We have seen that philosophers of all ages have sought both to understand how the world works, and to discover the key that explains it all – better yet, that unlocks it all; that enables us to manipulate the laws of physics at will. We seek the secret core at the center of all the complexity, the buttons we can push that will  unfailingly produce the results we want, so that we can go back to ignoring all the impossibly convoluted unfolding of events between the pushing of those buttons and the emergence of the consequences we desire.

These instincts run so deep in all of us that we typically either pursue them or cheer on those who do. The truth is, actually, that they run even deeper than that: we are so anxious to believe in the veracity of our world view, so eager to see everywhere evidence of it, that we can sometimes deceive ourselves with the most extraordinarily self-manipulative glibness – often reinforced with subtly oppressive intimidation – for generations or more.

Eventually, the evidence just becomes too much to resist. We are forced to revise our world view. And then we start all over again.

We certainly aren’t immune to that sort of thing in management, are we? We want desperately to see the organizational world one way or another, and we endeavor desperately – even artfully – to interpret or create facts that support our view. Those apparent facts that don’t do that – well, we say dismissively, everyone knows they’re irrelevant; essentially just background noise struggling vainly to obscure the signals only we have the wit and insight to make out.

It surely can easily be said, though, with respect to the physicists, that however much like the rest of us they ultimately are revealed to be, they have done much real, measurable good. They have improved the lot of us all.

How about us in management? As we struggle to understand the world of organizations, even while we sometimes stretch the limits of our conceptual models beyond their capacity to explain what we’re doing, do we not nevertheless manage to do some good after all?

Physicists and philosophers have created enduring systematic changes in our world view – and thus in the way we live our lives – that redound to the benefit of us all. Most of us can count off a number of these that have been developed over recent centuries and decades. For all the silliness that still occurs on the margins of modern science (indeed, for all that those margins sometimes become quite crowded with marginal thinkers), the great bulk of this extraordinarily beneficial work is demonstrably uncontroversial.

Can you do that for management theory – or for that grotesque carbuncle opening up from within it with horrifyingly wide-eyed relentlessness: “leadership theory” – can you count off a number of universally acceded-to, empirically reliable “advances” in organizational practice over the past century or years? What are the books widely accepted as documenting these “facts.” Who are our Newtons and Einsteins, whose insights have revealed the vein of management truth that the rest of us mine today?

Or, for all our arrogant posturing on the topic – and, it must be said, the widespread “physics-envy” plaguing the field – are we still just sending out scouts into the wilderness and receiving wildly confused and unreliable reports from those who find their way back?

Honestly. What do you think?

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Today’s Tips: Speaking of sea changes, Bill Gates is at the forefront of those arguing that brick-and-mortar educational institutions are losing their relevancy in the near future. Please see why he thinks the best education will come from the internet within the next five years.

Maybe it already is. Surely many of you have suspected that the quality of “traditional” education has never been quite what it has traditionally been reputed to be. Please see this WSJ book review that explains just why, among other things, the “mediocrity” of the education available at the presumptive flagship of US college education is an “open secret of the Ivy League.”

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Technorati Tags: physics, evidence, management, organization, philosopher, science, theory, leadership, Managing Leadership, business, education, Bill Gates, WSJ

The first alchemists sought the now legendary “philosopher’s stone” – a special material that could be used to turn common metals into gold. In time, it came to be believed that this magic substance could solve other intractable problems in life as well, not least among them the conquering of death itself.

And serious philosophers really searched for this material, believing that such a key compound might actually be able to accomplish one or another of the vital purposes posited for it. Even the father of modern science, Isaac Newton, gave the matter serious consideration.

Indeed, contemporary scientists might be viewed as doing something like that – seeking a comprehensive theory that explains the physical universe, unifying the insights of Newtonian science operating in our everyday lives with, at one end of the scale, the relativity theories describing universal space-time and, at the other, the quantum mechanics of the sub-atomic world.

There is an interesting – even endearing – combination of earnestness, intelligence, and innocence in the scientists who pursue it. They mean to accomplish their end, they are driven by their curiosity, and marshal fascinating measures of ingenuity in pursuit of their task. And along the way they have done immense good for the rest of us. The applications to which their discoveries have been put have wrought wondrous improvements in the nature and quality of all our lives around the world.

Key to all of this is their development of theoretical models to explain the world. These are conceptual frameworks into which can be fit the known facts about how it works, that offer perspectives for interpreting and examining new ones. They add up. They make sense. They resolve cognitive dissonance.

So much so, in fact, that when new observations are made that do not appear to be reconcilable with current models, these scientists’ first instinct is typically to posit new entities, new forms of energy, or new relationships between them which offer a means of understanding these otherwise disruptive observations within the existing models. That is, they do not seem normally to review or question their models to try to see if wholly new ones are necessary. Rather, they work desperately to preserve them with what can seem to the rest of us as oddly jury-rigged postulates.

That’s of interest to us here. Physicists with one breath will create a postulate – an entirely theoretical entity imagined almost literally out of the blue – the sole purpose of which is to restore order to a model disturbed by an observation it wouldn’t ordinarily explain or predict. The thing is, though, that with the next breath they will speak of that brand-new postulate essentially as an established scientific fact – even as they discuss their efforts to design experiments to prove its existence. They seem to see no irony in this. They pass insensibly, seamlessly from imagining a solution to the disruption of their settled view of the world to adopting a comforting, unchallengeable faith in its veracity, its existence.

Perhaps that is the real philosopher’s stone at work – turning hope into faith. Perhaps, even, it does that while distorting our appreciation of which is the base, and which the precious, metal. Who knows?

But it’s worth asking about us, in management, as well. We’ll do that next. See you then.

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Today’s Tip: Please see this item by Michael Wade about, if you will, putting some zen in your coffee. One of our chores in life, if we are to navigate through it rather than simply be carried along by it, is to try to be sure we have fuel for the fire – that we have grounds for percolating. Do you? Do you find yourself surprised and delighted by the insights that leap out at you sometimes, or perpetually puzzled by what seems to always be happening to you? Not sure? Then see this item by Michael as well. After that, pour yourself a cup of coffee and think it over.

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Technorati Tags: philosopher, science, Isaac Newton, scientist, theory, universe, insight, space-time, quantum mechanics, intelligence, curiosity, ingenuity, cognitive dissonance, philosopher’s stone, management, Michael Wade

An astronomer concluded a discussion of the likelihood of life elsewhere in the universe by enthusing about how fulfilling it would be to find it, because it would help us learn more about who we are.

But the quantum physicists argue that the question is, at bottom, irrelevant because, not to put too fine a point on it, so are we. We – and any other life there may be out there – are merely the entirely coincidental consequences of incalculably innumerable – and perfectly pointless – interactions of mass and energy.

There is no meaning. There is trajectory, but there is no aim.

It is from this dross, this inexpressibly valueless detritus from which we rise, that we struggle to identify a precious meaning to our lives – an end toward which we ascend purposefully – rather than a blunt extinction to which we hurtle heedfully but helplessly, bereft of reference points, with no traction, no leverage, no starting point, no ending point. No control over our fate. Indeed, with no fate, really.

This, we are told, is it. The inexpressibly elegant equations of quantum physics, describing a brilliantly blind reality, frothy with exquisite design, undesigned, expressing no moral or even existential substance, existing for no reason, ultimately to expire to no purpose.

This is the common metal we work – the foundation, but the roof and crown too, of our lives. It is no wonder we seek to transform it into something more grand.

So the alchemists turn to their work. In our daily lives, and in the various endeavors into which we divide them, including management. How are they getting along?

We will continue looking at that next, in our seemingly unending efforts to conclude the current discussion of the “new” sciences and modern management. See you soon!

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Today’s Tips: Please pay a visit to Online MBA, a business education blog aiming to make intelligible order of the chaotic flow of information that might otherwise overwhelm and discourage us. Good alchemy.

You’ve always suspected this, and now the BBC reports on a study suggesting that “creativity is akin to insanity.” Watch out for this and other items on those lists of leadership characteristics you are encouraged to develop. Scary alchemy.

As long as the subject has turned in that general direction, please do also see The Onion‘s report on the recent closing of America’s national parks for their annual “remajestification.” Lot’s of metaphor in this, actually; as the report mourns, “many Americans take their country’s natural beauty for granted and imagine that it is somehow self-maintaining.” But if you’ve no time for that, there’s lots of fun, too. Whimsical alchemy.

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Technorati Tags: astronomer, quantum physics, design, reason, purpose, alchemist, management, business, education, information, alchemy, BBC, creativity, insanity, leadership, characteristic, The Onion

We’ve seen how physicists have discovered the limitations on their ability to attain precise and comprehensive knowledge about the characteristics of an object at a given moment in time. How certain, in the face of this from physics, are we in our own field that we can even identify precisely the vital components of management – or, even more implausibly, of individual leadership – much less take them on in our own persons or teach others to do so? If the physicists are having such a hard time with what most of us would acknowledge are at least legitimately testable scientific models and material, how reasonable is it for us in so soft a field as management and leadership to assert our certainty in these regards?

As it happens, there are researchers who adopt something very much like the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle with respect to management. Perhaps the best known of them is Henry Mintzberg, who argues in his most recent book, Management (see review here), that there is so wide a range of factors impinging on what effective management actually winds up looking like – across industries, levels of management, business structure, geographic location, social and corporate culture, not to mention individual personality – that it is really unhelpful to insist on reducing it to a specific list of features or characteristics. Rather, he argues, it should be formulated and developed into specific practice according to an assessment of what he calls the three planes of information, action, and people.

Sounds rather mystical doesn’t it? But the interesting thing is that when you analyze the demands of your work on the basis of the information necessary and available, the actions you and others must take to advance it, and the qualities, abilities, and even locations of the people with whom you collaborate in so doing, it begins to make a lot of sense that the result for each of us in our varied circumstances would fall quite variously across a broader range of possibilities than the gurus, surely, would allow. Indeed, we become more certain about the veracity of our specific solutions, just as we become more doubtful about the more popular generalizations.

So, perhaps there is something to be said for uncertainty, after all. If we are willing to acknowledge its inherent influence in the world of work, we may wind up developing a personally more precise and effective appreciation of how it influences the form of effective management from where we stand at any given time and place. What’s more, we might be better prepared to more effectively develop anew that appreciation when our personal times and places change.

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Today’s tip: Speaking of professors, we all know that they have generally a bias to the left – that is at last widely acknowledged. But there remains some controversy as to why that should be. Perhaps we’ve been asking the wrong questions about it from the outset. Please see this NYT piece for an intriguing explanation.

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Technorati Tags: physicist, knowledge, physics, management, individual leadership, scientific, leadership, certainty, researcher, Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, Mintzberg, business, structure, culture, information, work, NYT

One of the most peculiar phenomenon uncovered in physics over the past century is known as the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. This states – to the great frustration and irritation of many – that we cannot know with precision both elements of certain pairs of characteristics of an object. Most commonly, position and velocity are used, and the meaning of the principle is that the more precise is our knowledge about an object’s position, the less so is our knowledge of its speed, and vice versa.

There is some debate about what this principle is saying to us at a fundamental level: is our current ability to measure these characteristics simply unable to grasp both at once, or is the inability to simultaneously measure both just inherent in the nature of the physical world? Can it possibly make any sense that if we know precisely the speed of an object, in the very act of attaining that knowledge we have reduced the fact of its location to a mere range of possibilities?

Some argue that that is exactly the case – that it is not merely that the object could be in any one of the places comprehended by the range of possibilities, but that it is at once in none and all of them. It is, they insist, in a suspended state of probability that is only glimpsed at by the probability range, and that will not become concrete until we abandon our precise knowledge of the other characteristic to the hazy realm of probability, and capture a particular location. We cannot know both, because there is no both; at least, not at the same time.

Does that make sense to you? Mind you, while many quantum physicists have a peculiar habit of adopting rather dogmatic attitudes about the oddest features suggested by the most distant, and least understood, corners reached by their meandering logical inquiries, the truth is that they really don’t know either. Even Einstein had difficulty with this one, although other physicists insist it is only the inevitable consequence of some of his own discoveries.

Well, let’s leave them to sort that out. How about us in management? We’ll look at that next. See you soon!

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Today’s tip: Canada may not boast only one of the most insightful management thinkers around today (as we will see in the next post), but also the freest economy in North America. Please see this WSJ piece for why – and why there is even more bad news in this for the United States.

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Technorati Tags: physics, Heisenberg, Uncertainty Principle, knowledge, probability, quantum physicist, dogma, Einstein, management, Canada, North America, WSJ, United States

As we saw last week, quantum physicists can be pretty strange folk – every bit, perhaps, as weird as the models they posit for how the physical world really works. One of them is unshakably convinced of the validity of, essentially, the whole of the science. He declares his faith in this as yet highly speculative, unproven modeling with a remarkable reference to a fascinating feature of it called quantum entanglement.

Briefly, this describes a phenomenon in which two independent particles, separated by anything from a few inches to the breadth of the universe, nevertheless display characteristics that render them describable as nothing less than perfect replicas of each other. If one changes in some way – direction of spin, charge, or the like – the other does as well.

Moreover, it does so not by virtue of some sort of conveyance of synchronizing information between them – that would require a delay of the duplication of their identity at least as slow as the speed of light. However, these changes occur instantaneously – there, simply, is no time required to effect the change. It isn’t even really immediate in the way we ordinarily understand that term. That is, one doesn’t change to correspond with the other. They both change. They may be separate in space, but they are nevertheless somehow a single physical entity.

Now, this has created a lot of excitement about the potential for things like Star Trek-style “beaming” of objects to various points across space. And that brings us back to our faithful physicist.

He states that if we could somehow cause the particles in an object to become entangled with others elsewhere in space, we would be replicating that object in that other location – not a copy of it, but rather the actual object. He goes further to argue that the same would be true if we did that with humans.

For example, if the particles in his body were quantumly entangled with others in, say, Istanbul, then he would exist in Istanbul as well as wherever he is now. Not a copy of him. Not a sterile blank form that resembles him. Him.

He believes that our entire beings – our thoughts, memories, likes and dislikes, emotions, beliefs, all of it – are but the sundry manifestations of the fantastically complex array of physical particles and their characteristics of which we are made. Moreover, their composition and status are the inevitable consequence of all that has gone before in our lives – that is, our previous actions, thoughts, hopes, and struggles inhere in the way our protons, electrons, and the like have organized themselves, and in the charges, spins, and other characteristics they have taken on, in any particular moment.

That is why the quantumly-entangled physicist we caused to materialize in Istanbul, he believes, must actually be him, and not just a copy of him. Or, at least, a him that is perhaps both confused at how he came to be in Istanbul and delighted to have managed it (since these beings are quantumly entangled, they are supposed to continue to instantaneously reflect each others’ current condition, so this last thought raises a lot of questions, but they are just some among the many begged by this aspect of the theory).

I promised last week to explain what all of this has to do with management. Of course, I also promised to begin doing that last Monday. Host provider problems have hindered that, but hopefully we will be able to wrap this up next week before the Thanksgiving Weekend in the United States.

I hope you stay with me, and that you’ll enjoy the discussion. In the meanwhile, have a great weekend!

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Today’s tips: Speaking of the weaknesses of mathematically-based modeling that resists evidence of the actual physical world, please see this piece about exaggerated reports of species risk, from the BBC.

Of course, it’s not just quantum physicists that seem a little off-center to so many of us. What they do is try to predict phenomenon from theory. In our daily lives we run across many people who quote ideas to us that seem just as bizarre, but it may be worth our while to try to picture the theoretical framework in which these ideas make sense to our informants. Please see Michael Wade for more on why and how.

And as long as we’re being creative about how to understand both each other and the reality we all so variously perceive, please be sure to see this excellent piece by Fred H. Schlegel about how to do that; you’ll be glad you did.

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Technorati Tags: science, quantum entanglement, information, Istanbul, management, United States, BBC, theory, Michael Wade, Fred H. Schlegel

The author of a popular book on modern developments in physics is a true believer in the validity of quantum mechanics. This remains a highly speculative theory, however. On the one hand, it is strongly supported by powerful evidence from mathematics. In fact, it is worth remembering that many researchers into the theory and its spinoffs do little more in an entire career than mathematical model-building and manipulation. But on the other, the further one ventures into the peculiar corners one is driven to by this highly theoretical logic, the less evidence from actual observation can be found.

In fact, some quantum physicists even argue that the ongoing problems encountered by the Large Hadron Collider – which has been expected to produce evidence of particles predicted by the theory – vital to its validity, but not yet directly observed – are themselves evidence of the theory. They suggest that echoes of the future are rippling back in to the present to prevent the collider from creating events that would destroy the future.

At least we continue to produce more and more evidence of how weird quantum physics is – and quantum physicists, as well.

For example, the author of the mentioned book supports his faith in the logical force of this theory by making a very interesting declaration about one of them in particular. This is the idea that there are connections between objects in the universe that cause them to behave in exact symmetry with each other – to, in effect, be each other.

And, yes, this relates to management. We’ll look at how and why on Monday. Tomorrow, a review of an excellent book. See you then!

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Today’s tip: Speaking of the societal mountain being us, there is plenty of evidence in actual experience indicating that we are fully capable of making a festering molehill out of it. Please see this WSJ piece about one man’s efforts to reverse the decline of the magnificently American city of Detroit, many neighborhoods of which have descended into truly post-apocalyptic chaos. It’s too bad we have to produce such evidence to take the right action. Perhaps we would do better to give our support to the efforts of those in the field struggling to reclaim the situation, rather than uncritically to those isolated in their theoretical models, who tell us they know better, that we should just have faith, but who wind up working studiously to create it.

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Technorati Tags: physics, quantum mechanics, theory, evidence, mathematics, researcher, career, logic, Large Hadron Collider, universe, management, WSJ, American, Detroit

Excellent stories have been stacking up, with no logical place or time to link to them. So, we’re going to do a roundup today as a venue for offering these truly worthwhile resources.

Dopes. In his classic “Up the Organization,” which every manager should read, Robert Townsend touched on the then relatively new issue of gender equality in the workplace. His conclusion, perhaps only partly an artifact of the times, was that there was really no contest: it is simply too easy for women to turn men into gibbering idiots. Now comes evidence, as if we needed it, to support this view: please this brief summary of the research from neatorama.

Diversity. Please see The Economist for this interesting array of who would’ve thought stories:

• Did you need any further proof that so-called traditional university education is on the way out? See this about how the gamers may have a lot more right than we ever would have expected.
• Things are always more complicated than those who hope to close the door on discussion would like to have it. See this about how genes are not always the architects of our fates, but rather just as likely the victims of our actions.
• This is a fascinating piece about how to make bridges last just long enough to continue offering their primary function when it is needed most, after a major disaster such as an earthquake. The thinking involved in this hard-worked innovation is terrific in and of itself – but consider also the freedom enjoyed by the researcher to explore this unlikely avenue of inquiry. You will also want to see this one about self-monitoring bridges.
• And here’s another example of that terrifically dynamic and delightfully unconstrained spirit of curiosity – whether competitive or otherwise: it’s about your tires. And you thought your brakes were smart.

Dedication. An at once devastating commentary on contemporary culture and a really inspiring account of a truly world-class hero, by Gregg Easterbrook at the WSJ.

Deliberation. Surely a valuable characteristic, but perhaps not quite as exclusive as we thought. Please see the WSJ again about the social behavior of – bacteria.

Decisiveness. We place a lot of faith in this characteristic, and look for the right individual traits or collaborative circumstances for assuring that it is well placed. It turns out, though, that we should give things more time for deliberation and reflection, rather than relying on specific tricks and gimmicks. Please see the always enjoyable yet studious PsyBlog for why groups can drive individuals to extreme positions, and warp our decision-making. Next, visit the site again for another manager’s must-read about our internal confusion between understanding and acceptance.

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Today’s tip: Speaking of delightful diversity, please see this list of modest proposals by Michael Wade. My absolute favorite is number seven. Yours?

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Technorati Tags: resource, Robert Townsend, equality, workplace, neatorama, Economist, university, education, innovation, freedom, curiosity, culture, Gregg Easterbrook, WSJ, characteristic, trait, deliberation, reflection, PsyBlog, manager, understanding, Michael Wade

That’s what an animal behaviorist calls ants: inept individuals who, somehow, are able collectively to create striking organizations which can both adapt efficiently to their own evolving needs and cycling changes in the environment, and respond effectively to most emergencies arising from natural catastrophes or marauding neighbors. Inept individuals, no one of whom has any clue as to how they all do it, but who manage to do it anyway.

As for us, we have managed to learn a little about how ant colonies seem to work. For the most part, the matter appears to revolve around environmental events which mechanically provoke changes in chemical signals emitted by the individuals to whom they happen, which propagate through the colony mechanically provoking further changes in more individuals, the net effect of which has evolved to be collectively adaptive.

These sorts of discoveries – about colonies of ants, schools of fish, flocks of birds, and the like – have been attracting a lot of attention among organizational designers for some time, now. Is it possible to create a collectively functional consciousness that is sophisticated, flexible and productive and that, all the while, arises and operates independently of the awareness or independent guidance of any of its members? Would such an entity render its component individuals inept, or would its appearance depend upon their being so at the outset?

What are the organizational implications of this? Are there any, really? And if you believe that there are, what does your thinking regarding what they might be say about your view of the role or capabilities of individual employees?

How does this compare to your opinion of managers – or even leaders? Or, are we all destined to heedlessly morph in and out of each of these roles according to the deceptively simple algorithms concocted by the organizational designers behind the curtains?

Indeed, how much of what we do – or attempt to do in our organizations, today – really differ in intent from this? After all, as we know, Peter Drucker stated this as very much one of the central problems of management in the modern world of ubiquitous organizations: the creation of systems that mitigate the consequences of their inept members.

Which systems in your organizations make what judgments about the capacity of which of your fellow employees?

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Today’s tip: Speaking of algorithms rendering us inept, please see this piece about the next frontier for hackers: our brains.

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Technorati Tags: animal, behavior, individual, organization, change, environment, organizational design, consciousness, flexible, productive, employee, manager, leader, management, system, Peter Drucker

One of the most fascinating things about the rapid advances being made recently in communications technology is watching how they enable people of similar or complementing interests and ambitions not merely to interact rewardingly and productively – but even to find each other so that they can do so. Indeed, many of the endeavors they discover themselves collaborating on only sprung into being on their connection. It is an intriguing network of serendipitous nodes, each glowing more or less brilliantly as they draw in new members and connections.

How does this happen? There are many who speculate on this topic directly – and ingeniously. Some of these have written books that we will review here, in time.

But I’ll just tell you now that my absolute favorite doesn’t really address this as a management or social topic at all. And yet I have found it to be the most insightful, actionably thought-provoking, and profitable book to read, from a manager‘s perspective, of them all.

Steven Strogatz is a mathematician at Cornell University who studies physics and biology, among other branches of science. He is widely respected and cited by genuine experts in numerous fields, rather than merely his own – a distinct indicator of value. Those of you, for example, who have read The Black Swan will find Strogatz drawn upon for a major element of the book’s argument, by an author who is known for the free expression – and excruciatingly detailed and pointed enumeration of – his frank disapproval of the current crop of self-referential experts.

As you read Sync: How Order Emerges from Chaos in the Universe, Nature, and Daily Life, you will see for yourself why its author is not only spared that treatment, but is singled out for praise (which, assuredly, he has justly attracted from numerous other difficult corners, as well). The book is pure science, and you will do well to avoid unduly enthusiastic interpretations of its direct applicability to your own work as managers. But you will nevertheless find yourself making notes for further thought. It’s inevitable.

Sync takes on the increasingly popular impression that the most fundamental underlying character of the universe is that of entropy: decay, the slow unwinding of what was wrought by the Big Bang. Rather, Strogatz observes the robust drive in the natural world not to descend into chaos, but to self-generate order from it.

In particular, he tells the fascinatingly intriguing story of the science of sync. He describes it with engaging depictions of events in nature that we are all familiar with, but that take on wondrous new meaning in the context of the tale as he tells it. He begins to open our eyes to its hidden mysteries and importance with his description of how it was first discovered and elaborated.

And then, once you’re hooked – off you go, oscillating and synchronizing away as you see the science of sync building complexity from simplicity, order from chaos, meaning from little more than possibility. What’s more, you learn how the science, as it builds even upon itself, can come to span not just type, but space – even time.

Wouldn’t you – as a curious individual – like to understand how that happens in nature, and the implications it has for the path down which natural events might unfold? Wouldn’t you – as an alert manager – like to gain insight into how something like it might be happening around you in the broader society. Wouldn’t you like an opportunity to consider what such insights might offer you and your organization?

Sure you would. So, pick up your copy now. Mind you: don’t just thoughtlessly promote random oscillation all over the place. But do consider how you might arrange things to help generate collaboration from possibility alone.

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Today’s tip: Speaking of great insights from intriguing stories, Nina Simosko has been running a series on lessons in leadership to be learned from unlikely sources or unpromising beginnings. Take a look; it will be well worth your while.

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Technorati Tags: communication, technology, ambition, endeavor, network, insight, manager, perspective, Steven Strogatz, Cornell, expert, science, entropy, Big Bang, chaos, society, organization, Nina Simosko, leadership