by Lucy Lettis

In a poem, Robert Browning wrote of a man who painted faultlessly, yet realized that imperfect artists created greater works. "Less is more," sometimes, the painter said, resignedly. In a time when many of us have begun to feel that the accumulation of more--more money, more goods, more prestige, more everything--brings us only less and less satisfaction and fulfillment, we might do well to remember Browning's unhappy artist.

In our profession, perhaps we might do well, too, to consider the thought of another English poet, John Keats. In a letter, Keats coined the term "negative capability" by which he meant the capacity to accept the incomplete, the unanswered, the unresolved. He was speaking of Shakespeare, noting that the great dramatist put before us overwhelming problems, questions, and difficulties, but often did not provide answers or resolutions. If one is to read him, one must live with the fact that existence often offers no neat, tidy conclusions to life's messes, and the fact that some human actions come to an end without, as it were, ending.

We seem in our time to begin to realize that control is not possible, but order emerges out of chaos. This concept can be very exciting. Not long ago, I had the privilege of meeting the renowned management consultant, Margaret (Meg) Wheatley, at Arthur Andersen's "Learning for the Twenty-First Century" conference. Wheatley, along with Peter Drucker, Peter Senge, and other luminaries was a keynote speaker. I was at the conference to conduct breakout workshops on "Libraries of the Future." Wheatley is author of the mind opening Leadership and the New Science: Learning about Organization from an Orderly Universe. She applies revolutionary discoveries in quantum physics and chaos theory to shed new light on the fundamental issues of organizing work, people, and life. Wheatley asserts, "Equilibrium is neither the goal nor the fate of living systems, simply because as open systems they are partners with their environment. The study of the systems...has shown that open systems have the possibility of continuously importing free energy from the environment and of exporting entropy. They don't sit quietly by as their energy dissipates. They don't seek equilibrium. To stay viable, open systems maintain a state of non-equilibrium, keeping the system off balance so that it can change and grow."

In the past, management analysts looked for structure in systems, and so failed to see that the processes of growth and adaptability make systems more viable over time. Analysts sought influences that would support stability instead of those that might enhance forward movement. Result: stultification, confusion, and failure, a frustration of a system's own attempt to grow, to adapt, to change.

The Greek tragedies of which Aristotle spoke may have a well-ordered beginning, middle, and end, but life usually does not. It is a frightening thought. To prepare, to make the most careful plans, to think a task through before beginning, to set up a clear and sensible design--who has not believed that this is the only competent way to work? Yet if modern thought is right, we may find it is just as well (if not better) to keep all planning to a sensible minimum, always be ready to discard the schedule or alter the outline, as shifting reality shows us the task will not always bend itself to our will and what we planned for yesterday does not come close to meeting the needs of today. We may come to feel as we continue to work in our developing profession--in some ways virtually a new discipline, perhaps especially suited to and in need of new thinking and new procedure--that strategy which anticipates ambiguity rather than certainty, many possibilities instead of just one, will be of more value than trying to work as though we are sure of all that is coming. We should be prepared not so much to move through preconceived steps one, two, and three, but to work ahead always with the realization of continuous unpredictability--planning and executing each part of our task as it makes itself known to us. For how can we prepare to accomplish it before we know what it really is?

It is a little like emulating the comic technique of Robin Williams, as opposed to the method of some earlier comedian--say the late Henny Youngman. Youngman wrote out his jokes before he got on stage, and delivered them from memory, and he could be very funny. But in his stage act, the younger Robin Williams often comes to the microphone with but the sketchiest idea of what he will say, and shapes his wit to the contingencies of the performance--and he is even funnier.

It may seem almost paradoxical to plan, but not plan completely. And it is: one might call it the paradox of management. Our modest task is to try to control the uncontrollable--Sisyphus in Hades rolling the stone up the hill only to watch it roll down again. What in hell can a poor sinner do?

Well, for one thing, we can rethink the roles of managers and leaders. We can realize that unlike Sisyphus, we are not alone. There are others who can help us to push the stone, and if instead of thrusting a detailed blueprint under their noses and saying, "Do this," we work with them, and let them work with us as we set ourselves to a task, perhaps we'll get our loads up several hills and keep them there. When the Dallas Cowboys were once beaten badly, the coach Tom Landry said, "I gave you a perfect game plan and you blew it." Possibly Mr. Landry should have changed the plan, heeding the advice of assistant coaches and players, as his supposedly flawless strategy failed to work. Instead of "Do this," try "What do you think of this?". Rather than "Here's what will work," try "Where do you anticipate this may meet problems?". An interdependent group, with both leader and followers taking each step as it comes and deciding together what to do, can make a pretty good rock-rolling team.

If we understand that as we do such work we labor in the midst of constant turbulence and confusion, we may well handle it better. Watching a preconceived plan fall apart is devastating, but if from the beginning we trust no completed plan and work from step to step, our ability to benefit from our combined vision and inspiration is enhanced. Henny Youngman walked his prepared jokes out before us and waited for laughs; Robin Williams dances his extempore humor under our eyes--we can almost see some of the humor forming as he speaks; we almost share the act of creation with him, and he does more than make us laugh, for we laugh together with him. It is hard to be inspired by planned instruction--"Step three: tighten wingnut"--much easier to look up and see possibilities when, unencumbered, we look at what is coming at us.

So let us be friendly to the paradox (if paradox it is) of planning flexibly, of anticipating the unanticipatable with the excitement of childlike wonder rather than the terror of the driver who never dreams of the fallen rock around the next curve. We need to learn how to live in a real time, boundaryless world. In the words of technology marketing consultant Regis McKenna, we must prepare to live with "continuous discontinuous change." Acute discontinuities in trends are occurring as we approach the millenium, causing businesses to experience jarring, large-scale shifts in orientation and practice. There are no signposts or established paths to manage in real time. We need to operate at warp speed, adapt to the changes, and prepare for "the eventuality of anything." Permanent white water! Sure sounds exciting to me. Better than "Step three: tighten wingnut."

But scary, too, of course; that which is exciting usually is. Such is the reason why the epilogue to Wheatley's book is titled Being Comfortable with Uncertainty. She begins by quoting Matthew Fox: "Wisdom is about living harmoniously in the universe, which is itself a place of order and justice that triumphs over chaos and employs chance for its ultimate purpose."

Wheatley admits that, since studying chaos theory, her world has become "a strange and puzzling place where I cannot rely on what I knew"; she doesn't yet "feel secured by new sources of confidence." But she also says that "the science is helping me understand, among many things, the uses of chaos and its role in self-organization. I think I not only expect chaos now, but I've grown more trusting of it as a necessary stage to greater organization. Recently, I advised a group of students who were taking on an ambitious study of a new subject area, and I noticed a different direction to my advice. They were eager to create a model or framework into which they could slot information. I was intent on letting information do its thing. They wanted to get organized at the start; I urged them to create more information than they could possibly handle. I guaranteed them that at some point the information would self-organize in them, crystallizing into interesting forms and ideas."

Most of us will think of "comfortable," I'm sure, as not quite the right word for such procedures; some people have called systems thinking, with its message that pre-planned solutions almost never work, "the dismal science." But if we learn to live with the uncertainty of chaos theory, we may find enough to make us, if not comfortable, at least hopeful. We may find, as Peter Senge puts it in his landmark book, The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization, "small, well-focused actions can sometimes produce significant, enduring improvements," a principle systems theorists call "leverage." As Senge says, handling a difficult problem may well be easier if, instead of attempting to force it into our completed plan, we try to see "where the high leverage" of well-timed, well-focused action lies.

But oh! What if we make a mistake, choose the wrong focus or timing! It sometimes seems that all new systems and theories are greeted with the canceling doubts of "what if." Did we make no mistakes when we carefully, cautiously, intelligently planned ahead? (Remember the placard, "I never make misteaks"?) We need to remember, as Senge reminds us, of the plaque Edward Land, founder and president of Polaroid, kept on his wall. It said: "A mistake is an event, the full benefit of which has not yet been turned to your advantage."

I have considerable sympathy for those who will find all of this too much to undertake. We are talking about growing: growing is what we had to do when we were teenagers, and for many of us it was a terrifying experience. We are adults now and we've had enough of growing, thank you. But, well, no. If we have lived well, we grew in college, in graduate school, in relationships, in love, in our first jobs, in just about everything worthwhile that we have done. The best people only stop growing--changing--when they die; the worst stop well before, and fail to notice that they are already dead.

So here is another opportunity for change, and for growth. Personally, I don't expect to get comfortable, and the idea of it scares me. But as long as I'm alive, I'd like to keep on living.

References

Handy, Charles. Beyond Certainty: The Changing Worlds of Organizations. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1996.

McKenna, Regis. Real Time: Preparing for the Age of the Never Satisfied Customer. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1997.

Senge, Peter M. The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization. New York: Doubleday, 1990.

Wheatley, Margaret J. Leadership and the New Science: Learning about Organization from an Orderly Universe. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 1992.

Lucy Lettis is director of business information services at Arthur Andersen LLP in New York. She is chair of the steering committee for SLA's Second Worldwide Conference on Special Librarianship to be held October 2000 in Brighton, England. She can be reached via e-mail at: lucy.lettis@arthurandersen.com.