Spontaneity

Developing an instinct for spontaneous responses. Remaining agile in the face of complexity. Adapting thinking for greater flexibility.

Becoming or being spontaneous becomes second nature when faced with unpredictability, and chaos in Quantum teams. Our natural instinct is to revert to history and what we have done in the past. This is the most self limiting position to take when all possibilities are possible and myriad new options stretch out before you.

The old saying of ‘if you always do what you’ve always done you will always get what you’ve always had’ is the antithesis of Quantum Management. History is a useful servant when used to avoid remaking the same old mistakes but it’s a futile companion with a future of endless possibilities.

Being spontaneous can be uncomfortable for others and it requires robustness and resilience to sustain it. Being spontaneous is responding to the moment and challenging preconceived ideas and formats.

You have to be willing and able to change your mind. You have to be courageous and set aside the ego in order to have your mind changed. Living on past wisdom and previous successes will only serve to limit new possibilities. Complex adaptive systems require originality and spontaneity in order to navigate the possibilities. They present uniquely new data and therefore require completely new thinking.

Serena Chan stated in her paper on Complex Adaptive Systems: CAS are dynamic systems able to adapt in and evolve with a changing environment. It is important to realise that there is no separation between a system and its environment in the idea that a system always adapts to a changing environment. Rather, the concept to be examined is that of a system closely linked with all other related systems making up an ecosystem. Within such a context, change needs to be seen in terms of co-evolution with all other related systems, rather than as adaptation to a separate and distinct environment.

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