Science, Strategy and War The Strategic Theory of ... - Boekje Pienter

Boyd’s views on command and control. Small teams operating relatively autonomously,pursue entrepreneurial opportunities and share know-how among themselves 114 . Cellularorganizations tend to mirror the complexity of the environment with requisite variety, asindividual cells sense new entrepreneurial opportunities. When environmental demandschange, new cells can be formed and old ones disbanded as necessary. Like an amoebachanging with its surroundings, the operating logic of the form is based on flexibility withaccepted protocols of knowledge sharing substituting for hierarchical controls. The freedom ofactivity is a key to enabling self-organizing behavior, a theme residing in the heart of Boyd’s work.Control of such a networked organization is not provided by tights top-downcontrols. In stead, a combination of loose-tight controls is applied. The shared values ofcorporate culture in belief systems provide tight, but internal and perhaps even ‘tacit’ controlas a form of protocol. Loose control comes from interaction between supervisor andemployees that encourages information sharing, trust and learning. The key to loose controlis management’s trust in employees to act according to the shared values, therefore settingthem free to search for opportunities, learn, and apply accumulating knowledge to innovativeefforts 115 . Successful leaders of complex organizations allow experimentation, mistakes,contradictions, uncertainty and paradox, so the organization can evolve. Leaders in tune witha complexity approach shared a common trait: tolerance for paradox. The fundamentalparadox in this leadership style is leading by not leading. Since processes unfold in complexsystems in non-linear ways, leading organizational change cannot come about by simplyadhering to a conventional command and control approach, which is essentially linear.Managing an organization as a complex system means letting go of control and a focusinstead on the power of the interconnected world of relationships and the feedback loops.How people interact influences what emerges. By focusing on relationships organizationscan be viewed as interconnected human webs, living organisms that unfold and adapt. Amanagement practice that focuses on a network of relationships is a way of engaging thedynamics of a complex adaptive system. It is effective because enhancing interactions leadsto the emergence of a creative and adaptable organization 116 . These too are ideasrecognizable in Boyd’s work.Strategy and planning do not escape from the application of insights from complexitytheory. Relating Complexity Theory to Strategic Management Theory, Gell-Mann observestwo sources of unpredictability are the problem. The first is that the fundamental laws of theuniverse are quantum mechanical: these give a set of probabilities for alternative histories ofthe universe-not a clear prediction that one history will occur instead of the others. Second,there is the phenomenon of chaos to contend with, which involves extreme sensitivity toinitial conditions. Tiny changes in initial conditions can distort the outcome by hugeamounts. Thus it is frequently impossible to find a best strategy. Instead what is mostimportant is to have a family of strategies, such that one can vary the response to one’schanging circumstance according to success. Robustness doesn’t consist so much in having aparticular pattern of response as in having an enormous set of possible responses’ 117 . Or as114 Henry Coleman, ‘What Enables Self-Organizing Behavior in Businesses’, Emergence, Volume 1,issue 1, p.37.115 Ibid, p.40.116 Roger Lewin and Birute Regine, ‘An Organic Approach to Management’, Perspective on BusinessInnovation, Cap Gemini Ernst & young Journal, Issue 4, pp. 19-26.117 Murray Gell-Mann, ‘The Complex Adaptive Business’, Perspective on Business Innovation, Cap GeminiErnst & Young Journal, Issue 1, p. 75-76. The literature on Complexity Theory and its relevance forthe humanities, social sciences, management theory is burgeoning. See for instance:; Shona L. Brown& Kathleen M. Eisenhardt, Competing on the Edge, Strategy as Structured Chaos (Boston, 1998); Uri Merry,152