Chaos Theory!

This week in our Crisis Communications class we are learning about the Chaos Theory. The chaos theory is a mathematical and physics theory but our book teaches it to those people that are not familiar with those disciplines. The chaos theory is often used to analyze crisis. With our book being focused on how all the different stages of a crisis, it is necessary to familiarize us with analyzing the crisis using the chaos theory.
This theory helps you to find the clear cause of a crisis. Our book states that a chaos is a time whereby when something happens such as a crisis it actually follows an unknown or hidden pattern. Although Tiffany & Co. is not known for dealing with many crises at all, if they were to encounter a crisis they could use the steps that go along with the Chaos theory. Chaotic systems have two main characteristics, Sensitive Dependence on Initial Conditions and Unpredictability in the Long Run. Stated simply the sensitive dependence on initial conditions occurs when a slight change in any initial condition can lead to a completely different outcome in the system, which eventually led to the crisis. Unpredictability in the long run is when chaos in the long term cannot be predicted although it is possible in the short term.
When a crisis hits many would claim it to be complete chaos when in fact this is usually not the case. Chaos is a system of events rather than one single event. Crises are usually just one single event they will lead to certain after effects but this would not be chaos if it is a single event. There are five components of the Chaos theory which includes Bifurcations, Attractors, Nonlinearity, Feedback, and Self-Organization. When dealing with a crisis Bifurcations can be seen as the defining moments in the span of a crisis. An attractor can be related to the cause of the crisis. It is very rare that one event causes a crisis many different events or attractors can be linked as the cause. Nonlinear can be explained in a crisis sense that not all things happen in a cause and effect instance. One would never know but a small event may have a major impact on the crisis and vice-versa. Feedback can result in both negative and positive effects. Self- organization relates to the way a company handles a situation after the end of the crisis. It has to do with what needs to be changed within the company and what has been or needs to be changed externally.