Finding balance between creativity and stability

The interpretation of events is not intrinsic to the stimuli a manager receives. Rather, managers fit incoming stimuli to their own beliefs, biases, and assumptions (Donaldson and Lorsch, 1983; Ford and Hegarty, 1984, Ranson, Hinings and Greenwood, 1980; Weick, 1979). As a result, different managers understand the same events in unique ways. Despite these differences, there are common "non-rational" but nonetheless systematic individual difference dimensions that underlie discrepancies among various managers, differences that cannot be assessed by standard input-output techniques. Successful managerial functioning might be explained as the "edge of chaos" where the components of thought and action "never quite lock in place", however they "never dissolve into turbulence." Such characteristics are quite representative of managerial functioning that includes both "enough stability and enough creativity" (cf., Lewin, 1992; Waldrop, 1992). We must understand and be able to measure these particular individual differences if we want to successfully predict which manager will, and which manager will not be successful in dealing with a complex future.