polycentric and quantum business

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“If you want to give God a good laugh, start telling him about your plans.”

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“The notion that we can’t do our jobs unless there are perfect conditions.

Objectives, target audience, key message, budget, timings, etc.

I mean yes, sure, we need those conditions to exist to do our thing well…

… but often they come in bits, due to the vagaries of organisational complexity.

Which means we’re always working in the context(s) of what we have right now.

And, by association, strategies can – and must – change given new information.

I know in theory we should get all the information beforehand, sure.

But in practice, flexing as we go is how 90% of the job actually tends to flow.”

Rob Estreitinho

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“It is optionality that makes things work and grow.”

Nassim Taleb

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Polycentric and quantum theory are different things, but today I mash them together to offer some thoughts on business.  To be clear, Polycentric theory and Quantum theory belong to distinct fields and have their own specific applications and implications.

1. Polycentric Theory: Polycentric theory is a framework in political science and economics that emphasizes the existence of multiple centers of power and decision-making within a system. It suggests that authority and governance should be dispersed among various levels and institutions rather than concentrated in a single entity. Polycentric systems often promote local autonomy and decentralized decision-making.
2. Quantum Theory: Quantum theory, also known as quantum mechanics, is a branch of physics that deals with the behavior of matter and energy at the microscopic scale. It provides a mathematical framework to understand the fundamental nature of particles and their interactions, incorporating concepts such as superposition, uncertainty, and wave-particle duality.

So let me share some similarities:

1. Non-linearity: Both theories challenge traditional linear approaches. Polycentric theory acknowledges the complex and nonlinear nature of decision-making, highlighting the interactions between multiple centers of power. Similarly, quantum theory describes the probabilistic behavior of particles emphasizing nonlinearity.
2. Emergence and Interconnectedness: Both theories recognize the importance of emergent activity and interconnected systems. Polycentric theory suggests that complex systems generate emergent properties like self-organization and adaptive behavior. Quantum theory highlights entanglement where entangled system is one where the individual particles behave as an inseparable whole.
3. Contextual and Relational Perspectives: Both theories consider the significance of context and relationships. Polycentric theory emphasizes the importance of local knowledge, cultural norms, and social relationships in decision-making. Quantum theory acknowledges that observations and measurements are context-dependent, and the behavior of particles is influenced by their interactions with the surrounding environment.

To summarize, duality, uncertainty, and entanglement are characteristics of polycentric theory, quantum theory, and business.

Which leads me to say that there is always a moment when you look around and all you see is, well, uncertainty or it feels like chaos or it feels impossible to discern any order in what is happening around you. Most of us then sit back and try and take a moment to try and think clearly because, generally speaking, the brain is programmed to find patterns and we get a bit desperate when mired in a world in which everything appears random. It is an unending struggle to bring some order to chaos – real and perceived. More often than not while preferring a pattern we find a point on which to focus. This is kind of our innate understanding of ‘polycentricity.’ Polycentric means in any given moment there is a center. Organizationally this will naturally occur, even within a hierarchy, as long as the ‘walls’ are permeable. I would argue it happens whether you want it or not (in suboptimal ways as people circumvent the system in the attempt to get shit done) and will happen in an optimal way if it is actually encouraged.

The idea of polycentric is important because centers can easily look after ‘order’ AND disorder pretty well and if the center is contextual (flows to the need/opportunity) that means freedom, agility & creativity follow it. Yeah. I just said Business is fluid (even organizationally). I believe people rarely think about business as a flow system even though we all agree that it is a permanently evolving entity, but a business is a flow of realities, many operating in dualities, with evolving centers of gravity to leverage. Regardless, the allure of quantum is the idea there are multiple histories and multiple ‘realities’ all existing simultaneously.  Ponder that for a bit with regard to business. This means history is being written situation by situation and decision by decision. That your existence resides on multiple planes, and dimensions, and you are simply vectoring, not guiding. And maybe that’s the larger point – vector versus guide. You accept your business has multiple histories, not just one, and its legacy is shaped not created.

Which leads me to confusing chaos with catastrophe.

I don’t believe business actually endures chaos (as defined by complexity theory). There can be disorder, but within the confines, construct, of a business the gyre can widen but not fall apart. Unless there is a catastrophe or catastrophic event.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre   

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere   

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

Yeats

Quantum, or complexity, speaking, what does chaos look like? The trajectory wanders around forever in state space. It can never close or cross itself on one plane, yet, across planes (spiraling) its trajectory can. It remains within a confined space (constrained by its own entropy/energy) and is constantly pivoting on new points (never replicated). Kind of polycentric at all times AND continuously moving through different realities, i.e., possibilities. Its trapped yet disorderly. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that this idea is quite similar to Donella Meadows leverage points. In this case they are pivot points for polycentric behavior. Some people may associate these with people (influencers in an organization). I will not. I believe they are simply pivot points made up of people interacting with systems within a specific context. This means disorganized behavior in a given situation, is not chaotic. It is simply interacting elements not in alignment toward some stated purpose, but buried within it is order (usually tied to some unstated objective, i.e., a polycentric state). Technically speaking this means the specific motion and trajectory of the activity is unpredictable in detail, yet, it always stays coherent to the attractor (some objective/vision) and always moves through the same subset of states. That narrowness of activity accounts for the order hidden in chaos and explains why its essence never changes. We may not be able to explain where the order comes from, at least in an analytical sense, but the order exists nonetheless. If you are good in business, you can feel the pulse within chaos; you just cannot see it. To the everyday schmuck it is a state of disorder. To the scientist it resides in the space between order and disorder. Technically it only appears random, looks erratic and unstable yet it contains patterns. The good news for a business is order typically resides within a confined space and is governed by a fairly rigid set of ‘rules’ <it can only act in certain ways> so it can be manageable, or at least stuff can get done, in some sense. This is most likely true because unlike scientific theory, business tends to have, and create, some boundaries and constraints. So, while there may be the appearance of disorder, and oscillation- waves – occurring in endless loops inevitably there is some sense of equilibrium and, hence, some coherence.

Which leads me to make a note of the role technology plays in a quantum business.

Technology offers the velocity to advantages (even tiny ones). It also offers velocity to disadvantages and stupid shit (even tiny ones). I say that because technology increases fluidity and decreases fluidity, in other words, it can be the friend AND the enemy to coherence. So when we speak of fluidity and liquid we need to pay attention to the content. This gets tricky because far, far, too often we speak about the ‘next natural step for this system/business’, but fluidity is rarely about steps and more about evolution in motion. Therefore, words like “framework” or ‘navigation’ or ‘redirect’ become even more important. Even things like collective intelligence and collective wisdom and collective principled behavior become even more important. But, to circle back to quantum principles, order will exist but the sense of chaos only increases with technology. Yeah. It will both highlight leverage points, polycentric moments, and encourage multiple realities or expand asymmetrical perceptions and focus. The truth is polycentricity works better with some focus driven by technology and, yes, at exactly the same time that polycentricity is more difficult because of the increased ‘noise’ created by technology.

made.

Which leads me to end by suggesting I imagine part of what I am suggesting with polycentricity and quantum business is we have to go from this crazy, fragmented, multitasking life that we live to one where we pay more attention to connectedness and the whole. In doing so it will make any perceived chaos fleeting and navigating complexity is possible.

Well, this was fun, but let’s get serious. Most businesses have no interest in multiple centers of gravity or in multiple realities. Business wants to get shit done and they want a center of efficiency and effectiveness in one reality and that one reality which delivers against specific objectives. So what most businesses do is impose centers an attempt to impose a reality. They create steering committees, task forces, assign the specific group, and ask everyone to implement a process – typically a best practice. Simplistically they take a reductionist attitude toward everything that I wrote about polycentric and quantum business. And maybe that is my point. One of the largest issues the business faces today is its inclination toward reducing things rather than expanding things. Running businesses as if pragmatism outweighs any possibilities. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out polycentricity and quantum thinking are both grounded in multiple possibilities, as in, multiple realities are possible. Ponder.

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Fun fact about quantum particles to think about with regard to people:

“All quantum particles can be classified as either fermions or bosons. Fermions are territorial hermits. Which means you can ever occupy the same quantum state simultaneously. This accounts for the orderly way that electrons fill the orbital shells around atoms waiting their turn one at a time like polite people taking their seats in the same row of a theater. Fermion’s tendency to avoid one another ultimately yields the basic laws of chemistry, the structure of the periodic table, the rules for chemical bonding between atoms and the behavior of magnets. Bosons have the opposite kind of personality. They’re gregarious. No limit to how many can I occupy the same quantum state simultaneously. In fact they prefer crowds. The more populated a state, the more attractive it becomes to others.” (Steven Strogatz)