Скачать или смотреть Three kinds of chaos - Tetradian on Change

When we're working with change, there are some kinds of chaos we want, and others we don't - but do we know which they are?

It's perhaps common to think that chaos is the opposite of order - but that's misleading, and rarely valid. In practice, there are three distinct forms of chaos that are relevant in most change.

One is what we might call 'final self-order' - the end-point of entropy, when things settle out into a kind of order that can no longer be changed.

Next is what is perhaps most commonly understood as 'chaos' - the one that arises when things don't go to plan. A more accurate term for that kind of chaos, though, would be 'undesired self-order', because it is a form of order - just not the one that we want, though it is still one that we can change.

The other form of chaos here is fundamentally different: a 'primordial chaos' that is literally 'beyond order', but also contains all possibilities. If we're working with change, this type of chaos is one that we want - because that's where the choices and options that we need can arise.

Three types of chaos: but we need to be careful not to mix them up!

See also:
-- post 'Three kinds of chaos', http://weblog.tetradian.com/2020/12/1...
-- post 'Reframing entropy in business', http://weblog.tetradian.com/2013/01/0...
-- post 'More on reframing entropy in business', http://weblog.tetradian.com/2013/01/1...