Work Life and the Laws of Physics. What?

"The future is already here.  It’s just not evenly distributed." -- William Gibson *

Do you see the people subordinate to you (could be your staff, could be your kids) as human capital, mechanisms that need to be constantly managed and controlled or they will swiftly drift into laziness or worse, wrong-doing?  Or do you see them as organisms, whole, active, unique and self-regulating?

This question, posed by Kathie Lingle of the Alliance for Work Life Progress (AWLP) at the Work Life Conference in Washington DC earlier this year, has stayed in my mind.  She presents these two schools of thought in the contemporary work place, building the case for a profound shift in our entire framework of thought over work life issues.  Given all that is happening in early childhood development, it is my opinion that the shift applies as much to raising children as it does to the work place and managing adults.  The parallels between parenting research and the workplace always amaze me.

Lingle argues that most organizations and systems remain entrenched in Industrial Age concepts, the qualities of which include a mechanistic approach to people, entropy, control, order and predictability, rigid structures, hierarchies and equilibrium.

She proposes we embrace the more fluid approach of people as organic, in a leap no less than the scientific jump from Newtonian physics to Quantum physics.  Literally and figuratively, Lingle is arguing that the very nature of how the corporate world functions, how people work together and function in organizational systems, has to enter the Quantum Age.

In this new age, organizations are flexible, agile and resilient.  Systems are interrelated, holistic and replete with innovation, disruption and surprise.  The contemporary company can be a facilitator of disorder.  Lingle speaks of “things coming together (relationships, dynamic fields of energy, unfolding)”.  With the death of hierarchy, there are no unimportant players, completely shifting how people are treated.  This organization permits, no, encourages and seeks chaos and allows the unfolding of strange attractors.

In a quantum world, success, however you define that, no longer has anything to do with age and putting in your time.  It becomes all about competency in a fluid, never still environment.  It has morphed into a world where equilibrium does not, indeed, cannot exist.  Lingle throws in a little chaos theory, reminding us that even chaos is not as chaotic and terrifying as we think.  Chaos is bordered and patterned by the strange attractor.  Chaos, which is turbulence with no direction, organizes itself this way.  Matter organizes itself in this way. Our bodies are organized this way.  Lingle’s parting shot?  “Guess what isn’t organized this way?  Work.”   I would add, families.

I woke up in a mechanistic command and control kind of mood this morning, that (not surprisingly) created nothing more than anger and frustration.  Happily it eventually brought to mind Kathie Lingle’s provocative presentation.  With my head full of chaos, quantum leaps and a more organic approach to the people around me, I am off to salvage what’s left of my day.

Are you ready for a quantum shift in your approach?  In your organization?  In your home?  What do you think that means?  I touched on what it means to me in my manifesto for a New House of Work, which is here.  Your thoughts?

* Much thanks to Kathie Lingle for sharing her ideas and also for that great opening quote. Thanks to CV Harquail for corrected attribution also.
 

Photo credit: cogs http://www.flickr.com/photos/zooboing/4110665706/
Photo credit: bubbles chaos http://www.flickr.com/photos/wwworks/612350664/