The following is another in a new series of columns that will provide answers to small business questions. The new question and answer column is written by Dr. Leonard Bertain, Ph.D., the president of The Bertain Consulting Group of Oakland, CA a consulting firm specializing in the improvement of business processes and business re-engineering. Dr. Bertain's book, "The New Turnaround", contains a fictionalized character known as "Dr. Elbie". Should you have a question regarding business management issues, write or fax them to Dr. Elbie, Bertain Consulting Group, 3758 Grand Ave., Suite 25, Oakland, CA 94611, phone (510) 653-6355 or lbertain@bertain.com Dear Dr. Elbie: I was pleased to read your last column. You have been preaching about the Quantum Leap company for a long time. How does that relate to your last column on the Second Law of Thermodynamics? Signed. Hot to know in Portland, Oregon. Dear Hot in Oregon: I know what you mean. Sometimes I have a tendency to beat a dead horse. But trust me, I have been thinking about the Quantum Leap for a long time and my most recent thoughts about the Second Law of Thermodynamics have given me a few new insights that help make the metaphor richer. As I mentioned in the last column, there are a good many such metaphors in science that can be applied to organizations. In fact, it may be a truism that if you can identify a phenomenon in science and a theory to describe it, there is a corresponding principle in management science. As we learned in the last column, classical thermodynamics doesn't tell you anything about the characteristics of the individual atoms of a gas. It merely talks about average behavior of the collective gas molecules. Atomic physics or quantum mechanics are called upon to describe the behavior of an individual atom or a small group of gas molecules. So what! How does this discussion help us deal with anything in business ? It turns out that quantum mechanics is intimately concerned with energy and how it is radiated and absorbed by atoms. We have determined that our change program, VAP, the value-added analysis process, provides a source of energy to a company. This energy input is manifested by the excitement that is felt by the participants in the training program that we deliver. As I have said many times, we provide the excitement. The companies receive the benefits: profits are improved, lead time is reduced, and increased productivity is generated. The company becomes healthy again. From a management science perspective little is known of this absorbtion process. And that is where we get support from the study of quantum mechanics. We have talked in the past about the "Quantum Leap." This jump in energy is obtained when the organization absorbs energy during a change program and makes a jump to a new energy level as noted in the figure below. In our work with companies, we have found an interesting phenomenon, the absorption must take place in two steps to be effective and generate real change. There is an initial jump of the organization to a new level of energy. Energy has been absorbed and the company becomes more ordered. But this excited state is unstable. We have all seen it. A training program of some new zippy management concept is delivered. The company improves for a little while but quickly regresses to its previous state. In physics, we call that a metastable (unstable) state. The quantum leap is taken from a model of physics used to describe the workings of a laser, as noted in the figure: The Quantum Leap Now here is where the quantum leap occurs. As the CEO drives the organization change process, he/she pushes for action. This action drives the organization to a new energy level. The company absorbs energy and, according to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, order is restored. When it reaches the new first metastable level of energy, the organization is now ready for additional change. When a new source of energy is supplied to the organization in this metastable state, the absorption of energy occurs more quickly. This is the quantum leap phenomenon. It is a quantum leap because it is a major change. It is not gradual. It occurs in weeks not years. The power of the "Quantum Leap" analogy is that it really mimics what happens in organizations. One of my Organizational Development colleagues uses a behavioral model to describe the process. In his model, you c annot move to the "Open" style of management, which is what we advocate, from the "Closed" hierarchical style without first passing through another organization paradigm. In his words, "You have to pass thru the interim step to get there." That is what the metastable state is. This organizational model is totally consistent with our "Quantum Leap" model. It is hoped that these concepts will give us a better understanding of what happens when we change an organization. We are excited because the end result makes our clients more profitable. And we think that is what this is all about. Dr. Elbie's Corner is copyrighted by Leonard Bertain, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998. Dr. Elbie's Corner is a monthly article published by the Bertain Consulting Group, in the CEO University Website @ Bertain.com or CEOU.com. This article is reprinted from August 1995.