We can’t be in the room – or “in the know”- all the time, and we can also set the stage at the same time without being there. It is instructive for each of us to know that there is such a thing as the “Observer Effect,” and it helps us realize that we have the opportunity as leaders to know and act upon it.
You’re setting the stage within the system and then sitting back and letting it function on its own!” I paused for a moment and smiled, noting, “I think I’m hearing you say that you are seeking growth in those you work with so that you can become a better leader. “Well, probably a combination of the three because I need to set the stage for my people, communicate my intentions to them, and then be ready to accept the outcomes they achieve.īeing in the room will affect the system, that I know, and then leaving them to work by themselves will let them achieve results without being observed.” “So, which of your three approaches do you favor?”, I asked. The client went on, “If I can harness that intent, then my team grows in their capabilities and I get to expand my range in the process.” I want to be liberated from being the person who always has to be “in the know.” Instead, I’d like people to come to me only when they can’t solve the handful of dilemmas that they haven’t been able to work out together.” He thought about it for a while, paused, and said, “My intent is not to be so involved in every level of information and the decisions surrounding them. My client discussed a number of approaches: 1) He could attend the meetings and teach the individuals how he wanted them to work together 2) He could invite everyone and then just sit in the background and watch and 3) Alternatively, he could ask everyone to be there and not attend, providing some outcomes in advance that he’d like to see.Īs we talked about his approaches, I asked him what he had done so far with his ideas. The first step was to invite them to host their own meetings.
HEISENBERG PRINCIPLE OF OBSERVATION HOW TO
That knowledge helped him as he talked about how to approach a goal of eliciting more independence from his people. He acknowledged that it existed and realized that any time he entered the system he would be changing its dynamics. We can’t change the Observer Effect, but knowing about it can help us understand how our teams, as systems themselves, function – with or without us.Ī client was speaking with me the other day about developing his subordinates and the Observer Effect came up. Sometimes that is with real intent but so very often it just happens without us noticing it. And when we enter a system, we change it. We human beings are always part of a system or systems.
I sat with that knowledge for a while and realized that it has applicability to how each of us interacts with others, with our environment, and even with our technology. I was fascinated that by trying to observe and measure particles or waves we actually change them. So when I saw an article recently on “Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle,” I read further and learned about what is called the “Observer Effect,” which, in physics, is described as the disturbance of an observed system by the act of observation. My apologies to the physicists who might be reading this.
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