New Paradigms in Organization Development: Positivity, Spirituality, and Complexity

Organization Development Journal, Spring 2009 by Karakas, Fahri

Visionary and insightful: Creativity, insight, and integrative thinking are becoming increasingly important in the 21st century to find new ways to bridge some of the 21st century organizational problems, wider global issues, social divides, poverty gaps, cultural and religious differences (Waddock, 2002; 2006). Moreover, innovative organizations have been trying to introduce visionary ways of organizing and work, such as building connections through networked organizations (Sproull and Kiesler, 1993), utilizing swarm intelligence (Bonabeau and Meyer, 2001) or creating collective intelligence in knowledge work teams (Fisher and Fisher, 1998).

Flexible and adaptive: The dynamic and chaotic nature of the 21st century demands adaptive and flexible Organization developement methods. The new knowledge economy requires adaptive skills and agility to recognize new opportunities and to take fast action. 21st century is also a century of networks and interdependence (Waddock, 2006). The relational and networked basis of the knowledge economy places demands on managers and Organization developement professionals to be more collaborative, flexible and agile in their approaches (Waddock, 2002). Therefore, organizations have been discovering and experimenting with new ways and methods to help employees balance work and family, such as flexible work arrangements (Gottlieb, Kelloway, and Barham, 1998) and telecommuting (Kugelmass, 1995).

Chaotic and non-linear: The new world in the 21st century is complex, ecologically vulnerable, diverse, chaotic, and non-linear. Chaos theory is the discipline analyzing nonlinear dynamic models that elucidate irregular and unpredictable behavior and attempting to reveal structure in unpredictable dynamic systems (Begun, 1994). For example, according to the butterfly effect; small differences in initial conditions can quickly lead to large differences in the future state of a system. Chaos theory and complexity sciences provide insights into the nature of complex adaptive systems and non-linear relationships in these systems to provide holistic explanations of phenomena (Begun, 1994).

Holistic and Quantum: The beginning of the twenty-first century encompasses an era that technologically could be called the Quantum Age. Quantum mechanics is the study of subatomic particles in motion. Subatomic particles interact across time and space in unknown and unknowable ways (Wheatley, 1992). Their unpredictable and seemingly random behavior violates Newton's laws. Recent research in psychology, biology, and neurophysiology suggests that human beings are, indeed, quantum beings (Shelton and Darling, 2001). The holistic and quantum approaches to management suggest that it is good for managers and employees to bring their whole persons to work, their bodies, minds and spirits (Daft and Lengel, 2000). These approaches also emphasize the need of bridging analytical and artistic sides of employees to increase their creativity (Daft and Lengel, 2000).