Self-Organization...More...

[Harrison Owen]

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
Open Space Institute www.openspaceworld.org
Personal website www.mindspring.com/~owenhh

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