Butterflies Create the Future!

The "Butterfly Effect," based on the Theory of Complex Numbers, a MIT insight, says innovation, change occur on the edges of organizations, societies, not at their centers.

MIT mathematical models - and human history - in fact prove this can be and is the case.

The center is dead. It resists change. Think Washington, D.C.

The periphery, the edge, however, is fluid in comparison with the center, where vested interests raise the ante against whatever is not under its control.

As a result, the periphery, the edge, is where change can occur most easily. The concentrations of vested power at the center have not "sucked up all of the oxygen (resources)" at the edge.

In other words, the center is not looking for and does not value statistical "outliers." The forces focused at and on the center are too busy getting and keeping turf.

Once change, an"outlier," takes place on or at the edge, the periphery, it creates, in efffect, a pilot study, a proof of concept, an example, a model.

It says, "boys and girls," the concept is not just a pipe dream, talk, paper plan. It is real; it is working right over here.

Peter F. Drucker, the late, great management genius, argues that these "butterflies" change the frameworks of discussion.

Now discussions more and more must factor in the proof of concept. The result is forward movement, not costly stagnation and degeneration.

More and more, your humble servant, this writer, believes it is a waste of time to try to change processes at the center. Witness the present healthcare debacle in America as a prime example.

We have the best scope and hope for healthcare innovation and reform at the state and local levels, away from the huge, vested, vampire interests at the center in Washington, D.C.

"The "Butterfly Effect" is one of the reasons why this writer, your humble servant, more and more rejects the obsession of American culture with leadership.

Instead of some "savior on a white horse," let folks self-organize. The result will be more improvement, innovation, and return on investment, insead of dashed hopes and con games.

The "obscure butterflies" on the edges or periphery of society will not waste more precious time and resources on tyring to keep alive the old highly-centralized, dysfunctional industrial model of doing things at the center.

We are in fact witness to the collapse of this centralized model for managing human affairs. Call it "creative destruction," to borrow from Joseph F. Schumpter. "Butterflies" will fill the vacuum.

We can create and move cost-effective, profitable, responsive enterprises to the periphery of society easily now because of the power and logic of networking technologies.

We could be on the verge of freeing up resources at the center to create new systems at the edge, if we come to our senses and stop trying to shore up the brain-dead center.

If we have a humane future, "butterflies" - not leaders - will create it.