Book Review for Emergence

Leadership and the New Science and A Simpler Way

by Margaret Wheatley and Myron Kellner-Rogers.

Benyamin Lichtenstein
Department of Management; University of Hartford

Book Review for Emergence, 1999

“Our goal should be to make everything as simple as possible—but not any simpler.”
Albert Einstein.

To the untrained scientist—most every American manager—Meg Wheatley’s

best-selling books are an inspiring call for transformative leadership, based on metaphors

from avant-garde theories from the natural sciences. In Leadership and the New Science

and A Simpler Way (with Myron Kellner-Rogers), the connections between management

and the new sciences are inventive and provocative, providing an optimistic vision for a

“simpler way” to lead organizations. Their ideas, based on easy-to-understand

descriptions of physics, thermodynamics and biology, legitimize a relational and playful

approach to leading organizations that is inspiring and motivating. However, the

accessibility of these books is due to a set of simplifications that constrain the

development of an organizational science of complexity (McKelvey 1999).

To begin we should ask, what is the “New Science” that these books are based on,

and how is it different from complexity science? In general, the new sciences are a set of

rigorously developed theories and frameworks in multiple disciplines that describe the

world in ways that are more dynamic, human-centered, eco-relational, and connected to

the non-material and spiritual aspects of existence (Berman 1988; Lichtenstein 1999)

Expanding well beyond the domains of complexity theory, new sciences have been

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emerging in every scientific discipline, including mathematics, physics, thermodynamics,

biology, ecology, evolution, systems theory, medicine, psychology, sociology,

economics, political science, philosophy, theology, and consciousness (Ogilvy 1983).1

In Leadership and the New Science and A Simpler Way, Wheatley and Kellner-

Rogers introduce many of these new science theories, using concise descriptions and rich

imagery that avoids scientific jargon. Each new science description is creatively linked

to a normative injunction, toward creating a “new” style of management. It is the

inventive connections between physical/biological sciences and organizational behavior

that distinguish these two books.

This inventive approach permeates both books. For example, in Leadership and

the New Science Wheatley uses the deterministic chaos construct of a “strange attractor”

as a metaphor for behaviors that stay within certain boundaries or “basins of attraction”

(c.f. Thelan & Smith, 1994; Guastello, 1995). She then suggests that in organizations

there is similar magnetic force that pulls all behavior toward it, creating coherence:

One of the most potent shapers of behavior in organizations, and in life, is

meaning.....If we search to create meaning, we can survive and even flourish. In
chaotic organizations....that had been tipped into chaos by reorganizations or
leveraged buyouts, [some] employees were wise enough to sense that personal
meaning-making was their only route out of chaos. (Wheatley, 1992: 133-135).

In A Simpler Way, the two authors use theories of self-organization to show that

“systems emerge as individuals decide how they can live together. From such

relationships, a new entity arises with new capacities and increased stability” (Wheatley

& Kellner-Rogers, 1996: 33). This leads to a recognition that “our wonderful abilities to

self-organize are encouraged by openness. With access to our system we, like all life,

can anticipate what is required of us, connect with those we need, and respond

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intelligently” (Wheatley & Kellner-Rogers, 1996: 39). Those with some knowledge of

Prigogine’s theory of dissipative structures (Prigogine and Stengers 1984; Nicolis and

Prigogine 1989) may recognize the authors’ allusion to self-organizing structures that

emerge out of environmental fluctuations, and how that allusion provides a new

metaphor for managerial behavior.

Using examples like these throughout Leadership and the New Science and A

Simpler Way, Wheatley and Kellner-Rogers’ interpretations offer an optimistic human-

centered management style that many writers and business people are seeking (e.g. Ray

and Rinzler 1993; Whyte 1994; Reason & Herron 1996). Wheatley says, “As we let go

of the machine models of work, we begin to...appreciate our wholeness, and to design

organizations that honor and make use of the totality of who we are” (Wheatley, 1982:

12). However, when the metaphors are stretched too far, the conclusions end up hardly

connected to the sciences from which they are derived. This strains the credulity of her

analysis and limits the generalizability of her ideas. An important example of this

problem is found in Wheatley’s use of the “Schröedinger’s Cat” thought experiment in

quantum physics. To express a paradox distinctive to the quantum level of reality, Erwin

Schröedinger described a mythical Cat in an experimental box that is rigged with a

quantum devise (Wolf 1981). This devise, which has a 50/50 chance of releasing poison

in the box, is triggered by a quantum event. According to quantum mechanics, 2 the

triggering event exists as a probability wave function, thus a determination of the event’s

outcome can only be made when the devise is actually observed, i.e. the box is opened.

According to Schröedinger’s interpretation,2 after the trigger goes off but before the box

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is opened, the “cat” is both alive and dead, a paradox that shows the perils of applying

quantum-level logic to our Newtonian-level reality (Pagels 1984).

Notwithstanding this peril, Wheatley uses Schroedinger’s paradox as a metaphor

for organizational behavior when she says:

I realized I had been living in a Schroedinger’s cat world in every organization I

had ever been in. Each of these organizations had myriad boxes, drawn in
endless renderings of organizational charts. Within each of those boxes lay a
“cat,” a human being, laden with potential, whose fate was determined, always
and irrevocably, by the act of observation. (Wheatley, 1992: 60).

Her analogy highlights the problems of making inexact analogies from theories in the

new sciences. Here Schröedinger’s experimental system—the “box”—is compared to

organizational roles—“boxes” in an organizational chart. The probability wave function

is then compared to human potential, and the mathematical collapse of the wave packet is

compared to self-fulfilling prophecies. Although the language sounds scientific and her

interpretation makes good managerial sense, the link between science and reality has all

but vanished. People do have potential, but to make its realization dependent on an

observer is to discount individual initiative and personal power, which is completely

antithetical to her overall approach.

This self-contradiction is the result of uncritically translating scientific theories

into figures of speech. These figures of speech make enjoyable reading, but they do not

provide the operational rigor that is needed to generate an organizational science of

complexity (McKelvey 1999). Wheatley inadvertently admits this when she claims that

“Nothing really transfers; everything is always new and different and unique to each of

us” (Wheatley, 1992: 7). Here again, her respect for organizational dynamism and

individual sensemaking is valid, but if she is to be taken literally then her own ideas

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would be neither transferable nor generalizable, making them virtually impossible to

apply in other situations.

In most business situations, the level of accuracy I am proposing might be

considered overly arcane. However, we as complexity scholars have a unique

opportunity to support the constellation of an organization science of complexity. I

suggest we take this responsibility seriously, such that our excitement to share the

important organizational implications from recent advances in natural science does not

become an “exaggerated zeal” (McKelvey, 1999: 5). Instead, by drawing careful

analogies using rigorous logic (Garud & Kotha, 1994 provides an excellent example), we

can “seize the promise” of these new sciences, and develop legitimate and useful

extension of the complexity sciences for organizations and their leaders.

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NOTES:

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REFERENCES:

Bell, J. S. (1964). “On the Einstein-Podolski-Rosen paradox.” Physics 1: 195-200.

Berger, P. L. and T. Luckmann (1967). The Social Construction of Reality. Garden City,
NY, Anchor Books.

Berman, M. (1988). The Reenchantment of the World. New York, NY, Bantam Books.

Bernstein, R. J. (1985). Beyond Objectivism and Relativism. Philadelphia, PA,

University of Pennsylvania Press.

Bleier, R., Ed. (1986). Feminist Approaches to Science. Elmsford, NY, Pergamon Press.

Bohm, D. (1973). “Quantum theory as an indication of a new order in physics, part B:

Implicate and explicate order in physical law.” Foundations of Physics: 139-168.

Boulding, K. (1978). Ecodynamics: A New Theory of Societal Evolution. Newbury

Park, CA, SAGE.

Capra, F. (1975). The Tao of Physics. Boulder, CO, Shambhala Publications.

Eigen, M. and P. Schuster (1979). The Hypercycle. Berlin, Springer-Verlag.

Einstein, A. and L. Infeld (1966). The Evolution of Physics. New York, NY, Simon and
Schuster.

Garud, R. & Kotha, S. (1994). “Using the brain as a metaphor to model flexible
production systems.” Academy of Management Review, 19, 671-698.

Guastello, S. (1995). Chaos, Catastrophe, and Human Affairs: Applications of Nonlinear

Dynamics to Work, Organizations, and Social Evolution. Mahwah, NJ: Earlbaum
Press.

Kauffman, S. (1993). The Origins of Order. New York, NY, Oxford University Press.

Laszlo, E. (1987). Evolution - The Grand Synthesis. Boston, MA, Shambhalla.

Lerner, M. (1996). The Politics of Meaning. Reading, MA, Addison-Wesley.

Lichtenstein, B. (1999). “Valid or vacuous: A definition and assessment of "New

Paradigm" research in management.” Behavioral Scientist (forthcoming).

Lorenz, E. (1963). “Deterministic nonperiodic flow.” Journal of the Atmospheric

Sciences 20: 130-141.

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McKelvey, B. (1999). “Complexity theory in organization science: Seizing the promise

or becoming a fad?” Emergence 1(1): 5 - 31.

Nicolis, G. and I. Prigogine (1989). Exploring Complexity. New York, NY, W. H.

Freeman.

Ogilvy, J. A. (1983). The Emergent Paradigm. Stamford, CA, Stamford Research

Institute.

Pagels, H. R. (1984). The Cosmic Code. New York, NY, Bantam Books.

Pelletier, K. R. (1985). Toward a Science of Consciousness. Berkeley, CA, Celestial

Arts.

Pert, C., M. Ruff, et al. (1985). “Neuropeptides and their receptors: A psychosomatic
network.” Journal of Immunology 135: 820-826.

Prigogine, I. and I. Stengers (1984). Order out of Chaos. New York, NY, Bantam Books.

Ray, M. and A. Rinzler, Eds. (1993). The New Paradigm in Business. New York, NY,
Jeremy P. Tarcher/Perigee Books.

Reason, P. and J. Herron (1996). “A Participatory Inquiry Paradigm.” Centre For Action
Research in Professional Practice; University of Bath.

Rosser, J. B. (1991). From Catastrophe to Chaos: A General Theory of Economic

Discontinuities. Boston, MA, Kluwer Academic Publishers.

Thelan, J. & Smith, L., 1994. The Dynamics of Self-Organization.

Thom, R. (1975). Structural Stability and Morphogenesis. Reading, MA, Addison-

Wesley.

von Bertalanffy, L. (1968). General Systems Theory. New York, NY, Braziller Books.

1
Some examples of new sciences theories are found in: mathematics (Lorenz 1963;
Thom 1975), physics (Bohm 1973), thermodynamics (Nicolis and Prigogine 1989),
biology (Eigen and Schuster 1979), evolution (Laszlo 1987; Kauffman 1993), systems
theory (von Bertalanffy 1968), medicine (Pert, Ruff et al. 1985), sociology (Berger and
Luckmann 1967), economics (Boulding 1978; Rosser 1991), political science (Lerner
1996), philosophy (Bernstein 1985; Bleier 1986), and consciousness (Wilber 1977;
Pelletier 1985).
2
Specifically to the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum mechanics. Einstein’s
lifetime disagreement with this probabilistic interpretation is often recounted in the
quote: “God does not play dice.” (Bell 1964; Einstein and Infeld 1966)

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Wheatley, M. and M. Kellner-Rogers (1996). A Simpler Way. San Francisco, Berrett-

Koehler.

Wheatley, M. J. (1993). Leadership and the New Science. San Francisco, CA, Berrett-
Koehler Publishers.

Whyte, D. (1994). The Heart Aroused. New York, NY, Currency/Doubleday.

Wilber, K. (1977). The Spectrum of Consciousness. Wheaton, IL, Quest Publications.

Wolf, F. A. (1981). Taking the Quantum Leap. New York, NY, Harper & Row.

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