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Intentional change from a complexity perspective
Professor Richard Boyatzis
Introduction
Emotions play a central role in intentional change. They excite our interest, focus our attention, alert us to the need for change and move us to act. Emotions also influence how we cope with challenge and threat, set new goals, learn new behavior and draw on others for help or support. In this article I address the impact of emotion on the process of intentional change. Consistent with intentional change theory (ICT) ([10] Boyatzis, 2004a, [11] 2001b), I propose that positive and negative emotion shape the change process through the pull of two emotional attractors, the positive emotional attractor and the negative emotional attractor ([10] Boyatzis, 2004). ICT defines the positive emotional attractor (PEA) as the personal hopes, dreams, possibilities, strengths, optimism and self-directed learning goals that make up our Ideal Self ([10] Boyatzis, 2004), i.e. our conception of what we most aspire to be and become ([13] Brockner and Higgins, 2001; [76] Waugh, 2001; [44] Higgins et al. , 1994). The negative emotional attractor (NEA) is defined as the present reality, fears, problems, shortfalls, pessimism and improvement goals that constitute our real self ([10] Boyatzis, 2004), i.e. our conception of what we actually are in everyday life ([13] Brockner and Higgins, 2001; [76] Waugh, 2001; [44] Higgins et al. , 1994; [58] Ogilvie, 1987).
Drawing on complexity theory ([1] Andriani and McKelvey, 2005; [10] Boyatzis, 2004) and coactiavtion models on emotion ([14] Cacioppo and Berntson, 1994; Boyatzis, 2004; [22] Diamond and Aspinwall, 2003), I suggest that recurrent activation of the PEA (ideal self) and NEA (real self) leads to positive and sustainable intentional change when the change process is primarily leveraged by the individual's positive emotional attractor and when the negative emotional attractor is considered secondarily. Recent application of complexity theory to the study of organizations and organizational dynamics ([62] Rosenhead, 2005; [19] Casti, 1994, [25] Ford and Ford, 1994) has inspired use of complexity laws on attractors, scalability (fractal geometry), self-organization, and spacio-structural properties of systems ([1] Andriani and McKelvey, 2005) in understanding how positive and negative emotion work together in intentional change ([10] Boyatzis, 2004). On a related front, cognitive perspectives on affect system bipolarity and emotional appraisal suggest that positive and...