Applying new science theories in leadership development ... - Emerald

Applying new science theories
in leadership development
activities
Stephen A. Stumpf
The University of Tampa, Tampa, Florida, USA
If one assumes that the breakthroughs in the biological, chemical, and physical
sciences over the last four-score years have added new layers of meaning to our
world, then it is worthwhile to ask “Do new science discoveries have
implications for leadership in work organizations?” Certainly, the natural
science discoveries of Newton and others in past centuries affected our views
of organizations. The organizational form we call a bureaucracy reflects our
knowledge of structural mechanics – a bureaucracy is intended to be a set of
parts (people) with functions (roles) that follow accepted scientific principles
(policies). This machine metaphor for organizations remains pervasive as we
continue to try to determine, predict, measure, and evaluate all sorts of
organizational phenomena (i.e. a Newtonian cause and effect view of
organizational behaviour). Recently, Wheatley[1] suggested several
implications of new science theories that can be useful in understanding and
improving how organizations are designed, perceived, and function. Unless
these implications are developed and translated into the practices of leaders,
the utility of new science discoveries will be minimal.
A group of colleagues at New York University (NYU) unknowingly created
a virtual organization in 1980 based on today’s new science premisses[2]. True
to the new science paradigms, we neither knew that we were a virtual
organization nor that we shared new science premisses until we observed
ourselves over time. Our name at founding, the NYU Management Simulation
Projects Group, and the creation of the not-for-profit MSP Institute, Inc. several
years later, reflects the content of what we are about – designing and using
management simulations to help others learn how to be more effective in work
organizations.
The founding in 1993 of the Center for Leadership at The University of
Tampa provided the opportunity to reflect on our activities. Writings on the
applications of new science theories to the organizational sciences capture
much of our evolution. Our leadership development approach and activities are
consistent with new science implications for organizational learning and
effectiveness in environments that are complex and turbulent.
The thoughtful comments and ideas of Hrach Bedrosian, Andy Fleming, and Susan Heinbuch are
greatly appreciated.
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Development, Vol. 14 No. 5, 1995,
pp. 39-49. © MCB University Press,
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New science implications for organizational learning and
effectiveness
To sum up new science in a few paragraphs would be difficult, if not impossible.
Each attempt to describe new science is different from the previous one (which,
of course, is exactly what new science would suggest as no idea, person, or
thing can be defined independently from others). Yet, the written word requires
one to commit to a point of view to an unknowable audience. These paragraphs
are “a stake in the ground” as a point of departure.
Much of what we observe and do in organizations can be partially
understood and conducted through the application of pre-new science
management theories (I hesitate to use the word “old”). What occurs in
organizations often fits a Newtonian perspective of the world, one in which:
● organizations are designed to have many machine-like characteristics
and functions;
● most events and interactions are predictable and measurable;
● many of our expectations of regularity are met;
● there exist well-defined variables, boundaries, and cause-effect
relationships; and
● there are principles, policies, and rules to guide behaviour because we
know the better ways to do things, if not the best ways.
We see problems, we isolate them, and we solve them. When our solutions fail
to take into account the interconnectedness of events, we may make matters
worse. If this occurs, we tend to define the situation as a new problem, ignoring
or not seeing the links between the initial problem, our solution, and the new
problem. We prefer not to admit that chaos exists in our leadership domain –
complexity that looks like chaos just needs a bit more study. Once we have a
better analytic or deterministic models and measures, the illusion of chaos will
be gone.
As one elaborates the machine metaphor, some analogies become less
generalizable. Exceptions emerge. New science concepts can provide
frameworks that help us understand behaviour in organizations beyond our
current understandings derived from earlier scientific perspectives. Three new
science theories are mentioned. These are followed by a discussion of several
leadership approaches and activities that are consistent with Wheatley’s[1]
implications of new science concepts for the organizational sciences.
Quantum mechanics
Probably the most profound premiss of quantum mechanics is that there are no
prefixed, definitely describable things. Things only exist in relationship to other
things. As we look around us, this premiss seems implausible. Yet, in the world
of organizational behaviour, we are interested in “things” that are not things at
all. Our interests are in the behaviours, thoughts, emotions, values, attitudes,
images of the future, dreams, and memories of diverse, interconnected groups

of people we call the organization, its suppliers, customers, shareholders, and
other significant stakeholders. The actual behaviours observed may be
tangible, but the cause of the behaviour and its predictability are intangibles
and not completely known. At best, a particular behaviour is probabilistic, not
deterministic.
Quantum mechanics suggests that behaviours, just as thoughts, are
indeterminable in isolation from their context, and their contexts (past and
present) are beyond complete description (i.e. they are infinite). Moreover, as
behaviours exist only in relationship to other behaviours, the process of
observing them or sharing ideas introduces a new relationship – hence the
observed behaviour or shared idea is different from its unobserved counterpart.
The leadership development implications of quantum mechanics can be quite
practical. First, it may be fruitless to approach leadership development in a
deterministic manner by assuming that if the leader does x, y will occur. The
notion that a leader should have specific responses to specific situations as
articulated in many models of leadership should be suspect. What is needed is
a heuristic framework for leadership – one in which discovering is the
underlying dynamic process, not the discovery per se. Leadership would no
longer be defined as influencing others to accomplish specific goals, but as a
process in which it is more valuable and important to explore and move
towards something than to accomplish it. Leadership involves creating and
sustaining fields of energy in which relationships grow, develop, and become
increasingly purposeful, dynamic, and effective. Excitement and energy come
from anticipations and wonderment about the next round of events.
Organizations will continue, no doubt, to measure things that have passed. The
leaders should be guided by the excitement of the future more than by past
accomplishments.
A second implication is that discovering leadership cannot be separated from
efforts to behave as a leader. One must be an active observer and player, in
active partnership with the organization and its environments, to learn much
from events or experiences. Studying leadership without experiencing it is an
inefficient way to learn, if such learning is possible. The ability to “live”
experiences and discover what is meaningful in them is a necessary condition
for leadership development.
A third implication relates to the challenge of defining “reality” in any open
system. Perception is reality for each individual, and there is no perception in
isolation. Perception requires something to be perceived. Hence, reality in work
organizations is likely to be whatever sense people make of their observations
and interactions. This suggests that our measures of leadership behaviours
must include the perceptions of all those in the collective relationship. How a
manager relates to one direct report is dependent on:
● how he/she relates to other direct reports,
● how these direct reports relate to the manager, and
● how the manager relates with her or his manager.
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Self-organizing systems
The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that entropy applies in all isolated
and closed systems. Entropy, a process of continual disintegration to a state of
randomness, is a predictable outcome of any system in the absence of new
inputs. Open systems overcome entropy by interacting with the environment –
taking in needed resources.
Self-organizing system theory posits that open systems use disorder to create
possibilities for growth. Through both resilience and self-reference, selforganizing
systems are capable of maintaining an identity while changing
form. They have both autonomy and control. Each form that is created works
for the moment. If new information supports the form, it persists. If new
information threatens the form, the system looks for ways to accommodate the
information by making incremental changes that are consistent with much of
its past but do not unnecessarily deny the new information or a new future.
This “rolling equilibrium” or adjustment is more than a reaction to an action in
the Newtonian sense because the reaction is not predictable.
What happens if the autonomy within such systems is removed (i.e. if they
are externally controlled by the organization)? Self-organizing system theory
suggests that in such situations the system will fail to adjust to the environment
in a timely manner as it must obtain approval from parts of the organization
that have not experienced the environment in the same way. Autonomy is
central to the system’s evolution. This raises the question, “How does an
organization control a self-organizing system?” The answer may be that it does
not. The self-organizing system operates within a relatively stable, more global
structure. Changes within the local structure tend to have only a minor effect on
the global structure. The stability of the global structure stems from its creation
over time as a result of the culture, vision, and values shared by the majority of
organizational members and key stakeholders.
The leadership development implications of self-organizing system theory
are found in the providing of direction and control. First, disequilibrium and
disorder are not viewed as negative attributes of such systems. Some degree of
each is necessary to provide the system with opportunities to adjust to new
information. As adjustments are made, the self-organizing system learns how
to accommodate to its environment. Leadership efforts that try to eliminate
disorder and control behaviour will destroy the system’s ability to self-organize.
Novelty of response is often necessary. Without new stimuli, which often arises
out of discontentedness, people lapse into dull habit. In so doing, the likelihood
of maladaptive behaviour increases owing to differences in each actor’s
perceived reality of the situation.
A second implication has to do with the self-organizing system’s ability to
develop insights. Insights are new formulations of reality based on different
connections of previously experienced information. They bring personal
enjoyment and build the mind’s capacity to interact more effectively with the
environment. The development of insights requires one to look inward to make
connections among previously unrelated ideas, people, events, or situations –

creating new meaning out of these connections. The greater the degree of
control imposed by an external system, the fewer the insights developed as new
formulations are not encouraged or tolerated.
Chaos theory
Chaos may not be chaos at all. At some level, or from some perspective, order
does exist for some period of time. What appears to be chaos, if left alone, will
conform to unspecified boundaries. Once the boundaries have emerged, the
system no longer experiences the fluctuations, disturbances, or imbalances
previously perceived to be chaos. In fact, these variances are often a primary
source of creativity within the system.
Helping people to learn from and accept the perception of chaos is a
significant challenge for leadership development activities. How does one
develop the patience and capacity to absorb variances without being tempted to
control or eliminate them? The answer may be in looking for order amidst
disorder, and giving up the notion of control. One can always find order in a
system, if only an order of process rather than form. All things and events have
order from some perspective for short periods of time. Seeing the order may not
be as crucial as knowing that it is there. Children struggle with this as they
learn to accept the reality that a parent not present does not mean that the
parent does not exist. They begin a process of developing faith – beliefs about
events or things that are beyond comprehension.
Leadership development concepts, models, and activities
The University of Tampa Center for Leadership designs and delivers leadership
development programmes for business organizations and its undergraduate
and MBA student populations. One such programme is a prototype of the
leadership development programmes offered. Initially designed for Aetna Life
and Casualty, it is frequently offered by the Life Office Management Association
(LOMA is a life insurance industry trade association located in Atlanta, GA).
Other Center for Leadership programmes which have a comparable focus are
conducted as a Leadership Lab required of undergraduate and MBA students,
and for several dozen businesses and not-for-profit organizations around the
world.
The LOMA Middle Management Workshop on Leadership is a five-day
programme targeted at middle level managers throughout the insurance
industry who are viewed by their organizations as having senior management
potential. The programme starts with discussions of “What is going on in your
environment that is affecting you today?” and “What is leadership?” After
sharing several of the current views of effective leadership practices, we move
from the traditional mechanistic view of organizations and control to human
behaviour perspectives consistent with organizational science implications of
the new science paradigms.
The role of the workshop facilitator is a leadership activity. The facilitator
strives to create fields of energy in which participants develop increasingly
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Figure 1.
The W-cubed model
purposeful, dynamic, and effective relationships which serve to generate
individual insights. It is these participant insights, as they are able to reflect the
shared realities of others in their workplace, that led them and their units to
accomplish significant business results.
Heuristic models to guide leader behaviour
For over a decade leadership development models have evolved that have
introduced and discussed the processes of diagnosis and discovery. Three
books capture many of the more generalizable and useful models for learning
about leadership and improving one’s leadership efforts[3-5].
One model, labelled W-cubed, asks three questions: What do we want?, What
do they want?, and What can we do? (See Figure 1.) To use the model, one must
first specify the issue or situation to be diagnosed. The model then directs the
user to determine who the “we” are, what it is that “we” really want in this
situation, who the different “theys” are, and what it is we perceive them to want.
Given this diagnosis, we return to the model to explore what it is the “we” can
do – now and in the future.
The W-cubed model guides its user through an interactive process of
discovering possible actions that simultaneously satisfy what it is that “We
want,” “What the different theys want,” and “What it is that we can do” to
satisfy both our wants and their wants. This “sweet spot” is noted by the
shaded area in Figure 1. In practice, users of W-cubed find that they are unable
to identify actions that easily satisfy the three elements of the model
simultaneously. The existence of many “theys” who often have different wants
leads to an ongoing process of trying to satisfy enough of their wants (along
with your wants) for the present to keep the relationship healthy. The
relationship grows over time if more and more of each party’s wants are being
satisfied; it degenerates if wants are not being satisfied. The former leads to
self-organizing system relationships, the latter to entropy.
The W-cubed model and other heuristic tools used in Center for Leadership
programmes are fully described elsewhere[3,4]. Without taking the space to
What do
we want?
w 3
What can we do?
What do
they want?

discuss them separately, some generalizations are useful. Each heuristic model
has several characteristics which are consistent with the organizational
implications of new science theories. Each model:
● involves and supports an ongoing, iterative thought process that can
become self-organizing within the frame of the model;
● is not a set of judgments or conclusions (i.e. the models do not tell one
what to do or the “correct” action to take, they are not deterministic);
● incorporates multiple perspectives and encourages one to obtain such
perspectives;
● has general applicability to a wide array of organizational situations –
the models are not specific to a function, product, process, or industry;
and
● acknowledges and supports a continual change and continuous
improvement approach to leadership and accepts the often perceived
chaos in and around organizations.
Our use of these models in the LOMA Middle Management Workshop leverages
the attributes of the models. For example, we ask participants to bring with
them a work issue or situation that they would like to examine while at the
programme. After the models are described by the staff, participants apply
them to a video case – first individually, then in small groups, and finally,
collectively. Participants are then asked to apply the models in a live situation –
one that is part of a behavioural simulation[6]. Although the stimulus
(simulation) is artificial, the use of the models becomes both real and live for
participants as they use the models in an actual leadership situation. After
receiving feedback on each model’s use from each other and the training staff,
trio groups are formed to address the situations brought by each participant.
The models are first applied individually, then shared within a trio group, and
finally explored by the trio group collectively.
The result after three rounds of model application within each trio is a unique
set of ideas to be explored and tried by each participant on return to their
respective organizations. One of the learnings is that the more diverse the
backgrounds of the trio participants, the more creative and varied are the
solutions discussed. Trio groups act like self-organizing systems. The key to a
trio’s success is whether or not they put energy into their system; if they do, the
system leads to higher orders of ideas.
The leadership development processes used reflect the new science theories.
There are no prefixed, definitely describable outcomes to each activity. The
collective wisdom of the groups is used to identify desirable outcomes for each
activity. While there is noticeable commonality among desirable outcomes
across programmes, much is unique to the actual process used, participant
backgrounds, and dynamics created within the groups. Our focus is on
understanding the flow of relationships and use of discovery models, not
normative leadership practices.
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Assessment of leadership competence
A second activity that is part of the LOMA Middle Management Workshop is
the use of our multirater Leadership Inventory. The use of such instruments,
sometimes called 360 degree assessments or rounded appraisal instruments,
obtains the input of a participant’s manager(s), peers, direct reports, and self on
a fixed set of leadership behaviours with ample space provided for open-ended
comments. While the use of a fixed set of items implies a deterministic approach
to leadership skills, the process we use with the Leadership Inventory
compensates for this one-best-way view of leadership skill.
Such instruments traditionally consist of items that have been validated
through job sampling and/or predictive validity studies (e.g. a sample item is
“To what extent does he/she encourage co-operative problem solving?”). We
used a job sampling approach. The use of multirater instruments typically
involves a participant receiving a package of instruments and instructions to:
(a) perform a self appraisal, and (b) send copies of the instruments to his or her
manager(s), peers, and direct reports. An attempt is usually made to collect the
data in a confidential manner, e.g. completed forms are sent to an administrator
or the external supplier for computer scoring. The feedback provided to each
participant often consists of the means of each item’s multiple responses
displayed as bar charts.
We view such analysis and reporting of the results of a multirater instrument
as unnecessarily mechanistic. If one peer perceives a participant’s performance
as low, another as high, the report says medium. This is akin to one peer
perceiving a participant as “blue,” another as “yellow”, and the computer
reporting that the participant is “green”. New science theories suggest that
each rater’s perspective might be of greatest value if considered separately, with
any synthesis being done by the participant directly (not a computer
programmed to calculate an average).
We accomplish this by having participants perform the tallying of the
responses from their manager(s), peers, and direct reports themselves.
Confidentiality, if important to a participant, can be maintained by the way in
which responses are returned (e.g., in non-identifying envelopes). As
participants tally their multirater feedback, we encourage them to retain the
perspective of the provider (e.g. manager, peer, direct report) and to look for any
patterns within the responses. Once their feedback is arrayed, instructions are
provided such as:
● Look over the pattern of responses to each item, item by item. What are
these responses telling you? Is there an overarching story?
● Which of the raters has had a greater opportunity to observe you with
respect to each item? Should their feedback be thought about differently
than those who have had little opportunity to observe?
● Are some raters in a better position to provide you with feedback on
some items?

● If different raters tend to agree, what does this mean to you? If they
disagree in some ways, what might this mean?
● Summarize your interpretation of the pattern of responses in your own
words. Plan on sharing this interpretation with the facilitator who will be
observing you in the simulation which takes place tomorrow.
Participants are asked to make sense out of their feedback in light of their
knowledge of their jobs, the people who provided the information, and any
known shared perspectives within their work place. Some participants balk
when they are asked to conduct the tally and interpret their results. They
express concern about the accuracy of the results (were the raters being
honest?) and their personal difficulty in coming to a conclusion about their
relative strength regarding each item. We listen closely and work with
participants to discover the possible meaning from the multiple perspectives on
each item. Participants are not given “answers”. The practice field opportunity
(behavioural simulation) which follows provides an opportunity for
clarification – from both other programme participants and the training staff.
Live practice fields
By the third day in the LOMA Middle Management Workshop, we have worked
with several leadership concepts and three heuristic models, involved
participants in one vicarious learning experience and small group discussion,
and facilitated their synthesis of the Leadership Inventory feedback from their
co-workers. The stage has been set for their live performances. We use one of
several behavioural simulations designed specifically for leadership
development as the first performance[7], and the trio group process to explore
participant business issues as the second performance.
Behavioural simulations
Behavioural simulations recreate an organizational entity through written
materials and implied structures, roles, and functions. The simulated
organization is part of an industry; it experiences competitive, economic, legal,
social, political, and regulatory forces just as real organizations do. Individuals
assume different, pre-established and partially-defined managerial roles in the
simulated organization. They then have the opportunity to establish priorities,
relationships, goals, a vision, or whatever else they view as appropriate to
managerial work. Individually and collectively the participants enact an
organization within an environment.
Depending on the goals, styles, and skills of the people involved, different
issues become important, are defined in different ways, and unique solutions
emerge for similar issues. Since there is no tangible structure in the initial
simulation, participants begin with only a slight sense of order. They recognize
the lack of an agreed-on structure or process for leading the organization and
the threat of slipping into chaos. Over time a new order emerges that reflects
their individual and collective perspectives of both the simulated organization
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(its issues) and how to lead it. The debriefing process focuses on what the
participants chose to do as well as how they went about doing it.
Behavioural simulations are practice fields for exploring the implications of
new science concepts in work organizations. There are no prefixed relationships
among issues or participants. There are no predetermined “right answers”. The
instructions given to participants for the simulation is to “do what you feel
comfortable doing in light of the programme concepts that you believe would be
effective in this organization”. Thus, participants are encouraged to enter into a
self-organizing system – they begin with something and change it as they
choose, hopefully leading to a more desirable future for the organization. There
are no real boundaries from a training or programme perspective. All
boundaries are self-created and self-imposed on the basis of individual and
collective mental models of effective leadership behaviour.
The debriefing processes that follow the enactment phase of the behavioural
simulation focus on participants learning about their leadership approaches
through reflection and feedback from other participants and staff. Group
discussions, a round-robin peer feedback process, staff counselling sessions, a
review of participant synthesized multirater information, and coaching on the
development of personal insights help participants personalize their learnings
to their own organizational situations and style.
Trio group business issue exploration activities
The second live practice field used in the LOMA Middle Management
Workshop is a business situation trio group analysis. Here we have participants
focus on a current, unresolved, important business/community issue for which
they are partially responsible. They apply the programme concepts to the issue,
then share it with two other programme peers. This practice field is “live” in
that the issue and key players involved in the issue are live. An initial plan is
developed to move the issue forward – a plan that frequently needs the cooperation
of many others – both inside and outside the participant’s work
organization.
By sharing both the issue and one’s ideas about it with programme peers,
participants are able to explore possible reactions to their leadership efforts
before they are enacted. The conversation within trio groups often focuses on
“What if . . . “ and “Have you thought about …” kinds of questions by the
programme peers. Note again that the trio process does not proceed with
prefixed, definable solutions in mind, nor does it conform to a specific order of
questioning or response. Conversations often appear to be free-flowing and illstructured,
only to emerge with a sense of direction and order. Trio groups are
self-organizing systems in which each member takes on roles of presenter,
facilitator, and coach in a self-determined manner.
Developing personal insights
The final day of a LOMA Middle Management Workshop guides participants
through a process to develop insights about their personal style, competences,

and leadership approach. We use Senge’s[8] framework of five disciplines of
learning to stimulate insights in the areas of personal mastery, developing and
understanding one’s own and others’ mental models, creating a shared vision,
team learning, and systems thinking. The reframing of the workshop along
these disciplines helps participants generalize the learnings from the specific
activities, cases, simulation, and trio group business issues to their ongoing
work lives.
Contrast the closure experience of developing personal insights and
sometimes sharing them with other participants used here (and in other Center
for Leadership activities) with the more traditional testing approach. Most tests
require one to identify what are predetermined right answers based on the
content covered in the developmental experience. As we apply new science
concepts to leadership development, we begin to accept the notion that different
people will learn different things and use their learnings in different ways. This
is what our personal insight activities are intended to precipitate – unique but
powerful learnings for the individual in light of their perceptions of reality, their
ability to participate in self-organizing systems, and their capacity to thrive on
chaos.
Notes and references
1. Wheatley, M. J., Leadership and the New Science: Learning about Organization from an
Orderly Universe, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, San Francisco, CA, 1992.
2. While started at NYU, the virtual organization today encompasses the ideas and
involvement of people from more than ten universities and dozens of work organizations.
Those that have most directly affected my thinking are Catherine Ahern, Maria Arnone,
Deborah Barrows, Hrach Bedrosian, Susan Berger, William Berliner, Sabra Brock, Jim
Clark, Ron Clark, Joel DeLuca, Susan DeLuca, David DeVries, Roger Dunbar, Jane Dutton,
Andy Fleming, Dana Fogg, Richard Green, Abraham Gitlow, Anne Hayden, Karen
Hartman, Robert Hawkins, Susan Heinbuch, Robert Kaplan, Morgan McCall, Mary
McBride, Thomas Mullen, Sidney Nachman, Monica Shay, Candace Ulrich, Ronald
Vaughn, Karen Watson, and Dale Zand.
3. Stumpf, S.A. and Mullen, T., Taking Charge: Strategic Leadership in the Middle Game,
Prentice-Hall, New York, NY, 1992.
4. Stumpf, S.A., The Growth Challenge: How to Build Your Business Profitably, Dearborn
Financial Publishing, Chicago, IL, 1993.
5. Stumpf, S.A. and DeLuca, J., Learning to Use What You Already Know, Berrett-Koehler
Publishers, San Francisco, CA, 1994.
6. Stumpf, S.A. and Dutton, J.E., “The dynamics of learning through management
simulations: let’s dance”, Journal of Management Development, Vol. 9 No. 2, 1990, pp. 7-15.
7. Dunbar, R., Stumpf, S.A., Mullen, T. and Arnone, M., “Management development: choosing
the right leadership simulation for the task”, Journal of Management Education, Vol. 16
No. 2, 1992, pp. 220-30.
8. Senge, P., The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization,
Doubleday/Currency, New York, NY, 1990.
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