Fighting Open Space Organizations

[Chris Corrigan]

I am dumbfounded by this article:

http://www.stratfor.com/home/0109272330.htm

It describes Al-Qaeda as, essentially, an Open Space Organization,
running on passion, responsibility and so on.  There may be some things
that aren't OS about it at all, but the channeling of passion and
responsibility and the diffusion of purpose, leadership and action is
striking.

Since I have read this I have been struck by watching large governments
and armies (by their nature NOT OS orgs) struggle with how to undo this
"network."  I have been looking especially for references in the media
to the darker arts of espionage and black operations against Al-Qaeda
and others, the ones that Rumsfeld said we may never know the success
of.  I suspect that the US and the UK are meeting innovation with
innovation, but we may never know how.

So I pose the questions, separate and apart from the ethical
considerations of the work of Al-Qaeda, which I find repulsive:

   * What can we learn from the way this organization has been
     structured and the way it operates?
   * Would an organization with global reach organized around a purpose
     of a "higher good" stand a chance of being as successful as
     Al-Qaeda has been in achieving it's objectives?
   * What kind of invitation for good could create the kind of passion
     in people that causes them to choose to so fully devote themselves
     to a cause that they would be willing to die for it?
   * For the countries that are at war against Al-Qaeda, what kind of
     thinking and organizing is going to be successful in defeating this
     network?  Is it possible for governments to fight an group
     organized this way?

I'd be interested in what folks think on this.

Chris

--
CHRIS CORRIGAN
Consultation - Facilitation
Open Space Technology

http://www.chriscorrigan.com
corcom at interchange.ubc.ca

RR 1 E-3
1172 Miller Road
Bowen Island, BC
Canada, V0N 1G0

phone (604) 947-9236
fax (604) 947-9238

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