“God doesn't play dice with the Universe.” Thus tweeted the Great Albert Einstein in 1926. And ever since folks have been retweeting his profound revelation about God, straight from the Gospel According to Albert.

Problem is, Einstein didn't exactly say that. Here's what the man actually wrote, in a letter to pioneering quantum physicist Max Born:

“Quantum mechanics is certainly imposing. But an inner voice tells me that it is not yet the real thing. The theory says a lot, but does not really bring us any closer to the secret of the 'old one'. I, at any rate, am convinced that He does not throw dice.”

Albert's Intellectual Limitations

Turns out Einstein, who by 1926 had earned copious major honors for revealing the architecture of the Cosmic Universe at Large, wasn't really referring to God in his letter at all. The Great Genius was, in fact, confessing his own difficulty in grasping the basic architecture of the  Quantum Universe of the Very Small. Biased, perhaps, by his subjective familiarity with a personal Almighty, Albert's “inner voice” had  misinformed his perception of the nature of reality's littlest things.

Back in 1926, Einstein strongly believed that randomness in scientific observations resulted from human imperfection in observing and understanding. Make perfect the instruments and sharpen the theory, he figured, and, poof! like a god, you know everything, and can therefore predict the cosmically enormous set of all possible future events, even the very tiniest ones, with 100% certainty.

This Determinist Einstein just couldn't accept what his contemporary particle physicists were demonstrating over and over again in their labs. Where certain behaviors of really little things like electrons and photons are concerned, no matter how smart the physicist or perfect her instruments, making certain kinds of predictions about the outcomes of certain quantum phenomena are, well, just plain uncertain.

So, in his oft-paraphrased and widely misunderstood 1926 letter, the Great Albert Einstein was, duh! just plain wrong – at least about quantum physics, and perhaps even about God, Who may indeed have some sort of Supreme Gambling Problem.

The Psychological Limitations of “Process”

Wait! Don't stop reading. If you're a modern business leader, this story has everything to do with you.

Today's business leaders, of projects and of people, emerge from a fundamentally deterministic management culture wherein every action is believed to have a 100% predictable outcome. This certain world, of course, has its unexpected bugs and breakdowns, but the reliable solution is always process: time-proven repertoires of clearly documented procedures that mitigate the risks of a fault by rigorously squeezing out its pesky uncertainty. “After all,” our inner voice reasons, “aren't people really just like machines?”

The conclusion sounds right, but it's dead-wrong. Unlike machines, people, cursed as they are with Free Will, behave like quantum particles in fundamentally unpredictable ways. Psychologists have long recognized  a “Human Uncertainty Principle” of sorts: the more confined people feel by the processes their leaders impose on them, the less predictable their organizational behavior becomes. Business leaders see process as governance, but those so governed often perceive it as tyranny. Especially in the most talented and creative, tyranny triggers rebellion rather than compliance.

Frustrated by process, followers find creative ways to avoid following their leaders. In turn, their leaders, dismissing these little mutinies as failures of their Human machines, sharpen their procedures to tighten the harness and regain control, which only provokes further mutiny. As leaders lend greater and greater weight to following process in order to reduce the degrees of freedom for failure in the groups they manage,  they unwittingly generate a psychological “black hole” that ensnares all chances of success as well. Individual efforts stall, projects slip, and neglected infrastructure eventually sputters and fails.

A Way Out of the Psychological Singularity

Of course, process certainly plays a role in effective management, but it can't guarantee effective leadership. Go here and begin learning about the non-deterministic, Zen-like principles of Servant-Leadership: that the true path to leading people starts with serving them; that the most effective way to shepherd their efforts is to set them free.

When you come back from reading, try this new kind of “Non-Process” on for size in 2014:

Step 1. Accept intellectually that people behave in non-deterministic ways which necessarily limit your ability to govern their actions.

Step 2. Once you've accepted the basic uncertainty of human behavior, you will naturally begin to question your feelings about your colleagues and subordinates. This fresh uncertainty, while uncomfortable at first, is very healthy. Let it teach you:

• The people you “like” best aren't necessarily your best people
• The people you “like” least may, in fact, have the most to offer
• While, by behaving unpredictably, your tools and machines can only bitterly disappoint you, your people, with your permission and support, can very pleasantly surprise you.

Step 3. Beyond articulating the details of tasks, your transcendent role as a leader is to reveal the human value of the larger goals you choose to serve.

Step 4. Once the human value of your organization's goals have been revealed to them, people will drop the heavy baggage of their personal egos and begin to gravitate toward helping you to achieve them. Remember that they aren't following you as a leader; they're following your lead toward something more important than each and all of you. Congratulations! By tapping the source of authentic leadership, you've entered the larger world of the Servant-Leader.

Step 5. Never, ever play favorites. Everyone has value, whether you like them personally or not. Treat everyone with respect and, as you support them, they'll all work hard with you, each in their own wonderfully different way, to help you achieve your organization's goals. (Remember that, on the other hand, you cheapen the work you're trying to inspire when you treat it like a win-lose game. You may think you're being clever, but you undermine your own leadership in the long run when you “play” people for short-term gain.)

Step 6. Full- or part-time employee, contractor, consultant, whatever --everybody's somebody. Be prepared to recognize everyone for the value of their contributions, regardless of what's printed on their business cards.

Step 7. Every organization needs its “operators,” the go-to-guys, the t-crossing and i-dotting detail-oriented folks who devise and follow effective processes. But beware the hidden trap of settling for the merely routine and declaring it “excellence.” Excellence is something more.

Which prompts the most important of questions for any organization or society: what is Excellence?

Einstein Finally Redeemed

Is dancing purely a matter of process? Does clear and precise choreography determine the quality of a dance performance? Does putting your feet exactly where and when you're told make you a dancer? Will carefully following a really precise floor chart make you an excellent dancer?

Dancing, especially good dancing, transcends choreography. Excellent dancers exceed the specifications of choreography. They amaze an audience, and pleasantly surprise their choreographer, as they freely capture and ride the spirit of a performance.

Likewise, in all the work we humans do, how can excellence possibly emerge from simply following a process? Can a really good paint-by-numbers Mona Lisa elevate anyone to the level of a DaVinci?

Following process and meeting expectations is adequacy, and adequacy is virtuous. Adequacy has its place.

But excellence is more. Excellence is the miracle of exceeding expectations. Perhaps because we fear failing to repeat it, we sometimes tend to mistrust excellence. So, we shy away from it, perhaps most often by withholding, from ourselves and others, the freedom on which excellence feeds, which it needs to survive.

Here's where old Albert, after nearly a lifetime of saying his share of dumb things, got one absolutely right (Out Of My Later Years, 1950):

“Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom.”