Dee Hock, former CEO of VISA, coined the term chaordic to describe a new form of organization that combines chaos and order. I have been working with improvisation master Mike Bonifer to describe the kinds of work practices that have the potential to transform organizations from mechanistic bureaucracies into living, adaptive systems. This diagram is a stage in the evolution of a framework for thinking about work as dynamic interaction between the organization and its environment. At the bottom of the diagram you can see the work practices inside of the circle. These are the 21st-century work skills of an improvisational organization: action, creativity, understanding, deciding, learning, engaging. On the outside of the circle you can see the outcomes that derive from these practices: market ability, innovation, empathy, values, knowledge and community. Each practice tends to drive the organization towards one of the six outcomes. For example, your choices, in the long run, define who you are, and the same is true both for individuals and organizations. So as you consider the connection between decisions and values and work to develop the practice of aligning them, you build the culture of your organization. At the top of the diagram you can see how the practices work together to form harmonics, or what we might call "chaordics" to develop certain outcomes. For example, practices or methods that emphasize engaging, understanding and learning will tend to increase the org's level of community engagement, while methods that emphasize creating, action and learning will tend to affect its innovation in the marketplace. This is a simple, fun and powerful model to play with. Just draw a circle with six points around the periphery, label them and start thinking about how you might connect the practices. Think about the work you do and see if you can identify how your methods map to the circle, and what kinds of outcomes you get from those methods.