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Chaos Theory, Narrative and Business Communication
Complexity theory – of which chaos theory is an important part – emerged as a framework for understanding the physical universe in the latter part of the twentieth century in order to refine the precision of predictive models of complex systems through the use of mathematical and statistical analysis. According to chaos theory, minor fluctuations in various systemic models can lead to fierce oscillations, as well as unanticipated and unintended consequences. The goal of chaos theory is to realize a level of predictability within complex systems, without relying on Newtonian causal relationships and patterns, which cannot account for changes in complex systems.
Complexity theory suggests that chaos, or radical fluctuations in systems, might be the answer to questions and dilemmas presented by complex systems, allowing researchers and theorists to view systems from a higher level of examination and to view systems holistically and temporally. In contrast to a Newtonian view of the world, chaos theory takes a longitudinal perspective, and one of the most attractive features of chaos theory is the idea that disorder is necessary for order, that decay is needed for renewal, and that decline is a precursor to eventual growth, that change is needed for renewed stability.
The best-known metaphor for understanding chaos theory is the butterfly effect. As Stewart (1990) explains, “the flapping of a single butterfly’s wings produces a tiny change in the state of the atmosphere,” a variance in a complex system which can eventually lead to “a tornado that would have devastated the Indonesian coast doesn’t happen. Or maybe on that wasn’t going to happen, does” (p. 141). The point of Stewart’s analogy is that the openness and sensitivity of complex systems to the influences of such minor variances cannot be measured, understood or predicted using traditional methods and models. Systems are always in flux, and using reductive methods to attempt to understand a system’s bifurcation – it’s radical fluctuations - is a paradox reminiscent of what Kierkegaard (1958) wrote about the continuity of human life.
Another major concept of complexity theory is that systems are self-organizing, that is, order re-emerges out of the chaotic state brought about through bifurification. Kauffmann (1995) describes self-organization as a type of anti-chaos, noting that disorganized systems bifurcate and eventually solidify at a new level of order. Complex chaotic systems contain an inner stabilizing force that pulls them toward order, although chaos and order are always in a constant state of tension. The fundamental points of connection and order that exert continuous regulation on systemic behavior are called strange attractors. All dynamic systems have attractors that limit the possible states a system can reach and hence maintain systemic order (MacKenzie, 2005). Although strange attractors attempt to pull a system into a type of order, (called a fractal) they too are in continuous motion, and do not attract from a fixed point or necessarily in a linear fashion. The paradoxical nature of order/disorder, deconstruction/construction, devolution/evolution is a useful way to examine phenomena in the social sciences as well.
Social scientists apply chaos theory to a variety of fields, including communication, economics, finance, psychology, and sociology. Organizational scholars have attempted to integrate chaos and organizational communication in other arenas, including leadership (Blank, 1995), ambiguity and equivocality (Miller, 1998), the glass ceiling (Reuther & Fairhust, 2000), management (Stacy 1992, 1996) and innovation (Nonaka, 1988). However, the application of chaos theory in organizations is generally applied to times of crisis and crisis communication practices.
While each of the above studies examines various aspects of crisis via the lens of chaos theory, none puts a premium on the lens of communication as ritual or narrative processes.
Are Narratives Strange Attractors?
Organizational Life Cycle Theory suggests organizational environments are relatively stable and that organizations build structures over time to account for the slight changes and problems they encounter. According to Weick (1979), however, both internal and external environments are unpredictable, unstable, and volatile. This volatility necessitates the rapid and seemingly chaotic rearrangement of activities, priorities and performances. Nevertheless there is order of a subtle kind, which appears over time.
In the complexity sciences, a strange attractor is a set to which a dynamic system evolves after a long enough time. Although these strange attractors pull a system into a fractal order they are in continuous motion. The strange attractor is the basis of self-organization. Do narratives function as strange attractors in new businesses that could suddenly close down, devolve, and succumb to entropic forces at any time? Like the strange attractors in a fractal system, narratives at all levels are undergoing changes, while still offering organizational stability.
Narrative as a strange attractor implies not the transmission or transactional models of communication, but the ritual view of communication (Carey, 1988). Communication is linked to words such as communion, fellowship, participation and sharing. The ritual view of narrative as communication is a constitutive approach. It shows how communication constructs the social world, including our selves, our personal relationships, and our organizations. A “group’s temporarily persisting existence as a community, and as a social subject of experience and action,” according to Carr (1986), “is not that different from the story told about it; it too is constituted by the story of the community, of what it is and what it is doing, which is told, acted out and accepted in a kind of self-reflective social narration” (149-150).
This formulation of narrative reinforces and expands (by looking all three levels of narrative) the conception that the collective identities of organizational members are constituted by the narratives the participants themselves author (Brown, 2006). Narrating at the macro, meso, and micro levels simultaneously constitutes the organization and our identity through organizing and sensemaking processes. As Carey notes, communicating is the “construction and maintenance of an ordered, meaningful cultural world that can serve as a control and container for human action” (p. 18).
Narratives may be told and retold at the macro-, meso-, and micro levels, but they can only be retold from the present, with one eye fixed retrospectively on the past and one prospectively on the future (Bochner, 1994). Since narratives at all levels are constantly changing, create the basis for common understandings, and create order/disorder in the chaotic and complex world of social, institutional and interpersonal relations, narratives are the strange attractor that produce a (re)order, reintegration and renewal from the edges of chaos in which we find ourselves. The retelling of narratives is the “sacred ceremony that draws people together in fellowship and commonality” (Carey, 1988, p. 19).
Are narratives the strange attractors that maintain order within the chaos, and the chaos within the order?
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From:
Herrmann, A. F. (2009). Narrative as strange attractor: Thoughts on chaos, complexity, and non-profit start-ups. Paper presented at the Central States Communication Association Convention, St. Louis, MO.
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