10/09/2021
It's time to talk about chaos.
We are surrounded by linear systems. If twice as many people come to the festival, we will sell twice as many tickets. If 7 handymen build a brick wall in a day, one will tackle it in a week. A marriage is something that lasts till death parts us, and 4 years of a Ukrainian university will certainly land you a bachelor's degree. Small changes in the initial conditions lead to small changes in the result, large changes — to large ones. And if nothing changes at the start, then the outcome is constant. Linearity eliminates uncertainty and we strive for it in order to stay sane.
When this rule does not work, the system is considered nonlinear. If one designer creates a logo in a week, 7 designers might never get it done. A 4th year student might learn more than a freshman, but definitely not 4 times more. People who get married for life get divorced, and any weather forecast for 2 weeks in advance is utterly useless. A soup of many non-linearly related things is Chaos. And the big news is that it is everywhere. Regardless of how hard we try to ignore it.
In Project Management, temptation to disregard chaos is even stronger. High expectations from investors, audience, guests, and most importantly, from ourselves, entail the need for certainty and control. A handyman who can’t deliver a brick wall in a week should be fired; the schedule for an art residence must be composed down to the minute, and the number of direct beneficiaries should be defined once grant application is being filled out. Months in advance. We are lucky it works most of the time. Otherwise, the world as we know it would fall apart and burn in flames.
With this article, we start a conversation about the benefits of chaos in culture management and facilitation of creativity. In our research, we've learned that sweeping chaos under the covers is not always an effective approach. Determinism can be toxic. If the result is closely dependent on individual consciousness or teamwork, chaos is inevitable. And this is good. The skill to notice and appreciate non-linearity in our work opens up new and unusual methods. Chaos eliminates order, but does not deprive us of control. Chaos substitutes micromanagement, and in return grants us the right to an unprecedented result. Over the years, we have accumulated a number of cases and tools that prove this.
We will talk about these cases here under the hashtag / . Do you use chaos in your work? Please share your opinions and experiences in the comments. Let's make a dialogue out of this narrative. Now is a great time to talk about chaos.
In the meantime, feel free to read an interview with one of the co-founders of Sprava T, Roman Vydro, about appreciation for chaos and key skills a cultural manager should have. This fruitful conversation between Roman, Alina Khanbabaieva and Ivanna Skyba-Yakubova was initiated by Dofa fund: cultural networking. Link is in the first comment.
Cheers to Friedrich Nietzsche for the poster quote.
, , , , , .
It's time to talk about chaos.
We are surrounded by linear systems. If twice as many people come to the festival, we will sell twice as many tickets. If 7 handymen build a brick wall in a day, one will tackle it in a week. A marriage is something that lasts till death parts us, and 4 years of a Ukrainian university will certainly land you a bachelor's degree. Small changes in the initial conditions lead to small changes in the result, large changes — to large ones. And if nothing changes at the start, then the outcome is constant. Linearity eliminates uncertainty and we strive for it in order to stay sane.
When this rule does not work, the system is considered nonlinear. If one designer creates a logo in a week, 7 designers might never get it done. A 4th year student might have learned more than a freshman, but definitely not 4 times more. People who get married for life get divorced, and any weather forecast for 2 weeks in advance is utterly useless. A soup of many non-linearly related things is Chaos. And the big news is that it is everywhere. Regardless of how hard we try to ignore it.
In Project Management, temptation to disregard chaos is even stronger. High expectations from investors, audience, guests, and most importantly, from ourselves, entail the need for certainty and control. A handyman who can’t deliver a brick wall in a week should be fired; the schedule for an art residence must be composed down to the minute, and the number of direct beneficiaries should be defined once grant application is being filled out. Months in advance. We are lucky it works most of the time. Otherwise, the world as we know it would fall apart and burn in flames.
With this article, we start a conversation about the benefits of chaos in culture management and facilitation of creativity. In our research, we've learned that sweeping chaos under the covers is not always an effective approach. Determinism can be toxic. If the result is closely dependent on individual consciousness or teamwork, chaos is inevitable. And this is good. The skill to notice and appreciate non-linearity in our work opens up new and unusual methods. Chaos eliminates order, but does not deprive us of control. Chaos substitutes micromanagement, and in return grants us the right to an unprecedented result. Over the years, we have accumulated a number of cases and tools that prove this.
We will talk about these cases here under the hashtag / . Do you use chaos in your work? Please share your opinions and experiences in the comments. Let's make a dialogue out of this narrative. Now is a great time to talk about chaos.
In the meantime, feel free to read an interview with one of the co-founders of Sprava T, Roman Vydro, about appreciation for chaos and key skills a cultural manager should have. This fruitful conversation between Roman, Alina Khanbabaieva and Ivanna Skyba-Yakubova was initiated by Dofa fund: cultural networking. Link is in the first comment.
Cheers to Friedrich Nietzsche for the poster quote.
, , , , , .
