The position taken in this paper explains how in the age of “chaos” and “complexity” one distinctive feature of social systems is their potential capability to influence social change (Giddens, 1990b). Hence social structures are seen to be continuously adapting to the global conditions by the knowledgeable and future oriented actions and activities of the individuals and communities.

According to the tradition of the cultural-historical activity theoretical studies the actions of the individual agents could only be interpreted against the historically developed cultural contexts of the agents. Also for practical societal purposes the context has been conceptualized in the form of an activity system and consequently as a network of several kinds of activity systems being often globally distributed. The scheme of networked activity systems allows us to focus on how the deliberate transformational development is a real potentiality despite of the surface “impossibilities”.

In order to severely challenge these kinds of “impossibility assumptions” a case analysis is offered. It seems to be generally believed and assumed that the military organizations could be located at the “static” and “bureaucratic” end of our organizations; the main premises of the military organizations seem to be fixed (e.g. just obey orders) the military personnel being in a way “prisoners” of their static military culture.

The case analysis focuses on the Finnish National Defence College (FNDC). It is hypothesized that the experiences of the FNDC are insightful and awakening also to other kinds of organizations struggling with the “impossibility” of real transformations and intended social change. The gained experiences will challenge our unawareness of the systemic nature of our reality and how our social reality is continuously restructured by our individual and collective choices. One of the main premises of the present paper is that the complex social systems and organizations could be guided by a set of simple principles unconsciously or consciously chosen. Therefore a pivotal question comes to the fore: what are those simple but strategic principles to be recommended?