Strange Attractors

Meg Wheatley introduced me to "strange attractors" last year when I read her book, Leadership and the New Sciences: Discovering Order in  a Chaotic World.   No, we're not referring to the infamous "do be do" lyrics of Frank Sinatra.  Rather, we're talking about a special force that emerges when a system undergoes transformation.  Here's the skinny.  

• Order exists in every system, even when the system is in absolute disorder and undergoing transformation.     
• You want "quantum" leaders on your team who can find the order within the disorder.  These are the leaders who can see the often invisible shapes, patterns and boundaries -- also known as "strange attractors" -- that will give meaning and hold the system together during these unstable and often turbulent times.
• These "quantum" leaders usually have a well-trained "eagle eye" that can see far and wide.  They are also wise enough to know that absolute disorder is necessary, from time to time, in order to create anything new or better.

Give Wheatley's book a read.  I read it in a single day, while sitting in two different airports, and I was a different person when I reached my destination.