5).
Normally, when you, your group, or your organization acquires information, it is incorporated. When the new information or some change is perceived as threatening, there is effort to try to accommodate the information by making small changes that are consistent with the past. We try not to think differently; we try to maintain our old ways, the status quo. It is natural for us to seek order and control and to avoid chaos. Such an approach, however, keeps us and our groups from reaching their creative potential.
Closed systems do not allow anything in and eventually experience decay and entropy. Open systems, like our minds and our groups, constantly take in information. This also means that exact control over such a system is impossible. Rigid control enhances order but removes our creative ability to respond to our environment. We and our groups are open systems and, as such, must be able to respond to our environment and not to artificial controls (for example, bosses, rules, regulations, past rituals, and so on). Excessive control and order prevents us from performing creatively and responding in an innovative way. Granted, some control may be essential to maintain reasonable order, but all too often we either over control, micromanage, or remain with the status quo so much that we lose our creativity. Change is a physical, biological, and mental essential. The enemy of creativity is too much order; the friend is reasonable confusion, disorder, and mistakes.
An example of having too much change and chaos can be seen in the early 1980s when Apple Computer released Apple III and Lisa. Both were failures in the marketplace, not so much because of the concept but rather how it was executed. The earlier success of Apple II meant that the company had plenty of cash flow. Management was still largely in the hands of the founding team, which had little financial or bureaucratic discipline. Apple was in a constant state of confusion with many different R and D projects going on simultaneously (6). Apple was not unique; many companies can slip toward a chaotic system in such a high-velocity environment, created by venture capital and a continual flow of entrepreneurs. Change should not be so overwhelming as to overload one’s capacity to adapt. Likewise if so little change occurs then the organization can become essentially a closed system, a stagnant bureaucracy of rigid order. In such systems creativity and new information is neither sought nor desired.
If you work in an extremely stable environment, there is little reason to innovate or develop creativity. There is very little need to change as long as other competitors, customer needs and desires, or your costs do not change. The bad news is that obviously this type of stability, rather than change, is the exception not the rule. It is easy to assume the world is stable, especially when you spend all your time following those never-changing bureaucratic rules. Why wouldn’t you assume that everything remains pretty much the same? It is a dangerous game to assume things are the way they always will be. The biggest risk for many is not recognizing a subtle but changing environment. The chances of recovery, when this occurs or when you get blind-sided, are very slim. When a new competitor, like Japan, acts in a predatory fashion and moves into the environment of automobile manufacturing, it spells long-term trouble for those who still assume they are in a stable environment. Automobile manufacturing, despite what many executives had assumed, is also subject to rapid changes. How do you avoid being blind-sided by change?
Environmental sensitivity is essential to successful innovation. A perfect example of that was Xerox’s Alto, which was created in-house in 1973. Their computer system had the advantage of several firsts. It had the first graphics-oriented monitor, the first handheld mouse, the first word-processing program for non-expert users, the first object oriented program language and the first laser printer (7). It should have been a winner—but it wasn’t. So what happened?
Xerox, at the time, only went for the large, expensive technological marketing plans. Finding out about this new Alto market would cost $10 million and Xerox chose not to spend this relatively small amount. The company never consulted potential customers; it kept all development secret and so managed to get no feedback and no understanding of what the customer wanted. The result was a failure and no profit.
Successful innovation requires ways of assessing where one is relative to your competition. The following questions need to be answered:
• How do my products and process technologies compare with those of others?
• Are new ideas appearing in my competitors’ products sooner than mine?
• Are my new products and processes timely?
• Are projects going according to plans and expectations?
• Is my product and process development cycle time shorter than that of others?
• Are my products accepted by consumers and recognized as high-quality, high-value products when first introduced? (8)
Deciding what innovations to pursue is a big issue. We need to be open to innovation and seek applications and explore options, but ultimately it becomes a matter of where and how much effort to invest in various products and services. Which ideas will be easier to make, sell, or service? Do we invest in known technology or ones that could potentially leapfrog the competition? Ultimately, organizations will choose to pursue those innovations that best match the company’s current and expected operational capabilities. This is, however, no assurance of success. The future and subtle shifts in cost, competitive and consumer demands make accurate prediction impossible. Perhaps the best advice can be summarized as follows:
• Use as many tools as possible to continually read your environment—be sensitive to small changes.
• Have a clear direction or purpose for the organization (for example, customer service, profits, quality, and so on) and continually keep people focused on that horizon.
• Invest in as much R and D as practically possible.
• Cultivate a diverse culture and continually encourage horizontal communication and exposure to each other’s ideas.
• Hire people with diverse knowledge and interest in many areas, then allow them the opportunity to seek novel solutions (for example, limit bureaucracy, red tape, approvals, regulation SOPs, and so on).
Creativity and innovativeness require great sensitivity to your environment. That is why it is important to know something about the changes occurring around you. Chapter 9 more fully explores how to manage without micromanaging. Filling out the Innovative IQ Questionnaire in chapter 13 (see Exercise #5) is also a good start for those who want a more creative workplace. Creative characteristics like those in the questionnaire give you an ability to change directions, think in new ways, and respond in a flexible manner. Rigid rules, regulations, routines, strict lines of authority, rigid divisions, functions, and departments’ responsibilities may help to maintain order, predictability, and even give one a sense of community or culture, but it can impair your ability to respond in creative new ways.
When Gottlieb Daimler and Ramson Olds invented an improvement on the horse, they did not know automobiles would fill the countryside (9). When the automobile did come, not only did the horse and buggy become extinct but so too did the smithy, harness maker, and a variety of other related niches. This single change in turn created thousands of innovations in jobs, affecting such jobs as building houses, making lawnmowers, and delivering pizza. The automobile also brought forth entirely new innovations like gasoline stations, motels, shopping malls, and even fast-food restaurants. Then as now, when one change occurs, other changes both obvious and subtle will come and go.
S. J. Gould in Bully for Brontosaurus tells us that extinctions are also a regular occurrence on earth. Researchers suggest that they occur almost on a regular basis or about every 26 million years or so. The most famous of these was the mass extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. However, the greatest mass extinction occurred about 225 million years ago when 95 percent of all species on earth disappeared. The serial killer was thought to be rapid change in the environment and the close relationships and partnerships that had been built up among the species. Today, we remain no less interdependent. Each niche in nature and in business is affected by and affects others in a continual co-evolutionary dance. If the tiny ocean plankton were to be destroyed somehow, oxygen on the planet would drop and even organisms not living in oceans, including humans, would become extinct.
Business interactions may be far more subtle but nevertheless just as intercon-nected as the natural world. The ability to create strategic plans that prevent such extinctions or actually produce more fit organizations is extremely limited. Evolution and a field known as chaos theory show us that there is always a great deal of randomness in nature. It seems that to survive we need to be competitive, adaptive, and lucky! In nature and business, part of this luck is to be in the right place at the right time, which demands creativity and a continual process of innovation.
Global competition can both create and destroy a wide range of niches. Therefore, it pays to closely monitor your whole competitive landscape including those categories G through L in the Innovative IQ.Survey (see Exercise #5 in chapter 13). People speak of global societies. What that means to you and me is that government deficits and interest rates can change stock values and throw your business completely out of whack. That is why we must continue to create and innovate. If your Creativity Index (A-F) is low and your environment is in greater flux (G-L), then you are truly at risk of going the same way as the horse and buggy.
A key concept for remaining a competitive person or group is to create a non-equilibrium process that operates between random chaos and rigid order. Everyone understands that you can have too much chaos, but you can also have too much order, stability, and control. This applies to all facets of life. For instance, two Harvard researchers report—much to their surprise—that heart attack patients at highest risk are those with unusually regular patterns of cardiac activity. Healthy hearts are more irregular, more chaotic (10). The trick, it seems, in life is to stay in the zone between the edge of static equilibrium and the edge of chaos. It is this middle that defines the creativity zone. Next, we will look at how to get in this zone.
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