Managing From The Edge, Working From The Centre:
Organisations, Complexity And The Search For Meaning.
Organisations, Complexity And The Search For Meaning.
Monograph Number 2, April 1998.
(Management Education Papers)
A Paper By:
David John Ivers DipT., BEd., GradDipEd(Rel.Ed)., MEdAdmin., MCCEAM., MACE., AFAIM
Original Paper:
Management Education Papers ISSN 1328-7362
Managing From The Edge, Working From The Centre:
Organisations, Complexity And The Search For Meaning. ISBN 0 9500988 3 3
Organisations, Complexity And The Search For Meaning. ISBN 0 9500988 3 3
(C) Copyright 1998: David John Ivers
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ABSTRACT
The notion that organisations are affected in some way by entropy (see Ivers. D.J. 1997. Managing The Entropic Organisation), gives rise to a most important question. What other implications does the 'new science' have for management? The science of Chaos and Complexity for example, has much to offer the world of management. Managers should be looking at the interconnectedness of events within their organisation, the degree of complexity with which things occur and how this connects in turn to the search for organisational meaning. How does the spacetime continuum impact upon the manager's day? Does it only suggest the need for people in management to be giving freely of themselves to the task at hand? Is this the point at which managers subconsciously, begin to bring 'nomos' or meaning out of complexity?
To start to appreciate the abstract forces at work upon the manager daily, to understand what "The Butterfly Effect" coud be for the organisation and how its energy could be harnessed and used creatively, is perhaps the hallmark of a manager in tune with the internal and external business environment, in tune with the self and with the world. By seeing the complexity within the day and within the organisation, the possibility of further life emerges for the organisation, meaning is found in what otherwise might be an abyss, in a rather transforming way.
Editorial Note: Where the term Complexity and the term Chaos are used with a capital letter throughout the paper, other than at the beginning of a sentence, then it should be taken by the reader as a proper noun. When used as a proper noun, the terms designate the name of an emerging field within science. Where the term is used with a lower case letter, the term is not being used as a proper noun and is therefore being used in a wider, more generic sense.
