Self-Organization

[Jim Metcalf]

Dear Open Space Comrades!

The discussion on self-organization has been most interesting. You have
stimulated my thinking, and I would like to share it with you in the hope
that you will criticize and improve my thoughts.

All organizations are necessarily self-organizing, even those that are
tyrannically organized by a single person exercising control over others.
This is because any organizer becomes part of the organization by the act of
organizing. It appears that "self-organization" as we use the term in our
Open Space discussions, refers to democratically self-organized systems that
do not have a layer of tyrannical organization imposed along side of the
democratic self-organization. On the other end of the continuum from
democratically self-organized systems are tyrannically organized systems. In
these, one, or a few, individuals create and maintain the organization for
their own ends. (I do not imply that this is morally evil, though it may
be.) The problem for tyrannically organized systems (or the saving grace for
them, depending on your point of view) is that their people tend towards
democratically self-organized systems, and away from the tyrannical system.

Example 1: The army supply sergeant who swaps parts outside of official
requisition channels because that is the most efficient way to provide for
his company of soldiers. Example 2: Those of us who take orders or advice,
and then solve the problem our own way anyhow. Example 3: The mid-level
employee in a large government bureaucracy who happily works outside of
channels to do great good deeds, knowing that he may be protected by the
sheer size of the organization, and his own audacious success.

So, I'm proposing that we have a continuum. On one end is the nearly pure
democratically self-organized system.
On the other end of the continuum is the tyrannically organized system,
which must always contend with the natural inclination of people to
self-organize in order to meet their own needs.

One thing that seems to make Open Space work is that it goes with the flow.
It takes advantage of people's natural inclination to self-organize, to have
input into their own destiny, to be free.

I believe the other thing that makes Open Space work is its reliance on
"Word" to create the self-organizing system. The words that are shared in
Open Space create order out of the initial chaos. The words that are shared
in Open Space also prevent the continuing chaos of people acting
individually without words, without communication, without coordination,
without care for another's ideas.

Thinking is a social process. There are many ways to think (theologically as
a Hindu, a Christian, a Muslim, for example), or statistically, or
economically, or . Even though this is so, there is a common process
underlying all of these modes that makes communication and cooperation
possible. Although our words may not perfectly communicate, they do well
enough for us to touch each other's souls. This is the power of Open Space.

Jim Metcalf

-----Original Message-----
From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU]On Behalf Of Harrison
Owen
Sent: Friday, November 16, 2001 11:04 AM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: Self-Organization...More...

What started as a small "chat" now seems to be developing into a full blown
conversation. Wonderful! And as it proceeds, I think it is most important to
recognize that all of us (and certainly myself) are venturing into uncharted
territory. We are not alone on this expedition, and there are some useful
road maps created by the likes of Kauffman, Wilber, Prigogene, Dawkins,
Kelly, Coveney, Wheatley and many more. But it remains true that the map is
not the territory, the menu is not the meal, and for sure the book is not
the experience. Having said all that it is clear to me that the global
conversation on the subject of self-organization has progressed well beyond
the level of purely hypothetical statements. There is some genuine
experience here, and the beginnings of what be called a practice (something
to be done).

Under the heading of experience and practice, I believe that we, in what
might be called the Open Space community, have a special, and possibly
privileged position -- our 15 year encounter with what I like to think of as
the Open Space experiment. Nobody, and certainly not myself "designed" this
experiment. And for sure the "creation" of Open Space Technology out of my
martini enhanced brain had nothing to do with the conscious design of an
advanced human technology based upon the emerging scientific understanding
of self-organization. It just happened. To be truthful, I had been
fascinated with the work of Ilya Prigogene in the 70's -- but I never put 2
+2 together, until much later. But Open Space did happen, and it does
happen. And we have the  opportunity, and I think responsibility, to ask
Why? How? and Where do we go next? And so to the conversation...

Tim Wrote:

  Again until we consider the radical differences between
organisms and their eco-environments and social organizations and the
meta-systems that constitute their environment, we will not have truly
powerful understanding for organizational change and transformation. I
suggest that because humans have the capacity for self-reflexive
communication, and because social organizations exhibit that same capacity,
reflexivity is an emergent property of social organizations, which manifests
as the tendency for radical transformation.

Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. Rocks and human beings are different, but
both share a common substrata of existence. Thus if I drop a rock and a
human, both will fall (thanks to gravity), but the human will typically know
that he or she is falling, and have certain feelings about the situation.
The addition of knowledge and feelings which collectively we might call
awareness, certainly makes a richer stew. And then when folks talk about it
all (self-reflexive communication) -- things do get complicated. Thus when
we consider the process of self-organization, or its more radical and
painful form -- Transformation -- in human beings (groups or individuals),
we would expect certain additional processes to handle the added complexity.
I think this is where Griefwork comes in. When Chaos strikes a rock it keeps
on being a rock or some transformed version of it. When Chaos strikes us we
commence to grieve the loss of what was  -- leading (hopefully) to the
emergence of what might be. Shock, Anger, Denial... Just think of 911.

I think we see all this going on in our "natural experiment" every time we
open space. Things begin in Chaos -- there's confusion, lack of answers,
anxiety -- and if that weren't true -- why bother to do Open Space? And if
we keep our eyes open, we can observe the Griefwork process commencing.
Stories are told of how it used to be. Pain is shared. Bitches expressed --
and over time as the group self-organizes in a new form -- all of that leads
to some form of vision, resolution, moving on. At least it certainly can.
And should you ask -- is that the whole story? Probably not -- but at least
it gives us a starting point towards understanding the process of
self-organization in the human dimension. But it is just a starting point.
Larry Peterson has a useful caveat...

The scientific phrase,  self-organizing  is still  flat land , it does not
acknowledge the other quadrants. From a spiritual perspective, at other
levels of awareness the self that self-organizes and the Self (and my self)
are one.

And From Nino Novak

So - when I try hard to achieve a certain result, am I then hindering
self-organisation? (I don't think so, I rather think that my "directed"
activities are part of
the process of self-organisation of the system I live in).

What I am suggesting is that the principles (Law?) of self-organization are
analogous to the Law of Gravity. All critters, including us, are subject to
the same laws, but that is not the end of the story. We can build and fly
airplanes, and presumably rocks can't. However we would be very ill-advised
to dis-regard the law of gravity. It could be painful. By analogy, I suspect
that all organizations are essentially self-organizing systems, and that
they (we, us, me) along with all the rest of the cosmos do not escape. But
just as we can learn to use the laws of gravity for our benefit (planes for
example) so also we can learn to use the Laws of Self-Organization. But we
must start with a recognition of the laws -- which for me are the primal
"givens," and everything else is pretty much negotiable.

This insight or recognition cuts right to the core of much of the current
understanding of how organizations work, and how we work with organizations.
Many managers and executives at least say that their job is to create and
organize the system. I think it would be more accurate (efficient and
profitable) if they were to understand that their job was to create and
sustain the conditions under which self-organization may occur and continue.
There is a needed change of metaphors here -- from auto mechanics who build
machines to gardeners who understand that at the end of the day, the flowers
will grow all by themselves, or not. Water and fertilizer help -- but the
flowers do their own thing.

We have learned from Open Space that the one way to mess it up is to try and
control it. And a close second is to have a fixed attachment to specific
outcomes. Either or both of these things can bring the whole process to a
shuddering halt. This is not to say that we can't have "intentions" -- or
that we should not have hopes for a positive outcome -- but when it comes to
the details of the outcomes or how we get there -- I believe the experience
has been -- You have to Let Go.

Having said all of that, I definitely take your point -- "I rather think
that my "directed" activities are part of
the process of self-organisation of the system I live in."  True, true,
true -- and I might suggest that the impact of your "directed activities"
will be vastly enhanced to the extent that you understand (as you obviously
do) the context in which those activities all take place -- in the midst of
a self-organizing system. The bottom line is, you are not in control. None
of us are -- although maybe all of us are.

Harrison







Harrison Owen
7808 River Falls Drive
Potomac, MD 20854 USA
phone 301-469-9269
Open Space Training www.openspaceworld.com <http://www.openspaceworld.com/>
Open Space Institute www.openspaceworld.org <http://www.openspaceworld.org/>
Personal website www.mindspring.com/~owenhh
<http://www.mindspring.com/~owenhh>

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