From HIERARCHIES to NETWORKS

In management, psychology, science and technology, we are becoming more conscious of networks and less blinkered by hierarchies. Charles Handy's four cultures based upon the ‘web’ and the ‘net’, as well as the ‘role’ and the ‘person’ — have extended managerial awareness. Ornstein, in his Psychology of Consciousness has popularised the notion of the two sides of the brain — one logical and analytical, and the other intuitive and aesthetic. Nature's network has become well known to us, through the emerging science of ecology and via David Attenborough and David Bellamy amongst others. The new physics epitomised by Gary Zukov's Dance of the Wuli Masters, has brought a causality into a world which has been dominated by Newtonian cause‐effect. Finally, and most visibly, electronic networks are bursting out all over, to envelop our mechanically man‐made world.