How chaos makes you smarter: an exploration in self-organized criticality and leadership

The NewScientist recently (29 June 2009) published the article 'Disorderly genius: How chaos drives the brain'. This article highlights a breakthrough in the current thinking of why every now and again the brain suddenly and unpredictably lurches into a blizzard of noise and that without any clue you got that particular idea at that particular time. Researchers are starting to believe that 'neuro-chaotic states [of the brain] may be crucial to memory, and could explain why some people are smarter than other'.

In the article they refer this process as being on the edge of chaos, or in a state of 'self-organized criticality'. These systems are right on the boundary between stable, orderly behavior, and the unpredictable world of chaos.

Self-organized criticality' means that thoughts grow in an orderly and predicable way until these 'piles' of thoughts just collapse out of nothing. Researchers argue now that this disorder is actually essential to the brain's ability to transmit information and solve problems, because "lying at the critical point allows the brain to rapidly adapt to new circumstances

Image: interrelationships between IM and KM, SLL and DLL, customization and innovation, and ordered and disordered

This article has raised some ideas which should be explored further. Now that we know that self-organizing is essential in order to become more innovative and 'smarter', what is the role of the leader to encourage and implement self-organizing in organizations. Obviously, self-organizing will result in different leadership styles, but how will these new leadership styles look like?