Book Review: Sync

One of the most fascinating things about the rapid advances being made recently in communications technology is watching how they enable people of similar or complementing interests and ambitions not merely to interact rewardingly and productively – but even to find each other so that they can do so. Indeed, many of the endeavors they discover themselves collaborating on only sprung into being on their connection. It is an intriguing network of serendipitous nodes, each glowing more or less brilliantly as they draw in new members and connections.

How does this happen? There are many who speculate on this topic directly – and ingeniously. Some of these have written books that we will review here, in time.

But I’ll just tell you now that my absolute favorite doesn’t really address this as a management or social topic at all. And yet I have found it to be the most insightful, actionably thought-provoking, and profitable book to read, from a manager’s perspective, of them all.

Steven Strogatz is a mathematician at Cornell University who studies physics and biology, among other branches of science. He is widely respected and cited by genuine experts in numerous fields, rather than merely his own – a distinct indicator of value. Those of you, for example, who have read The Black Swan will find Strogatz drawn upon for a major element of the book’s argument, by an author who is known for the free expression – and excruciatingly detailed and pointed enumeration of – his frank disapproval of the current crop of self-referential experts.

As you read Sync: How Order Emerges from Chaos in the Universe, Nature, and Daily Life, you will see for yourself why its author is not only spared that treatment, but is singled out for praise (which, assuredly, he has justly attracted from numerous other difficult corners, as well). The book is pure science, and you will do well to avoid unduly enthusiastic interpretations of its direct applicability to your own work as managers. But you will nevertheless find yourself making notes for further thought. It’s inevitable.

Sync takes on the increasingly popular impression that the most fundamental underlying character of the universe is that of entropy: decay, the slow unwinding of what was wrought by the Big Bang. Rather, Strogatz observes the robust drive in the natural world not to descend into chaos, but to self-generate order from it.

In particular, he tells the fascinatingly intriguing story of the science of sync. He describes it with engaging depictions of events in nature that we are all familiar with, but that take on wondrous new meaning in the context of the tale as he tells it. He begins to open our eyes to its hidden mysteries and importance with his description of how it was first discovered and elaborated.

And then, once you’re hooked – off you go, oscillating and synchronizing away as you see the science of sync building complexity from simplicity, order from chaos, meaning from little more than possibility. What’s more, you learn how the science, as it builds even upon itself, can come to span not just type, but space – even time.

Wouldn’t you – as a curious individual – like to understand how that happens in nature, and the implications it has for the path down which natural events might unfold? Wouldn’t you – as an alert manager – like to gain insight into how something like it might be happening around you in the broader society. Wouldn’t you like an opportunity to consider what such insights might offer you and your organization?

Sure you would. So, pick up your copy now. Mind you: don’t just thoughtlessly promote random oscillation all over the place. But do consider how you might arrange things to help generate collaboration from possibility alone.

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Today’s tip: Speaking of great insights from intriguing stories, Nina Simosko has been running a series on lessons in leadership to be learned from unlikely sources or unpromising beginnings. Take a look; it will be well worth your while.

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