I am reading this for a continuing education course, and was only assigned the first 5 chapters, but here’s what I got from them (and a little bit of chapter 6):
First, we have interpreted the world for the past couple hundred years using a Newtonian physics framework. Which looks like this – there are objects floating in space and they influence each other with varying amounts of force, like billiard balls on a table. The cue ball hits number 9 and it goes in the pocket. And, like billiard balls on a table, getting something moving takes an understanding of the different parts of the encounter and how they move, and the things that are acted upon are pretty passive in event that is described.
Similarly, we’ve tried to understand systems by examining the parts of the system. Like dissecting a jazz band (or a bluegrass jam) to find out what each instrument sounds like, how each person plays and then the various forces the parts exert on each other.
But here’s the thing: when you start examining the world of quantum physics, things don’t work that way at all! For example, there’s the quantum leap, made famous by Scott Bakula. An electron will be spinning its way around some neutrons and protons and whatnot, and then suddenly it will be in another place, with no intermediary movements, much like Dr. Sam Beckett, leaping from life to life.
Or, here’s another cool one. Scientists will set two electrons next to each other and set them spinning together. One goes right, the other goes left, or one goes up and the other goes down. (Whatever the scientist is measuring for. More on that in a minute.) The two electrons respond to each other instantly. And then, if you separate them by, say, a couple feet or a couple thousand miles, when one starts spinning, the other one spins the other way instantly. As if there were no space between them. No speed-of-light lags, none of that. That part made my head explode.
So, if we’ve been trying to organize people as though they were billiard balls, when in fact we are more like the mysteriously connected electrons, part of a larger whole, then we’re putting a lot of effort into aiming and smacking balls that don’t go into the pocket, when we could be enjoying an elegant dance instead. We’re missing the whole, the thing that makes live music better than even the most carefully layered recording.
Here’s another cool idea: space is not empty, it’s full of fields. You’ve heard of gravity, right? Gravity works kind of like this – there’s this fabric of space and time, and very large objects bend it, which causes smaller objects to fall toward it. So gravity is one kind of field. But there are lots of other ones. And all the little protons and neutrons and God particles appear where fields meet. The interactions of the fields lead to the creation of matter. And yet, fields are themselves invisible, immaterial.
So what if consider fields in organizations as a way of organizing them? Instead of trying to hit the cue ball so it hits number 9 just right, what if we pay attention to agreeing together on what song, what key, what tempo, and then letting the musicians do their thing? Military example: now, instead of having commanders hold all the information, some branches of the US military are having the commanders share an intent, a goal, and principles for achieving it, and then getting as much information as possible about what’s going on to all the soldiers on the battlefield. With enough information, the soldiers actually do a better job of organizing themselves. (Sorry, skipping ahead a little to Chapter 6)
There is an inherent order to the universe, and organizations can organize themselves too. People self-organize in response to the energy they’re given. And connections create power. The power of an organization is the power of its relationships. Negative energy, bad relationships, create negative power and resistance, but love may be the most powerful force in the world, motivating people to do what’s needed, together in a mysterious alignment.
Schroedinger’s cat. A famous thought experiment. If there’s a cat in a box, and you’ve set up a machine to either give it poison or food at some set moment, randomly chosen, then until you open the box and look, the cat is both alive and dead at the same time. Or at least, that’s how it works in quantum physics. Remember how I said that the electrons in the spinning experience go whatever direction the scientists are looking? Well, here’s the thing – in quantum science, one of the variables, one of the things that affects what happens, is the observer – the act of observing. WTF. Experiments turn out differently if the camera is on, for example, than if it’s off. If the experimenter looks for where a thing is, they won’t be able to find out where it’s going. But if they find out where it’s going, they won’t be able to find out where it is. You get one or the other, but not both. Again, my head is exploding.
But on the other hand, don’t we observations affecting reality all the time? I was just reading last night about unconscious bias. How one guy I feel a connection with can have a good interview or seem like a star, thanks partly to my seeing him as someone who will have a good interview or someone with the potential to be a star. Or someone who my unconscious bias tells me is a criminal will start behaving in what look like suspicious, threatening ways, leading to our confrontation and their violent response to my (pre-emptively) defensive attack. See: Black Lives Matter movement.
The universe is actually very well organized. Finding ways to organize ourselves in the same way, in open systems instead of closed ones, in information-sharing networks instead of information-controlling bureaucracies, with leaders who encourage disequilibrium instead of aiming for motionlessness, will be the path forward into a totally different mode of organization. One that seems chaotic on the surface sometimes, one that will NEED to be chaotic sometimes, but that will have its own order, its own identity and ongoing process, in the same way that a stream, while constantly changing, maintains an identity, a shape and an order that has lasted for millions upon millions of years.
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