Self-Organization????

[Harrison Owen]

My friend Birgitt Williams appears to have some difficulty with the notion
that organization, forming in Open Space, is in fact self-organization at
work. Or in her words, "For me, the conscious Open Space Organization, as I
understand it is not a self organizing system." And in answer to the
question -- If not self-organization, then what -- she says, "Rather, a
matrix or nutrient field is provided that is clearly bounded and ready to
nurture whatever is created. The matrix then gets filled in by choices that
are life nurturing or life depleting. The conscious Open Space
Organizations is life nurturing rather than life depleting." All of which
seems to me to be a rather nice description of self-organization at work.
Be that as it may, it occurs to me that it might be useful to chat a bit
about why I find the theory of self-organization so attractive,
particularly in reference to the Open Space experience, either as event, or
a continuing phenomenon.

First off, please note that it is the theory of self-organization. And
theory is never to be confused with The Truth or The Facts. It's only
theory.  But mere theory is a not nothing -- rather it is a way of looking
at things (that's what the word in Greek means --"To See"). Or more
broadly, a theory is a way of looking at things, enabling comprehension and
prediction. In short, with a good theory we find it possible to understand
what is going on, and also to make some reasonable predictions about future
occurrences.

The formulation of Self-organization theory which I find to be most
attractive is that proposed by Stuart Kauffman of the Santa Fe Institute,
which he describes in his book, At Home in the Universe  (Oxford). Simply
stated, Kauffman argues that given certain quite simple pre-conditions
"order happens." These pre-conditions include the following: 1) A
relatively safe and protected, nutrient environment, 2) High levels of
diversity in terms of the elements present in that environment. 3) High
levels of complexity in terms of potential inter-connections. 4) A drive
for improvement, or in more standard evolutionary terminology, a search for
fitness. 5) Sparse prior connections in terms of the available elements
(everything is not previous "hardwired." 5) The whole thing is on the edge
of chaos.

Kauffman might be described as a theoretical biologist, although I am not
quite sure what he calls himself. His intent is to account for the origin
of order, particularly in living creatures, at the molecular level. In a
word, he addresses the interesting question as to how we got from primal
ooze to us. I am sure the jury of his peers is still out, but quite clearly
his colleagues take him seriously, if not with the details, then certainly
with the major thrust of his argument.

Needless to say, I am not competent to judge his science, but upon reading
his work, I was immediately struck with the similarity between his
pre-conditions and what for years I have described as the presenting
circumstances for the use of Open Space. Which are: 1) A real business
issue of great concern. 2) High levels of complexity in terms of the
elements of the issue. 3) High Levels of diversity in terms of those
involved. 4) The presence of actual or potential conflict. 5) A decision
time of yesterday -- ie an urgent need for improvement. Even without going
through a detailed comparison, I would hope that you can see the
relationship. And if you do want the details, you might check my book, The
Power of Spirit: How Organizations Transform (Berrett-Koehler, 2000).

So what good is all this in practical terms? First off, it provides an
interesting way of looking at, and possibly answering, the nagging question
(for me) of why Open Space works anyhow. I was trained to know that
organization at the human level only occurred  as the product of prodigious
effort and great skill. It required brilliant design, execution and endless
maintenance. What we experience in Open Space simply cannot happen. But of
course it does. It appears that quite inadvertently I stumbled upon the
essential pre-conditions of self-organization.

A related question for me has been why does Open Space work just about
anywhere it has been tried, regardless of the education, ethnicity,
economics, national origin, etc of the group? The answer would appear to be
that the groups are "already there." There is nothing new to learn or do,
although there may be much to unlearn and stop doing. It would appear,
perhaps, that from the moment of the Big Bang, we and all the rest of the
cosmos have been operating under what might be called The Laws of
Self-Organization, even as we operate under the Laws of Thermodynamics,
Gravity, and the like. Seen from this perspective, the "workability" of
Open Space is precisely what one would expect, given the essential "Laws"
of our environment. One consequence of all this is that the notion of
creating an Open Space Organization is a little absurd. It already is -- no
creation necessary.

Life for us humanoids, however, seems to be  a tad more complex and
multi-faceted than life at the level of atoms and molecules. Sorry, there
seems to be some hierarchical order. Thus while it is true that we and all
rocks are bound by the Law of Gravity, it is obvious that we can to some
extent circumvent that Law -- or better -- learn to use it to our
advantage. Which is precisely what we do when we fly in an airplane. But it
is noteworthy-- the airplane would not work if you eliminated gravity. It
is only because we are pulled "down" that we can go "up" -- surfing on a
wave of air.

I suspect the same thing is true with the laws of self-organization  and
their local manifestation every time we open space.  We can't repeal those
laws, but we can learn to work with them to our advantage. And that for me
is the great adventure of the moment. So if you don't like the notion of
Self-Organization relative to Open Space, not to worry, it is just a
theory. However, to the extent that the theory is explanatory of some
previously non-understood phenomenon (Open Space works!???) and is
predictive of future conditions, it could be useful. At least I think so.

Harrison




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

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



-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openspacetech.org/pipermail/oslist-openspacetech.org/attachments/20011115/5fd3fc68/attachment-0016.htm>