Self-Organization????

[Artur F. Silva]

Hello Harrison and all

This thread is very interesting with many thought provoking posts. Thanks
to all of you.

I will came back to Harrison's first message (I have changed the numbers
of the paragraphs - where K means Kauffman and H means Harrison):

At 14:15 15-11-2001, Harrison Owen wrote:

>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: K1) A
>relatively safe and protected, nutrient environment, K2) High levels of
>diversity in terms of the elements present in that environment.K3) High
>levels of complexity in terms of potential inter-connections. K4) A drive
>for improvement, or in more standard evolutionary terminology, a search
>for fitness. K5) Sparse prior connections in terms of the available
>elements (everything is not previous "hardwired." K6) The whole thing is
>on the edge of chaos.
>      (...)
>
>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: H1) A real business issue of great
>concern. H2) High levels of complexity in terms of the elements of the
>issue. H3) High Levels of diversity in terms of those involved. H4) The
>presence of actual or potential conflict. H5) A decision time of yesterday
>-- ie an urgent need for improvement. Even without going through a
>detailed comparison
I think a more detailed comparison could be interesting...

First let me remember that we are comparing:
(K) The preconditions for order to happen (to emerge) out of chaos and
(H) The (good) preconditions for the use of OST.

So (H) does not describe the conditions that we generally have within normal
(conventional) organizations but special conditions that Harrison stated as
preconditions for a good use of OST.

Our problem is how does the set {K1,...,K6} relates with {H1,...,H5} ?

Clearly K2=H3 and K3=H2.

I also suspect that H1+H4+H5 (+H2+H3?) are the conditions needed for an
organization to be at the edge of chaos - so they are equivalent to (K6).

So, it seems that in (H) we have no equivalent to:

K1) A relatively safe and protected, nutrient environment,
K4) A drive for improvement, or in more standard evolutionary terminology,
a search for fitness.
K5) Sparse prior connections in terms of the available elements (everything
is not previous "hardwired."

But I think that we all know that they also happen in OST. The point is
that when
Harrison stated (H)={H1,...,H5} he has not made explicit other things that are
implicit in OST, namely:

(H6) - The Sponsor has accepted to adopt OST, has sent an invitation letter and
some people have accepted (and others eventually not) the invitation. This
(plus
the rules of OST) creates the "safe and nutrient environment" (K1)

- One could think that K4 is implied in {H1,...,H5} but I don't think so.
Faced with
conditions {H1,...,H5} an organization may decide to use "business as usual"
or may decide to use OST. So H6 is also needed to create "a drive for
improvement"(K4).

(H7) (or is it also H6?) - The sponsor and the people that accepted the
invitation
have accepted to SUSPEND the normal rules of conducting meetings and relating
to each other replacing them by "OST rules" that "unwire" or at least diminish
previous connections (K6).

I think you may be asking yourselves why I am stating all this. It is only
a preface
for what follows...


>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.

I completely agree with what is written. But I know that my understanding
of what
is written is different from the understanding of the Author... I am sorry
to came
back to this disagreement about what is NOT written above... For that I
will rephrase
part of it...

"What we experience in Open Space simply cannot happen AND DOESN'T
NORMALLY HAPPEN IN ESTABLISHED ORGANIZATIONS. But of course it
does. It appears that quite inadvertently I (Harrison) stumbled upon the
essential
pre-conditions of self-organization - CONDITIONS THAT ARE NOT NORMALLY
PRESENT IN CURRENT ORGANIZATIONS AND THAT OST HELPS TO CREATE
(OR FACITATE?) IN THEM".

So my point is not that I don't believe that Harrison "stumbled upon"
something
important. My point is that it is much more important than he believes... Let's
continue...

>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."

No, the groups ARE NOT already there. The only thing that one can conclude from
that is that any group has the potential to be there. But they don't
normally behave
in "Open Space mode" because they are constrained by other "social rules"
that, even if they seem "invisible", are "out there" and act as "laws" of
organizational
life - those laws are responsible for the fact that the majority of our
organizations
are unsafe and non-nutrient. OST suspends those laws and, for the period of its
duration, creates new "laws" and "a relatively safe and protected, nutrient
environment" (K1) - the first precondition for self organization according to
Kauffman, quoted by you...

>There is nothing new to learn or do, although there may be much to unlearn
>and stop doing.

Indeed, I think that to unlearn is un essential precondition for learning,
and for
me "to learn" and "to unlearn" are sinonimous...

>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.

Again, I don't think so. Like all meetings are not OST meetings, all
organizations
are not Open Space organizations. Like in OST someone must open and hold the
space so must an OSO be nurtured.

I will not continue to stress my point. But I would like to ask you a
question that
seems to me a contradiction in your argument, but I am probably wrong...
Later in your post you wrote:

>I suspect the same thing is true with the laws of self-organization  and
>their local manifestation every time we open space.

So, you wrote - as many of us did in other occasions - "every time we open
space".
But why is it that we need to "open the space". Shouldn't we say, according
to your argument, that it is already open, and hence there is no need to
open it?

Regards to all


Artur


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