One of the basic principles of chaos theory is attractors, or actually strange attractors or the butterfly effect, as most of us know it. This principle is contradicting the first law of thermodynamics that also known as the law of conservation of energy. In a nutshell, this law finds symmetry between the effort that you’ll put and the results. The butterfly effect proves that small change in a system (even tiny one) can end up with a significant impact on the system. The opposite is also possible in complex systems, sometimes you introduce a significant change and the system don’t react at all.
What can we take form strange attractors and implement it in management systems?
Fist and foremost, always look for the small change that can be introduced to the system and will result in significant results. There are many real-life examples for this principle, but you need to find what will work for your system (organization)
Every change that you are doing in a system might and will end up with unknown results. You can remove a function from the system, that you believe won’t have any impact, and your system will go upside down. You can introduce a significant change to your organization, expecting the organization to react, but nothing will happen.
If a system is continuously changing (as it should), you’ll never have control of the system. Or, as Mario Andretti put it “If everything seems under control, you’re just not going fast enough.” Understand that Chaos is part of complex systems and don’t fight with it, embrace what it can offer.