Teach the Web

Leadership and new science

July 13th, 2010
4 Comments

Maybe it’s because I have a deep affection for sci-fi—sci-fi that is often based on new science: invisible fields, self-organizing systems, the chaos theory, quantum physics, and other wonderful scientific goodness that makes for creative science fiction. Maybe this is why I opened Leadership and the New Science: Discovering Order in a Chaotic World on Sunday, and couldn’t put it down until I was completely finished a couple of hours later. I wasn’t sure what I was getting myself into when I started the book—I hadn’t read any summaries or reviews. All I knew was that I needed to read the book as part of earning my doctorate. So I began my journey to figure out how leadership and new science were actually connected. I was happy to have author Margaret J. Wheatley as my guide. Her writing style was thoroughly enjoyable. She weaved together science, leadership, and organizational theories with ease and grace.

I’m not sure I’ve ever taken the time to consider where organizational and leadership theories emerge from. This is one of the reasons why I am pursuing this doctorate degree in Learning and Leadership—I want to learn more about leadership. Sunday, was the first time I consciously considered that the way we organize businesses, schools, and governments may come from the way that we see the world—a world we tend to view via the way we understand it, which is through natural sciences. “The new science research referred to in this book comes from the disciplines of physics, biology, and chemistry, and from theories of evolution and chaos that span several disciplines” (Wheatley, 2006, p. 10).

OK, so you might be thinking, “hey, I’m a designer or I’m a web geek not a science nerd, this sounds like a snooze fest or way too scientific,” but let me assure you this book is anything but. Wheatley does a great job keeping her tone friendly and approachable. She uses examples that people in a myriad of occupations can relate to. Heck, she even quotes Star Trek once. I won’t attempt to explain all of the connections Wheatley makes between leadership and new science, you’ll have to read her book for that, but while reading the book I realized that many of the points the author makes are valid and I wanted to share some thoughts. Wheatley (2006) states,

“Each of us lives and works in organizations designed from Newtonian images of the universe. We manage by separating things into parts, we believe that influence occurs as a direct result of force exerted from one person to another, we engage in complex planning for a world that we keep expecting to be predictable, and we search continually for better methods of objectively measuring and perceiving the world. These assumptions […] come to us from seventeenth-century physics, from Newtonian mechanics.” (p. 7-8)

She goes onto state, “One of the first differences between new science and Newtonianism is a focus on holism rather than parts. Systems are understood as whole systems, and attention is given to relationships within those networks” (Wheatley, 2006, p. 10).

Wheatley (2006) explores relationships in organizations like businesses, schools, and governments. She does this through the lens of new science. She explains that we are seeing a change in the entire universe including a change within organizations—a change from permanent structures to agile, effective, self-organizing groups. (p. 82) Anyone who is tapped into social media and the Web is very aware of the power of self-organization. We see people self-organizing through twitter.com, facebook.com, meetup.com, gowalla.com and a plethora of other online tools. We see people coming together to solve challenges and to make a positive impact on the world. We witness people use twitter to inform others about severe weather, natural disasters, and man-made emergencies. Then we see people use twitter as a tool to organize ways to help people affected by these events. Self-organization is a powerful phenomenon—a phenomenon that is occurring at all levels of life. It’s a phenomenon that can excite and scare people.

Wheatley (2006) states,

“We believe that in order to maintain ourselves and protect our individual freedom, we must defend ourselves from external forces. We tend to think that isolation, secrecy, and strong boundaries are the best way to preserve individuality. But this self-organizing world teaches that boundaries not only create distinctions; they are also places for communication and exchange (see Margulis and Sagan 1986). Because system members engage in continual exchanges among themselves and with their environment, the system develops greater freedom from its environment.” (p. 85)

As I read this, I began to think about the pushback I often receive about sharing my coursework, curriculum, lesson plans, and other key elements that I use for teaching. I get a lot of resistance about being so open. For example, I remember being at one of my first academic conferences a few years ago. I was sitting down for a meal with a tableful of other design educators. I’m not sure how the conversation started, but I clearly remember a woman telling me that she would never give the head of her department her syllabi. I couldn’t understand this for a number of reasons. My first question to her was, “don’t you want the head of your department to know what your teaching? ” Her answer, was “no.” She went on to tell me that all the materials for her courses were her materials and she wasn’t going to share them with anyone (not even the head of her department). I thought how sad her working environment must be. No sharing, at all, not even syllabi (which can be the most boring, must standard document within a course)? How does anyone in that department know what anyone else is doing and teaching? How are the students getting a well-rounded education if the leaders in their department (their professors and their head of the department) are not planning together and sharing information? Knowing I had just recently changed my focus from purely industry to an academic/industry mix, the woman warned me not to share any of my work with anyone. The other design educators at the table agreed and they said that I would become obsolete if I shared my work.

I didn’t heed their advice. I continue to share my work. I do so with the understanding that: 1. no-one else is me so no-one else will ever be able to teach a lesson or work through a project the same way I do (and I will never teach a lesson or work through a project the same way someone else does) 2. I don’t focus on becoming obsolete. If I make myself obsolete by sharing information than in some way I should be happy and if I make myself so obsolete that there is no longer need for my services, I have faith that another opportunity will open up for me to explore. There are no good reasons to live in fear and no good reasons to hoard information that can help improve education for students around the world.

Many people are scared to share—the idea of open-education (and open-information sharing) is just too much for many people to handle. I know that if I had not been willing and wanting to share my tools, resources, and knowledge that I would not be involved with initiatives like the Open Web Education Alliance (OWEA) and The Web Standards Project Education Task Force (WaSP EduTF). Which means that I would not be helping educators and industry leaders from around the world to improve web education. I would not have opportunities to travel, speak, and write about web education in meaningful venues. Sharing was the most powerful thing I could do and I am incredibly grateful that I did not listen to those people stuck in Newtonian thinking and instead embraced the ideas of new science. Ideas like self-organization, which lead to people who saw the need to create a better web for a better world, giving their time and resources and getting other people involved to create meaningful and positive change in the world.

Wheatley (2006) says that, “Most people come to their organizations with a desire to do something meaningful, to contribute and serve” (p. 132). She states, “The call of meaning is unlike any other, and we would do well to spend more time together listening for the deep wells of purpose that nourish all of us.” I couldn’t agree more and I find this especially true when speaking with others who are involved with improving education. Wheatley (2006) states,

“In all types of organizations, too many filled with people exhausted, cynical, and burned-out, I have witnessed the incredible levels of energy and passion that can be evoked when leaders or colleagues take the time to recall people to the meaning of their work. It only takes a simple but powerful question: “What called you here? What were you dreaming you might accomplish when you first came to work here?” This question always elicits a deep response because so few of us work for trivial purposes.” (p. 132)

Maybe these are the questions we should ask of each other. Maybe this is where our focus should be—on meaning and discovery—not fear and secrecy. Wheatley (2006) says, “In every organization, we need to look internally, to see one another as the critical resources on this voyage of discovery. We need to learn how to engage the creativity that exists everywhere in our organizations” (p. 9). She goes on to say,

“In the quantum world, relationship is the key determiner of everything. Subatomic particles come into form and are observed only as they are in relationship to something else. They do not exist as independent “things.” There are no basic ‘building blocks.’ Quantum physics paints a strange yet enticing view of a world that, as Heisenberg characterized it, ‘appears as a complicated tissue of events, in which connections of different kinds alternate or overlap or combine and hereby determine the texture of the whole’ (1958, 107). These unseen connections between what were previously thought to be separate entities are the fundamental ingredient of all creation.” (Wheatley, 2006, p. 11)

Maybe if we switched our focus from a top-down leadership model and started considering the relationships between people and allow people to become self-organized we would find that more people are satisfied with their work, their work environment, and with themselves.

“With relationships, we give up predictability and open up to potentials. Several years ago, I read that elementary particles were ‘bundles of potentiality.’ I began to think of all of us this way, for surely we are as undefinable, unanalyzable, and bundled with potential as anything in the universe. None of us exists independent of our relationships with others. Different settings and people evoke some qualities from us and leave others dormant. In each of these relationships, we are different, new in some way.” (Wheatley, 2006, p. 35)

Everyday we witness people developing their own groups and outlets to find meaning and act on discovery. We see this happening in spite of organizations like businesses, schools, and governments not because of these organizations. We witness more and more people sharing information. We see people embrace their bundles of potentiality. Now it’s time for organizations to do the same thing. To understand that there is no single leader in a group, no one person who can solve all of the challenges. It’s time to realize that it is the relationship between all of the parts—between every person—that creates a cohesive whole, a whole that is able to effectively solve challenges and produce positive change.

Categories Teaching, Doctorate, Leadership, Learning, Sci-fi