Page 87 - The Complexity Perspective 20 02 18

A system in equilibrium (technically negative feedback homeostasis)
does not have the internal dynamics to enable it to respond to shifts its
environment outside its normal range as it is organized to optimize. If

the context shifts radically, it is at risk of slowly (or quickly) dying or
collapsing into chaos as the system tries to adapt, struggling against
the inertial forces of stability.

This is the phenomenon of Disruption

A chaotic system ceases to function as a system, loses internal

coherence and falls apart unless it can reorganize around an 'attractor'.
An ‘attractor’ in business terms a common interest that is viable
to pursue. Chaos manifests typically in a crisis, where a leader is faced
with multiple interacting problems at the same time. The risk is

accelerating decline as the collapse is amplified by feedback loops and
resources disappear under a storm of negative news. The leader must
impose control to quell the chaos, manage the feedback loops, and

then pick out the different problems.
That said, at moments of chaos restrictive formal structures are

severely weakened allowing for the possibility of reinvention and
creativity. As was famously said in American Politics following the
2008 financial crisis, 'a crisis is too valuable to waste'.

For most formal organizations, falling over the edge into chaos
typically means a loss of organizational coherence often accompanied

by the rise of internal coalitions of self-interest and a loss of shared
vision. This internal collapse requires the assertion of some new,
commonly accepted agreement around which to organize (an

attractor). The process of transformation, then, becomes the creation
of the new vision (attractor) and the alignment of the agents in the
system around it.

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