Key words: paradigm, space-time-energies, complexity.

Space, time, energies: A paradigm shift

By A.Gugy

Text translated by Seb M.

We live in an increasingly more complex world, where increasingly weaker signals exert an increasingly bigger impact on areas that are increasingly more important and heterogeneous. “Time” keeps accelerating and brings a whirlpool of instability in its wake. And though we all agree with this statement, the rhythm, the direction and the magnitude of these changes keep surprising us.

Strategic shift theory

A strategic inflection point is an event that irrevocably changes the way we feel, think and act. In English literature, Andy Grove is one of the cornerstones of the concept. It is neither a bifurcation of chaos theory nor an extremely rare and unpredictable black swan (Fukushima) as described by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. In this instance, a parameter of our environment slowly changes and, at a particular moment, the concavity changes sign, which irrevocably upsets our biotope without our knowledge.

The timeframe between the inflection point, which we will randomly place in time, and the collective awareness is long. Pending the adoption of new behaviours, the seesaw situation between the former and the new “world” becomes increasingly more uncomfortable.

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Key words: paradigm, space-time-energies, complexity.

In the light of an approach based on space, time and energies, we can conclude that our thinking patterns, our structures and our methods, whether they are internal or external, personal or professional, must be overturned and rethought in order to integrate lessons learnt from complexity. We must change our paradigm1, which is actually extremely difficult!

The world is shrinking by widening

With progress made in terms of transportation of information, ideas, persons and goods, we shifted from the homogeneous local perspective (my village is the centre of the world) to the heterogeneous global perspective (the world is my village), let’s say, on 20th July 1969 at 17h39 UTC.

And this has brought its share of consequences, for we have imperceptibly moved from bipolar to multipolar, from culture to multiculture, from centrifugal endogenous structuration to centripetal exogenous destructuration, from national sovereignty to right to intervene, from defence of the fatherland to protection of democratic values, etc.

Our way of thinking has been shaped to grasp closed systems. Yet, the borders, separations, limits and other classifications of all kinds have become vague; boundaries are no longer hermetic. We have to proceed to accepting and comprehending open systems and replace the OR conception by an AND perspective. Friend OR foe has simultaneously become friend AND foe and foe AND friend. In the economic sphere emerges the idea of “coopetition”2, after the example of plants and animals, which have long adopted similar strategies.

1A paradigm is a commonly accepted conception of the world that allows us to think and cooperate in a specific framework.2 Portmanteau of cooperation and competition

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Key words: paradigm, space-time-energies, complexity.

However, it is not easy to shift from an autarky that creates an illusion of autonomy and sovereign control towards openness to the unknown, which entails anxiety but also promises. This change demands efforts to better know oneself, accept one’s weaknesses and needs, gain confidence and dare to head towards the difference and the unfamiliar in order to tackle normality, which is the result of the diktat imposed by the middle of the Gaussian curve.

Long-term reflection to support short-term actions

Nowadays, the tyranny of immediacy reigns. We have moved from handwritten letters to text messages, from movies to video clips, while banks relocate their servers a few metres closer in order to gain some nanoseconds in their “flash” transactions. Paradoxically, for the first time in history, we can now potentially survive five generations, and it is no longer unusual to experience three weddings and ten employers in a lifetime.

Let us assume that short time appeared with transatlantic transmissions. In 1907, Marconi established the first commercial radio and in 1927, Lindbergh accomplished the first non-stop flight across the Atlantic Ocean. We have since witnessed an exponential acceleration of the march of history.

Windows of opportunity are larger in number, but smaller in size. Their exploitation requires informational, decisional and operational asymmetry, which we need to induce by exerting influence over the two scales of time in order to exploit short time in harmony with reflection, i.e. the product of long time.

Nothing characterises short time as much as the speed of information transmission. Historically, this transmission was linked to social hierarchy and remained therefore static and vertical. From a caricatural point of view, a literate and informed elite exercised power while the ignorant populace followed orders. Yet, information transmission has now become instantaneous, nomad poly directional and horizontal. (From “one to one” to “one to wall” & “many to many”.)

Nonetheless, hierarchical organisations have mostly remained vertical and sequential. If we want to gain time, we must implement tools and procedures that stimulate parallel working where the action is decentralised in all possible areas in order to “think globally and act locally”. The strong tendency of delayering in businesses will be meaningful and effective only if it does not remain formally and informally strictly vertical. The challenge is to replace the top of the pyramids by the centre of the spheres without losing coherence and the collective raison d’être.

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Key words: paradigm, space-time-energies, complexity.

The pace that characterises short time is very thrilling, but includes a neurotic risk. Heading down the road gives a spurious feeling of importance and control. Quick action implies better reflection. We must consider the long term on the basis of significant, multiple yet fragmentary information, and clearly identify existential problems before resolving them and facing their consequences with courage, determination, honesty and humility. Otherwise, we must content ourselves with (over)reactivism that deservedly leaves a bitter impression of chaos, or worse, an impression of waste.

These periods of reflection cannot be affected by the stimuli of short time. Reflection requires mature thought. Only the long term allows to acquire, share and create knowledge, and to forge a global vision.

Finally, there is an urgent need to proceed to a radical review of our information exchanges. Raw information must be left to business social media (Knowledge Plazza, BlueKiwi, etc.) and/or collaborative platforms (Wiki media, SharePoint, etc.). It is pointless to gather the personnel to read a text that those who are absent will never receive, and those who are present only half-listen to… provided they listen.

However, it is more than ever vital to meet one another (read face one another) in order to explain, share and deepen the implicit knowledge lodged in our brain. The only way to fulfil this objective is to create confidence and mutual respect. The formerly common late talks in the bar must now step aside in favour of other approaches that go far beyond the potential of social media.

When the weak become strong

Since the automation of control loops (i.e. in 1904 with the invention of the diode by John Ambrose Fleming), it is possible to channel strong energies using weak energies.

We have since moved from power to dexterity, from force to flux, from the visible to the invisible, from the material to the immaterial, from action to influence and from constraint to incentive.

The shift from strong to weak is in line with the thermodynamic concept of entropy, according to which all systems evolve towards an almost constant increase in disorder. It is also in line with the mathematical model developed by Claude Shannon, who considered entropy as the amount of information contained or delivered in a message.

It is the noise, i.e. the uncertainty, that affects the quality of the original information, which results in new versions and ultimately increases the total amount of information. Achieving optimal diversity, yet at the expense of the original message, in order to protect oneself from environmental changes is widely used by the nature, for instance in the reproduction of species.

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Key words: paradigm, space-time-energies, complexity.

Using the concept “energy” in the plural allows to include finance, information, matter… in short, any form of energy that is temporarily crystallised and can serve as a reservoir. The external manifestations of these energies will be referred to as “signals”. The difficulty with weak energies lies in detecting and interpreting connected weak signals, which will be considered as mere noise by an inaccurate sensor, and as an erratic or even chaotic behaviour by us.

The more time accelerates, the more we need to think in terms of flux and flux vector. The dynamic counterpart of static force prompts us to consider every event as having a direction and a dimension, i.e. a beginning, an end, and a flow of more or less dense and irreversible events between both. We are now searching for an optimal management of the fluxes of our systems and organisations, and no longer for immutable stability.

Asymmetrical conflicts are a vivid example of the importance, for a weak group, of its mobilisation capacity (indoctrination), of the strength of its actions, of surprise (resulting from impermanence and creativity), of the right knowledge of the situation, and, finally, of its ability to disappear and vanish into the “noise” of an innocent crowd.

Thanks to the lessons from the three above-mentioned shifts (space-time-energies), we feel that the struggle against asymmetrical war necessarily and immediately requires a paradoxical (constraint and incentive), coordinated and simultaneous offensive against every flux (e.g. trafficking of money, drugs, raw materials, arms, human beings, logistical means and information), as well as against all the vectors of these fluxes (e.g. networks and smugglers).

A shortened timescale in a heterogeneous world leads us to believe that social, economic, political and ideological systems are nowadays created and destroyed by fluxes and their combinations, like it has always occurred for living beings.

Complex conception

To begin with, let us make a clear distinction between “complicated” (complicare: fold together) and “complex” (complexus: woven together).

Since the Greek philosophers and Descartes, our thinking has been based on isolating elements in order to identify peculiarities, break things down to understand them, and transpose the result of the simple combination of this individual research into the original environment.

However, the so-called systemic, “complex” method postulates that each problem, organisation, living being, etc. is a symbiosis of open systems that have multiple, continuous and instable connections with their environments as well as with their own components, and where a multitude of unknown factors delivers a whole host of responses… that are mostly unexpected! For example, a separate study of chlorine and sodium could never predict that the combination of both results in white salty crystals. The

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Key words: paradigm, space-time-energies, complexity.

whole is simultaneously greater and lesser than the sum of its parts. Holism never equals the sum of reductionisms.

The concepts of risk and uncertainty take a whole new dimension. According to complex thinking, these are no longer shortcomings to be addressed; on the contrary, they are opportunities to deepen our knowledge and discover new solutions that better suit our needs and our environment.

For example, the very famous SWOT analysis needs to be eradicated: it not only neglects the constant interactions between intern and extern factors, but it also categorises every event as a threat or an opportunity, a strength or a weakness, whereas every threat is an opportunity, every strength is a weakness... and vice-versa.

In addition, one thing seems to oppose the mad rush towards chaos: the boom of organised forms of order. The property was called "negentropy" in 1944 by Erwin Schrödinger. Just like entropy, it grows and can only decrease temporarily and locally, often in the aftermath of sudden and violent events.

Complexity itself does not pose a problem, as with a closer look, we can see everything becomes (more and more) complex. The problem is the cognitive bias introduced by the use of current models – Cartesian and systematic – which nevertheless proved effective as long as we were studying few-variable phenomena in linear ranges of variation with low amplitude.

To grasp today’s world, where interactions are strong and chaotic, a new approach is required. Yet, a paradigm can be created, developed and adopted only if we drastically review our mentalities, beliefs methods, and hence our habits. Personal evolution is the price to pay in order to transmute our systems, which will also require mutating after the example of our societal model. Nowadays, it can no longer be a question of superficial grooming.

By introducing the concepts of organised and disorganised complexity (“Science and complexity”, 1948), Warren Weaver dug a first and pretty big hole in the wall of our certainties. Other complexity thinkers (E. Morin, J. de Rosnay, J.-L. Le Moigne, the Palo Alto Group and some South American universities) have since suggested shifting from an “ego-deo” centric perspective (importance of “to have”; everything for me and my ideal), to a “bio-eco” sophic conception (importance of “to be”; responsible wisdom of a living system in line with its environment).

To put it in a nutshell, let us remember that against chaos and uncertainty, only a founding and organising principle that is simple, clear and transparent allows to ensure the sustainability of complex systems. Willingness and determination bode well for the future thanks to responsibly supporting the common project. Losing the meaning of war is losing the war itself: that is the importance of the “Missions Statements”.

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Key words: paradigm, space-time-energies, complexity.

Furthermore, integrating common values and developing qualities such as redundancy, resilience, singularity, lucidity (especially concerning our own ignorance) and the ability to generate diversity (hybridisation, cross-fertilisation, etc.) allow to enjoy self-confidence and essential adaptability3 without losing our soul.

Moreover, every open system, which is characterised by its intern and extern exchanges, strives to maintain its dynamic equilibria thanks to control loops. Tolerance, reliance, empathy and the acceptance of interdependence allow to establish multi-layered, polydisciplinary and frank dialogues (obligation to dissent). Trusting our relationships with the strange (intern) and the stranger (extern) is the only way to enable decentralisation, self-moderation and self-organisation.

Finally, within the ethical, legal, temporal and material limits provided, the only thing that matters is the final result (“equifinality”). For every complex organisation, the point is therefore not only to empower its individuals, but also to stimulate their diverging creativity, their converging collaboration and their continuous involvement in order to avoid a deadlock due to the paralysis of the initiatives, which is the corollary of a timid wait-and-see attitude.

Beyond

3 « When the rate of change outside your organisation exceeds that within your organisation, the end is near. » Jack Welch

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Key words: paradigm, space-time-energies, complexity.

Coalesced around simple organising ideas, we must now acknowledge and consider non-linear realities, and reflect in an “AND” perspective in order to act in parallel on fluxes, knowing that every system is open and ephemeral, in line with its environment in a vital adaptive dance.

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