Leadership and Vision (was: Productive Chaos)

Thu Jan 11 00:06:16 PST 2001

<Chris wrote:>

>Certainly positions in hierarchical structure each carry predefined
>responsibilities.  And I do not consider hierarchical structure to be
>antithetical to an Open Space (or InterActive) Organization; I believe that
>hierarchy and InterActivity (emergent leadership) can exist simultaneously.

Completely agreed. This is exactly what I want to enable and empower
peolple to.

>But however visionary the designated leader, if that person is considered by
>him/herself and by others to be the vision-keeper, then the vision is
>neither big enough nor strong enough.  I am a constructivist.  Each person
>in an organization holds the organizational vision in his/her mind and
>heart, interacts with it, and recreates it over time.  The vision is alive.
>And the time will come (a bifurcation point, to quote Prigogene) when the
>living vision of a person far from the top of the hierarchy is the vision
>that will hold the key for the next stage of organizational evolution.
>
>If this is so, then "vision-keeper for the organization" does not belong on
>the list of the designated leader's responsibilities.  Perhaps "space-holder
>for the living vision" does.

Yes and no. Yes, in an ideal organisation with ideal people. No, in the
real world cases I have seen.
You still need a person (or several) who 'stands' for the vision. And that
person is normally not the doorman. I agree that in principle the doorman
may be the one who triggers a change which may have developed unnoticed,
but: Have you seen one example for this to happen?

At a bifurcation point or more general in an 'unstable' state, where the
system is susceptible to the butterfly's wing or the doorman's idea, the
system may collapse as well. Who takes care of conditions that enable
improvement instead of collapse? What is the driving force behind? Don't
say it's inherent. Populations of animals do collapse, as do companies
sometimes.
What I want to say is: In a company with a business mission "someone" must
represent that mission and take care of conditions. That someone may be
elected democratically. But once he (women, please forgive me using just
the male form for simplicity) has the task, he gets a higher degree of
responsibility: He becomes responsible for the *process*. Anyway, this is
how I understand leadership. Am I mislead?

Christoph

p.s.: Bifurcation is a mathematical concept belongig to chaos theroy. For
Prigogine a tool only, not his work.

*
*
==========================================================
OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options,
view the archives of oslist at listserv.boisestate.edu
Visit: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html

===========================================================
OSLIST at EGROUPS.COM
To subscribe,
1.  Visit: http://www.egroups.com/group/oslist
2.  Sign up -- provide an email address,
    and choose a login ID and password
3.  Click on "Subscribe" and follow the instructions

To unsubscribe, change your options,
view the archives of oslist at egroups.com:
1.  Visit: http://www.egroups.com/group/oslist
2.  Sign in and Proceed

>From  Thu Jan 11 10:06:59 2001
Message-Id: <THU.11.JAN.2001.100659.0500.>
Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 10:06:59 -0500
Reply-To: lpasoc at inforamp.net
To: OSLIST <OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU>
From: Larry Peterson <lpasoc at inforamp.net>
Subject: Re: Whatever happens... (was: Dear OSLIST)
In-Reply-To: <4.3.1.1.20010110140622.00c13df0 at mail.eunet.pt>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

I agree with Michael and Joelle.  "Whatever happens" is a key principle to
inform how we operate in Open Space.  At first I struggled a bit with that
one.  I later recognized that it was my desire to shape or control the
outcomes that was driving that struggle for me.  As a social justice
activist, I was convinced that I had to control and that certainly something
else "could have" happened if "right people" had been there, or if people
only had a better consciousness of the real situation.  I came to realize
that once the space was opened, it was best for me and the participants to
assume that whatever happened was the only thing that could have and then
learn from that.  The  principle opens the group up to tremendous learning
about where the group is at now -- not some ideal sense of where you think
it ought to or should be.  In my work with corporations or with activist
organizations, if there is a need to provide perspectives or information to
the whole group that will affect how people see what is possible, then that
is done before opening space.  However, accepting what manifests in Open
Space as a reflection of the situation now is critical learning for deciding
what to do next.  We cannot change history only our perceptions of it.
"Could" it have been different -- we like to think so.  However, it wasn't
and the complex of variables that led to what it was were the reality at the
time, including our own behaviour.

Larry

Larry Peterson
Associates in Transformation
41 Appleton Ave.,
Toronto, ON, Canada, M6E 3A4
416.653.4829
Fax 416.653.0609

lpasoc at inforamp.net
www.inforamp.net/~lpasoc
www.openspaceworld.com

*
*
==========================================================
OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options,
view the archives of oslist at listserv.boisestate.edu
Visit: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html

===========================================================
OSLIST at EGROUPS.COM
To subscribe,
1.  Visit: http://www.egroups.com/group/oslist
2.  Sign up -- provide an email address,
    and choose a login ID and password
3.  Click on "Subscribe" and follow the instructions

To unsubscribe, change your options,
view the archives of oslist at egroups.com:
1.  Visit: http://www.egroups.com/group/oslist
2.  Sign in and Proceed