Both traditional management and complexity suggest there is some kind of interaction that could occur between coherence and intention. Traditional management tends to assert that one can create coherence through intention alone. Complexity perspectives reject this idea except in circumstances where there is coercion. If one applies superior force, one temporarily can create intentional coherence. That coherence, however, is fear of the force, and it does not mean there’s actually underlying coherence at all. Once the force is removed, it becomes evident that coherence was just an illusion.
Perhaps to overstate the traditional view, if one supplies intention as a manager, one can demand coherence, and this approach should work fine in that nice fixed and stable world or world that is slowly evolving. From the complexity view, the manager’s task is different. The manager’s task is to attempt to guide the organization through whatever emergence unfolds. The shorthand that we use to express this is: “to a river, be a canyon.” This is what complexity suggests a manager is supposed to do.
April 5, 2008 at 4:36 pm
Perhaps a distinction between management and leadership would be appropriate.
Management focuses on impersonal factors: finances, operations, allocation and technology. Leadership also includes interpersonal contexts: physical, intellectual, emotional and social (spiritual.)
Hard analysis can objectively prove presence of impersonal coherence. Interpersonal coherence requires integration of human dimensions and proof tends to be subjective.
Management and Leadership intents differ substantially. Managers operate from bases of knowledge, understanding and design; Leaders govern action creatively through wisdom.
Examine the coherence of associative vocabulary, i.e., “Management Wisdom” and “Leadership Knowledge” vs. “Leadership Wisdom” and “Management Knowledge.” The latter combinations seem to exhibit greater coherence.