Whatever happens...

[Artur F. Silva]

Dear colleagues:

I want to thank Michael, Joelle and Larry for their comments on my
previous mail on "Whatever Happens". And also all that have contributed
to the thread on Chaos (and also, in a smaller way, on Leadership).
Because one of my questions is precisely the relation between this two
threads. Maybe I should have changed the subject to "Chaos and *Whatever
happens...* "

Let me first use Larry's post to try to see where we all agree:

At 10:06 11-01-2001 -0500, Larry Peterson wrote:
>I agree with Michael and Joelle.  "Whatever happens" is a key principle to
>inform how we operate in Open Space.


I also agree with that. Specially in the context that I have quoted
and I repeat (Harrison's words):

"There are four principles and one law. They are important
to the Open Space process, BUT NEVER TO BE TAKEN WITH TOTAL
SERIOUSNESS"... "(...) I present the principles IN AN OFFHANDED WAY,
as SOMETHING THAT PEOPLE MIGHT FIND HELPFUL TO KEEP IN
MIND" (page 95).

My first question arises when that principle is taken "with total seriousness".
(and that is not because, as a facilitator I am afraid of loosing
control..). But
I can still accept "Whatever happens" as a principle of OS. But please
note that, when an Organisation is willing and have accepted to use OST,
it has agreed to stop "normal rules of day to day behaviour", and to use
different rules (the circle, the boletim board, the market place, and the
law of to feet - which are for me the "fundamentals" of OS). So this new
rules are super-imposed and they contradict what would "normally
happen" if those rules were not used .

That is in my opinion the "magic" of OS - with those "fundamentals"
the old rules of the organisation don't apply and OS allows for chaos
and self-organisation to happen. So, in this new conditions,
to say that "whatever happens is the only thing that could have"
is a self-fulfilling prophecy. But I accept that "it happens".

Now, my major concern is when I see the same principle applied
to "whatever happens" in the world, as a rule of life or a rule of
"Spirit" (with capital). Because our social world is not "chaotic" - it
has explicit and implicit rules (imposed by people able to impose...).
So the rules of chaos don't apply necessarily.

Apart from that I am not sure if we understand chaos
correctly. First, let me say that to think about Chaos and OS,
and to discuss that, I would suggest that we all read (or re-read)
Riding the Tiger, specially Chapter 2 (Chaos) and 3 (Chaos and
Learning).

But my main point is the following: at the edge of Chaos there
are "strange atractors", normally more than one. If you take a
system to a zone that is far from equilibrium it can take more that
one states. If you repeat the same experiment, with the same
conditions, many times sometimes one atractor will be chosen,
sometimes a different one will be adopted.

As a common example, let me talk about whether. In this moment
it is running in Lisbon. Would you say that this is the only thing
that COULD happen? No; you would say that this what has happened
(or is happening). So, out of chaos the principle doesn't work; in
chaotic situations it doesn't apply either.

So, the only thing that I am sure is: "what has happened is what has
happened". But we all already knew that.

Regards

Artur

*
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