The Maintenance of Stability

Chaotic work experience as may be discerned from the above case contains what might be thought of as bounded instability (Stacey, 1992). Even though individuals, groups and divisions are doing their own thing and may actually contribute to serious compromises in organizational performance, there are enough successes by individuals and divisions working autonomously to somehow keep things going. Over time various divisions may contribute to the overall success, and occasionally coalitions and compromises are developed among the autonomous divisions to overcome conflict and imbalances where a win-win solution may be had. The stability is experienced as fundamentally chaotic but at the same time things are happening and successes and progress can be observed to be occurring albeit without any sense of a larger unifying vision. These management styles may be described as reactive and opportunistic.

The pursuit and maintenance of individual autonomy is more desirable than the accompanying distressing experience of anxiety as to how things are going in general. Herein lie the stability and simultaneously the underlying tension for change. So long as there seems to be more to be gained by being autonomous, chaotic workplace experience is supported by the leaders of groups and many of their members. As in the above case, this dynamic may span decades so long as the perception of threat to the larger sense of the organization is not sufficient to create excessive anxiety as to individual and group survival.