"For want of a nail..."

The meteorologist and mathematician Edward Lorenz once suggested that the flap of a butterfly’s wings might ultimately cause a tornado.  The story is now legend - essentially, on a cold winter's day half a century ago, Lorenz was punching numbers into a computerized weather simulation.  The simulation was based upon several different variables, including temperature and wind speed.  He had run the simulation earlier in the day and was repeating it to validate his initial results.  As many of us do in similar situations, he briefly left the computer program running while he went to go for a cup of coffee.  He was shocked to find, upon his return, that the results had dramatically changed.  He had changed one of the variables, basically rounding off a few decimal places (0.506127 was changed to 0.506) and was amazed to see how such a small change had produced a much larger change in his results.  

Lorenz published his findings in a little known paper entitled, "Deterministic Nonperiodic Flow" in the Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences in 1963.  Few scientists paid attention to this paper at first, and over the next decade the paper was cited just three times by researchers outside the field of meteorology.  However, over time, this little known paper described one of the foundational principles of the new field of chaos theory, with applications in fields as diverse as biology, geology, and physics.  The concept has even made its way into pop culture.  Robert Redford's character in the 1990 movie, Havana claimed, "A butterfly can flutter its wings over a flower in China and cause a hurricane in the Caribbean."  Jeff Goldblum's character in Jurassic Park said, "A butterfly can flap its wings in Peking, and in Central Park, you get rain instead of sunshine."

I'm not sure if I can believe that a butterfly flapping his wings in one part of the world can cause a hurricane on the other side of the world.  What is important to recognize, however, is the concept that, in Lorenz's own words, "nature is highly sensitive to small changes" (for additional comments, please see one of my earlier posts during the COVID-19 pandemic, "...all of this has happened before").  I was certainly reflecting on the "butterfly effect" when I wrote my last post on my own challenges with air travel this past weekend ("The razor's edge").  

There is an old poem that goes back as far as the 13th century that further illustrates how seemingly small, insignificant changes can produce large, and often dramatic, effects.  It's frequently mentioned in pop culture as well, so you may have heard of it:

For want of a nail the shoe was lost.

For want of a shoe the horse was lost.

For want of a horse the rider was lost.

For want of a rider the message was lost.

For want of a message the battle was lost.

For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.

And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

It's a great allegory, but here's an even better one from an actual event in history.  Anthony Eden was British Prime Minister Winston Churchill's Foreign Secretary in 1952 when he began to suffer severe bouts of abdominal pain and jaundice due to gallstones ("biliary colic").  The Queen's own personal physician, Sir Horace Evans recommended surgical removal of Eden's gallbladder, which was performed by a surgeon named John Basil Hume.  Hume was a very senior surgeon, but he was close to retirement and had not operated very much at that time (he had apparently removed Eden's appendix several years earlier, which is why Eden chose him to perform the procedure).  Unfortunately, Hume botched the procedure, which led to a number of complications and frequent bouts of illness for the rest of Eden's life.

Fast forward a few years to 1956, when Anthony Eden is now the British Prime Minister.  Egyptian President Abdel Nasser ordered his military forces to take over control of the Suez Canal (note that all of these events were detailed in a season 2 episode of the Netflix show "The Crown"), which quickly escalated into an international crisis (read more about the Suez Crisis here).  Three weeks later, Israel invades Egypt, and Eden quickly calls for British and French forces to occupy the Suez Canal Zone on the pretext of preventing further escalation between Israel and Egypt.  In reality, he wanted the Suez Canal back under international control in order to maintain delivery of oil to Western Europe.  Rather than restoring calm, Eden's actions throughout the crisis only worsened the situation.  Both the United States and the United Nations became involved, and all of the parties agreed to a ceasefire.  British and French forces withdrew, but Britain lost control of the Suez Canal (and many would say that was the day that the British Empire truly ended).

Historians believe (see here) that Eden, who was normally a very calm and cautious diplomat, had made a rash and ill-considered decision, largely as a result of his illness.  He suffered one of his bouts of abdominal pain and fever during the crisis, which adversely affected his decision-making and thought processes.  As a result, his actions of ordering a military intervention were entirely uncharacteristic.  He resigned in disgrace, and as I mentioned above, the British Empire was never the same again.  "For want of a nail...the kingdom was lost."

So, what are the leadership lessons here?  Most importantly, leaders should recognize that small, seemingly trivial or inconsequential events can have a dramatic impact.  That can be good or bad.  First, leaders have a tremendous opportunity to make a big impact (either positive or negative) with a relatively small change.  As a result, the intangibles or so-called "soft skills" of leadership, like building trusting relationships, establishing rapport and mutual understanding, and building morale are all incredibly important.   Second, the simple fact that small events can become big events makes it difficult to plan ahead for an unexpected or unintended outcome.  Most of work in complex environments, where event B may not always follow event A in any kind of organized, characteristic sequence.  We can mitigate these effects through high reliability principles (e.g., reluctance to simplify, commitment to resilience, deference to expertise, sensitivity to operations, and preoccupation with failure).

For those of us who work in these complex environments, we need to remember that "a butterfly can flutter its wings over a flower in China and cause a hurricane in the Caribbean" or a kingdom can falter "for want of a nail."