The power to change things lies within us. Presented here are parts of a theory on how shifts in oneself can have profound shifts in corporations, markets, systems, and the world. It has been said - "Become the change you wish to see in the World". But the elaboration of how this is true may remain a mystery. The theory of organization introduced here indicates a fractal reality in which an idea, a person, a team, a corporation, a market, a system, progressively more complex constructs, are concretely connected by virtue of common and linked patterns that animates each of these separate levels. Hence the power to positively change progressively more complex and in many cases removed arenas of life, such even as Climate Change, by making corresponding changes in one’s personal space becomes more real.

Such a relationship connecting the micro to the macro has thus far been applied in the physical realm only. Benoit Mandelbrot and others have studied how Nature employs fractal patterns to build complex structures. The fractal theory introduced here indicates how far more complex constructs - such as persons, corporations, markets, countries - comprising of significant behavioral components, can similarly be holistically perceived and correspondingly shifted. A result is that more effective shaping power is put in the hands of those who are able to live the theory.

On many different fronts the world is beginning to experience accelerated crises. Recent times have borne witness to the increasing global financial crises which continues to grow in scope every day. Not only are more economies pronouncing recessions and tottering on the verge of depressions, not only are an increasing number of companies and even diverse financial institutions declaring bankruptcy, but more so, people continue to be affirmed and reaffirmed as mere assets or liabilities to be dealt with accordingly. The threat of Climate Change, increasing resource shortages, and now food security continues too to grow in intensity. Destruction of natural capital continues at a fiendish pace through inadvertent or even advertent destruction of species, transportation of species from one region of the world to others not suited for such implantation, and release of a constant stream of toxins from an increasing number of sources. As a human species we have often forgotten our routes to freedom and stand enslaved at multiple levels by a formidable global machinery that promises utopia at every step, but is in reality set on a path towards its own destruction. One may look at these and other current crises as disconnected. To do so, however, is part of the problem.

In reality we exist in a single system that connects different organizational entities together in a comprehensive fractal structure. The term ‘organization’ refers to an idea, a theory, a habit, a circumstance, a person, a corporation, a collectivity, a country, and even planet earth, amongst other possible entities whose structure, processes, and very meaning is defined by architectures comprised of similar building-blocks. An underlying dynamic of this system is its fractal reality, that is, the ability of an organization to replicate its raison d’etre and way of being not only at its own level of operation, but through influence, also on different scale. Myriad fractal effects emanating from many different sources create a general fractal vortex. This vortex often blinds organizations to high ideals and truly liberating possibilities and binds them to habits and norms of yesterday. Within this fractal vortex however exists a remarkable ladder, the Fractal Ladder, a special zone that releases and connects inner power to global change. This Fractal Ladder is constructed by a common fractal for progress that animates each of its rungs. This Fractal Ladder is at once a mechanism by which the system can progress meaningfully, and a doorway into the heart of the system which is seen as purposeful, conscious, and progressive. The heart of the system manifests itself in building-blocks and organizations. When these organizations embark on a particular fractal journey, the one that spells progress on each rung of the ladder, they can progressively uncover and embody more of the truth of which they are in the final analyses evolving projections.

Stepping onto this Fractal Ladder is the secret of bringing about meaningful and sustainable global change. The ensuing change is not so much a result of personal effort, though this is of course indispensable and the means by which an organization steps onto the Fractal Ladder, but more so because on the Fractal Ladder the progressive dynamics that lie at the heart of the containing system begins to more easily find expression in better prepared organizations, and hence magnify. Deep motive forces that have the power to bring to the surface truer identity are them released, and organizations begin to develop along a more stable multi-dimensional as opposed to the current travesty of a one-dimensional foundation.

When linearity and simple cause-effect models are the dictionaries by which we ascribe meaning and purpose to our lives, the inaccuracy and resulting action in that view cannot but cause us to encounter formidable obstacles at every step of the way, that then manifest as the many larger-than-life problems we are faced with today. When we are able to embrace the Fractal Ladder based systems-view of reality however, we not only give way to, but even begin to enter into relationship with a more conscious and comprehensive cause-effect reality that necessarily works a greater degree of magic in our lives.

Today’s challenges demand nothing less than a sea-change in the definition and dynamics of many common components of our lives. Our notion of self, our notion of world, of leadership, of progress, of money, of business, of society, and of myriad other institutions needs to be turned on its head, not out of any frivolity, but based on more penetrating observations of progress and stagnation that animate many practical aspects of our lives.  The contradictions that abound in our life do so because there is a huge disconnect between the common meanings and purposes we ascribe to key components of our life and the meaning and purpose that the truth of our reality demands. The fractal system introduced here is an attempt to more fully mirror that truth of our reality.

The approach to achieving effective change naturally changes. Usually the approach to bringing about change is restricted to one or the other level. There are frameworks that deal with making personal change. There are frameworks that deal with making organizational change. There are frameworks that deal with making market or system changes. These no doubt have their place and utility in the scheme of things, and will no doubt assist various organizations in completing their respective fractal journeys. The demand placed before us by world circumstances themselves, however, cannot any longer be addressed by such piecemeal and disconnected approaches. The time has come for a radical reconstruction of the notion of drivers, motive forces, causality, and the very map and way of change. This alternative approach to change that integrates the micro with the macro, that gets into deeper subjective drivers and their objective effects, that considers all events, ideas, circumstances, not to mention people, teams, corporations, collectivities, countries – instances of organization – as being constructed and therefore even reconstructed by common building blocks, in effect an approach that connects inner power with global change, is what is introduced here.

In this approach many new postulates for change emerge. These include the following:

• There are common building-blocks that animate each level of organization.

• Organization refers to an idea, a theory, a habit, an event, a circumstance, a person, a team, a corporation, a collectivity, a market, an economy, our world; basically anything whose structure, processes, meaning is defined by the common building-blocks.

• Dynamics of a particular organization are entirely determined by which of these building-blocks are active at that level of organization.

• Like DNA, the stringing together of building-blocks in a particular sequence or with particular dominance, determines the active dynamics of that level of organization.

• There is only one particular sequence of stringing together building-blocks that allows an organization to progress sustainably.

• This particular sequence exists in all progressive organizations, regardless of level of complexity, and forms the seed-pattern of which The Fractal Ladder is the fractal.
• When organizations embrace sequences other than that of the progressive fractal, they become a part of a general fractal vortex that animates ordinary or ‘as-usual’ as opposed to progressive life.
• All sequences tend to repeat their raison d’etre and way of being not only at their own levels, but by influence, at other levels also. This is what reinforces fractal reality.

• When a fractal for progress inevitably encounters forces or contrary-fractals a rite of passage is created by which deeper identity can emerge.

• The Fractal Ladder is a zone of possibility that causes the world-system to progress in the most sustainable way possible.

• The Fractal Ladder is the signature of a progressive, conscious, and fully integrated world-system.
• The existence of the fractal of progress, regardless of level of organizational complexity and regardless of formidable opposition by forces to the contrary, implies its reality or even an essential and pervasive reality of power, presence, knowledge, and love.

• An opening to this essential reality of power, presence, knowledge, and love is perhaps the most effective way for an organization to complete its own fractal journey of progress.
• The existence of a Fractal Ladder and a personified Progress sets the stage for a vastly different set of dynamics with which to bring about change in organizations.

On many different fronts we are today at a boundary condition. The journeying between one phase or building-block of the ubiquitous fractal and the next must be completed for the increasing contradictions and general debilitation along many different fronts, symptoms of a bygone way of being, to decline. Just as in the case of addressing Climate Change, the window for making this transition is time-bound and those organizations that are able to make this journey demanded of them now, are the ones that will emerge as leaders of our collective future.


Pravir Malik

(Note:  gist of a to be published work on a fractal-model of change)