Innovation and the role of Order & Chaos

The global pandemic we are experiencing in 2020 has been particularly difficult for all of us, in more ways than one. Much of what we ‘know’ (that which is certain), has become ‘unknown’ (that which is uncertain). It’s this very premise of uncertainty that is associated, in a general sense, with our initial emotional response of stress & anxiety. The potential long tail of this response, however, has led to some of the greatest inventions in human history. It’s by no mistake either.

Our left and right hemisphere, according to a reasonable body of theoretical speculation by credible neuroscientists, differs in two distinct ways (amongst others I’m sure). That is between things that are known - the left hemisphere, and things that are unknown - the right hemisphere.

The Daoists were one group to symbolically represent a similar idea, and most of us are very familiar with the symbol ‘yin-yang’ (see below).

Over time, interpretations of the symbol have evolved from good vs evil and more recently to Order and Chaos. Daoists believed that traversing the line between Order and Chaos (hence the inversely coloured circles in each side of the symbol) is how best to give meaning and purpose to life.

If we take the idea that;

‘Order’ = ‘Certainty’ = ‘Known’ & ‘Chaos’ = ‘Uncertainty’ = ‘Unknown’

and that our brains have evolved to equip us to deal with this, then perhaps we begin to explain why innovation usually comes out of Chaos.

During Chaos, our brain is somewhat forced into putting structure around uncertainty. The left and right hemispheres collaborate together to figure out how to make the unknown known or the uncertain, certain again. Attempting to do this builds competence and competency increases the probability of innovation.

From a business perspective, one example of historical significance was Toyota’s response to constructing vehicles in a decimated post World War II Japan (Chaos). They made the unknown known again, they did this by developing new competencies i.e. Toyota Production System and consequently went on to dominate the global industry until the present day. Chaos back to Order.

The software industry has been disrupting many others since the 1990s. The rate of disruption can be somewhat attributed to how rapidly some of these firms are able to make an unknown, known. Agile methods and taking a hypothesis lead approach to problem solving, for example, is a rapid way of making the unknown, known. Successful firms became comfortable traversing the line everyday between Order and Chaos, leading to new ideas and consequently continue to disrupt across a variety of industry sectors.

I’m amazed daily, how we as a civilisation, are working together to get through this pandemic. I have no doubt that we will succeed and I know (pardon the pun) that it will be through innovation. Perhaps one important thing to remember once we get through this, is that we continue to strive in making the unknowns known, both professionally and personally. By doing so, we continue to innovate as a society through the creation of competence, meaning and purpose.

A special thanks to all of the Lexicon team for their unwavering commitment during this difficult time.