Organizational Development: A Manual for Managers and ... - FPDL

some forces may come into balance, or annihilate one another - the sum vector becomes zero at
these points, and does not determine a direction in any corresponding dimension. But the process
cannot be stopped because there are other forces to move it forward. At the points of unstable
balance (or the surface of unstable balance), the direction of motion may be determined by any
small influence. These points are bifurcations (see Chapter 1.1). Thus, the basin of attraction will
branch in alternative creods, the last will branch further, and so on – the picture of the landscape
would not show a line – it would be more similar to the inverted tree (see Picture 18).
Picture 18. Points of bifurcation
The actual process will go along the creods, where they are, and chose one of the alternatives at
the points of bifurcation. The choices may be accidental, influenced by any small fluctuation, or
may be controlled in one way or another. In general, the lack of predictability in development of a
system does not mean that development is uncontrolled. In most cases, development can be
controlled due to some controllable factors in the landscape, or due to small sharply targeted
impacts at the points of bifurcation.
Conscious change of the landscape and the path of development, or ‘smart’ control over the points
of bifurcation, constitute the art of strategic management of change, or strategic change
management. We will come back to this topic in Part II of this Manual.
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