Shifting Paradigms Essay

With the dawn of the industrial era, the Newton theory led humans into perceiving organizational success from the perspective of maintaining a stable system. From this perspective, when a crisis threatened the stability of the system, a leader had the role of stepping into re-establishing equilibrium. As such, the Newtonian paradigm propagated the idea that stability is the sign of success. For this reason, in organizations, order should be imposed from above leading to command-and-control and top-down type of leadership (Tetenbaum, 1998). Organizations had to design such structures to support various functions such as decision-making. Some example of things in the chaos paradigm that are impossible to predict include the human brain states, the stock market, weather, and turbulence. From an evaluation of the main ideas of the two paradigms, Toby poses the question whether chaos theory provides humans with helpful metaphors and methods for understanding the workplace in organizations.

He asks whether the theory lends itself to the self-organization of workers in companies. Judging from his discussions, the author is inclined to the idea that the revolutionized organizations in the contemporary society require the application of the chaos theory in management (Tetenbaum, 1998). Nonetheless, the paradigm has not yet been applied to human systems in organizations because of the limited availability of research and knowledge on its application to human systems. The increased demand for knowledge sharing and speed of communication has contributed to a self-managed model in organizations (Englehardt & Simmons 2002). From this point, Toby argues that a manager in the 21st century must possess five critical skills. The leader must have the ability to: i. Manage the Transition In managing the transition, Toby points out that organizations are transforming from the industrial to the information era.

As such, both the leaders and the followers have to alter their attitudes and perspectives of the way of doing work and solving problems in the organizations. iii. Destabilize the System Another point that Toby puts forward for managers in the information era is destabilizing the system. Under this point, the author argues that the world has become more competitive and complex and the sustainability of organizations is based on their ability to be creative and innovate. Therefore, it is dysfunctional to restrict managers and employees to strategies of imitation and repetition. Managers have to destabilize the system of the industrial era organizations and allow employees to think out of restrictive criteria. For this reason, as the organization changes, it is the role of managers to maintain order in the process of transition.

Managers must ensure that organizations engage in adequate creativity and innovation to make it sustainable and competitive and at the same time remain stable to avoid disorder. As such, the chaos theory proposes a change in organizations and gives managers the role of preventing disorder that would result from these changes (Tetenbaum, 1998). v. Create and Maintain a Learning Organization Under this point, Toby points out that learning is a vital element of the information age and is crucial to the self-organizing activities from which new systems develop. It can be used for communication, data management, inventory management, customer relationship management, and management information systems. Given the necessity of these functions in organizations, Toby proposes the integration of the chaos paradigm in the operations of organizations.

Globalization Under this characteristic, Toby starts off by stating that everyone is interconnected in the flow of goods, money, or information. The author attempts to drive the point that the world economy is increasingly becoming integrated. Even small organizations are becoming active in the global environment as the mobile technology and internet are enabling communication across countries and continents. With the increased cooperation between countries in the information era, Fuji could easily expand its operations into America and fiercely compete Kodak (Tetenbaum, 1998). Even today, organizations have no choice but to compete. It is becoming necessary for organizations to identify their competitive advantages and capitalize on them. Competition is one of the major components of the chaos paradigm. Therefore, Toby argues that organizations in the information era must shift from the Newton paradigm to chaos.

This example depicts the level of speed that organizations are exposed to in the information era. Regardless of the area of operation, every organization needs to acknowledge the fact that every aspect of the global business seem to move substantially faster than it did in the industrial age. Some observers have labeled the 21st century as “the century when speed dominated” (Tetenbaum, 1998). Organizations across the globe need to think faster for their sustainability and survival. With the pace with which the world is shifting to the information age, organizations need to do to stay relevant. However, the author states that such predictions are dangerous and illusory. They only allow a false and debilitating sense of security for the organization. Therefore, clearly laying out future plans for organizations is not an indication of success for the organization in the contemporary global era.

In chaos theory, the future is unpredictable. Toby also argues that the focus of the chaos paradigm is on the web of feedback loops available in every system. Therefore, chaos is self-organizing. Self-organization and emergent change in organizations To describe this point, Toby uses the example of Visa whose operations are reminiscent of the chaos theory. According to the author, Visa is a good example of a company that operates in self-organization. The organization has magnificently grown since 1970 and currently serves billions of people across the world. Despite the growth and scope of operations of the organizations, it is not easy to pick out its owner, how it operates, or where it is located. Knowledge and information sharing are interconnected. In the industrial era, companies were fond of holding on knowledge to use it for their own interests in gaining power over their competitors.

In the information era, this behavior is not acceptable (Tetenbaum, 1998). In this era, organizations attain power from their ability to be a source of knowledge and sharing what they know. Therefore, according to Toby, for organizations to operate in chaordic systems, they must have knowledge and information and know how to share it. Diversity According to Toby, the success in creativity and productivity of teams in the workplace depends on their diversity. The author argues that a homogenous team is likely to produce homogenous ideas. For organizations to ensure a high level of productivity in the workplace, they must bring together a diverse group of people and encourage them to interact and work together freely. Teams should be composed of members from different levels of the organization and from different demographic backgrounds.

v. The author presents a conclusive work covering the impact of the chaos paradigm on all the stakeholders including the organizations, managers, and employees. Toby argues that organizations in the 21st century must exhibit the six necessary characteristics of technology, globalization, competition, change, speed, and complexity and paradox. For managers, they must manage the transition, build resilience, destabilize the system, manage order, and create and maintain a learning organization (Tetenbaum, 1998). The article is well-written and interesting. The author succeeds in his aim of convincing the reader to buy into his idea of the chaos theory. The transformation has seen changes in the workplace, work, and the worker. Therefore, Toby proposes that modern organizations should integrate the chaos paradigm into their operation systems as well as their human systems.