A633.2.3.RB
Butterfly Effect
This
week’s reflective blog:
Based on this week's reading,
reflect on complexity science and theory in organizations and the butterfly
effect (p.66).
Identify 2 examples where “small
changes yield large results” in your organization.
What are the implication of
complexity theory for you and your organization and how can you use this to
drive improvements.
This week’s reflective blog (RB)
immediately made me think of Jurassic Park.
In the original movie, Jeff Goldblum, portrayed a character named Dr.
Ian Malcolm. Dr. Malcolm was a chaos
mathematician”. He was not exactly the
voice of reason but he definitely let the other characters in the movie know of
his opinion when it came to the cause and effect of cloning ancient creatures
for modern man’s amusement.
According to my research, the
“butterfly effect” is an example of an attractor. According to Obolensky, “These plots have a
specific and easily understandable pattern. However, some attractors do not and
they are called ‘strange’ attractors. Perhaps the most famous and useful
strange attractor is known as the butterfly effect, or Lorenz’s Strange
Attractor. Of all the chaos theories this one has special importance for
Complex Adaptive Leadership. Much work was done in the 1970s when the new
theories of chaos were really beginning to emerge. Strangely enough, most
papers in various different fields began to appear independently of each other
in 1970. Sadly very few were aware that a lot of work had already been done ten
years earlier. It seemed no one thought of looking in the Journal of
Atmospheric Sciences, volume 20, pp. 130–41, published in 1963. Over a decade
before the term ‘chaos mathematics’ was first coined an article entitled
‘Deterministic Non-Periodic Flow’ by Edward Lorenz described one of the most
famous manifestations of chaos mathematics – the butterfly effect. Its more
technical term is ‘Lorenz’s Strange Attractor’.
Edward Lorenz was a keen mathematician but actually worked as a research
meteorologist. He built a mini-weather system simulator on a Royal McBee
computer in 1960. In the winter of 1961 he wanted to study again a weather
simulation he had just spent several days running, and so typed in the starting
parameters once more. These consisted of a very lengthy list of numbers each
with a long decimal point such as 0.501675. The numbers represented changes in
three variables of temperature, pressure and wind speed. To save time, he left
the final few numbers off as this in meteorological terms was insignificant –
‘Like a seagull fart in a hurricane’ was the apparent significance he was
reported to comment to a colleague. The simulation ran at first exactly as
before, but after a couple of days some very small differences occurred to the
first run. After a while these differences grew to an outcome that was vastly
different – the simulation ended in a weather state poles apart from the first
run, despite such a very small change at the start. Lorenz made an accidental
but very significant discovery – that a very small change within a complex
system (such as weather) can produce a very large difference to what would have
otherwise happened. In other words, when a situation has a great sensitivity to
initial conditions a small change can have a disproportionate effect. When he
worked out why this was, he found that even complex and chaotic systems, which
are unpredictable in the long run, have an underlying pattern. This accidental
discovery was given the technical name ‘Sensitive Dependence on Initial Conditions’.
When Lorenz presented his paper several years later to the 139th meeting of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington in 1972, he
titled his paper ‘Predictability – Does the Flap of a Butterfly’s Wings in
Brazil Set Off a Tornado in Texas?’ His answer was, predictably, ambiguous
whilst focusing on the instability of the atmosphere. Lorenz’s butterfly effect
can be explained by three (temperature, pressure and wind speed) simultaneous
non-linear differential equations which have an infinite number of possible
solutions. When graphed, these equations give a picture as shown in Figure
5.10, which shows why the term ‘butterfly’ is used. Since that time the
butterfly effect is one of the most well-known phenomena of chaos mathematics.
It has given rise to many manifestations in films, literature and TV. It also has historic manifestations, a recent
one being Mohamed Bouazizi, the Tunisian fruit seller in the rural town of Sidi
Bouzid, who upon having his wares confiscated and being unable to gain an
audience with the mayor, immolated himself in front of town hall on 17 December
2010. His desperate action set off a series of events which became known as the
Arab Spring. An unforeseen, unprecedented and dramatic political, social,
cultural and economical realignment across the Middle-East, has gone on to dramatically
change the daily lives of over 200 million people. Although the story of
Mohamed Bouazizi is tragic in the extreme, his actions were, in fact, the wing
flap of Lorenz’s butterfly. The butterfly effect is very significant as, on the
face of it, it seems to break the first law of thermodynamics, sometimes known
as the Law of the Conservation of Energy, which can be summarized as: the
effort you put in will dictate the result you get out. Yet within complex
organizations, small changes can yield large results. A practical example of
this is the concept of ‘catalytic mechanisms’ that Collins reports in his
research. These are small changes to company policy which yielded large
results.” (Obolensky, 2014)
The “butterfly effect” reminds me of
throwing a stone into a body of water.
When the stone pierces the water’s surface a ripple occurs and grows
into even larger concentric ripples. A
stone the size of a quarter can turn into a ripple the size of house.
As a high school educator, often
times small things turn into even larger things when it comes to students. It can be triggered by a kind word or some
type of discipline. An example of this
is offering words of encouragement to a substandard student who ends of being
the Valedictorian. The student could
have easily failed out of school but, instead, excelled. Another example is taking a cell phone from a
student. Parents become involved and
they make phone calls and send emails that causes this small act of discipline
to escalate into a giant problem.
Dealing with students and parents is
very complex. There are rules and
policies in place but often times, the more irate the parent and student
becomes, the more apt the administration is to err on the side of the student
and/or parent.
The only true way to drive
improvement is to uphold the policies and standards. In my position as an Army Instructor, I
continuously hold to the standards and this, in itself, causes plenty of
ripples.
Reference
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