Care and Feeding

[Colin Morley]

I think you have given a great insight that often organisations will only try self organisation because they are in a desparate situation and feel they have little to lose.  So the question might be how to get people to imagine the situation is desparate more often?

My story is about a catfood brand in the UK owned by Quaker Oats that was down to less than 1.5% market share and was being delisted by the supermarket chains.  We had the revolutionary idea of making the product with more of the ingredients that cats like so that they would actually eat it.  This idea had been rejected before as costing too much.

On the Friday evening on the day when they started production of the new formula we reviewed the first days production and it was not looking right - it was not going to have the right appeal when the cat owner opened the can.  So we decided to increase the amount of an expensive ingredient for the weekend so that we could get the first shipment done on time.  We planned to explain the likely 10% further increase in costs to the accountants the following week, if we could not solve it over the weekend.

We never reduced the expensive ingredient back to its original amount.  And it didn't matter because sales went up by 3 and then 4 times and Felix catfood is now the second biggest brand on the UK market.

In Spiral Dynamics this type of revolutionary change is called the 'Delta Surge' and it comes after the 'Gamma Trap' where change seems essential but impossible.

Colin Morley
www.empowermentillustrated.com

Harrison Owen <hhowen at comcast.net> wrote:
Some little time back I tossed out the notion that Open Space was in fact a
halfway technology - that as good as it is, it (OS) only gets us part of the
way down the road. The discussion was spirited (what else on this LIST?),
but somehow I felt frustrated. I was doubly frustrated because I wasn't
totally clear where we "should" have gone. And of course, it is terribly
hard to recognize arrival if you have no idea where you are going. I cannot
say that my clouds of confusion have cleared away, but it does seem that
there may be light at the end of the tunnel - just to mix and mangle
metaphors. I think it is all about "Care and Feeding." In fact, I think it
might be useful to write a sequel to "Open Space Technology: A User's Guide"
with the odd title, "The Care and Feeding of Self Organizing Systems."
Whether this turns into a book remains to be seen - and since I have sworn
off writing books, somebody else may have to do it, but here is the idea .. .
..

All organizations are self organizing, and when they get in trouble, it is
usually because somebody tried to organize them. Exceptions would be
environmental disruptions over which nobody (and certainly not the
"organizers") has any possible control - for example, the world economy has
severe indigestion. The core problem is that the proposed organization
design is inappropriate to the situation. In a word, it looks great on
paper, but simply doesn't work. The alternative is to allow, enable,
encourage, the organization to do what only it can do for itself -
self-organize. Which brings us to: The Care and Feeding of Self-Organizing
Systems. At this point, our global experience with Open Space can be a very
useful guide. This is not so much about doing an Open Space Event, but
rather the application of the principles and experience to the life of
everyday organizations. Nor is this about creating an Open Space
Organization. I think we are already there, it is just that we have not read
THE OWNER'S MANUAL. Of course, the manual has yet to be written - and that
is the task at hand.

I suggest moving from both ends of the stick towards the middle. If we were
to reach the middle, we might actually have something. First, we might look
at those situations where, despite best efforts to do things properly,
everything got messed up, but it all worked out fine. The British would call
this Muddling through. I would call it the triumph of the self-organizing
system. An example of this would be the 3M experience with Post-Its. The
thought is that by looking closely at situations like that we might catch
the Self-Organizing system working under cover.

Secondly, we might look at situations where the principles/experience of
Open Space had been applied (perhaps unconsciously) and describe the results
- good, bad, and indifferent. Everybody will have their own list, and mine
goes something like: Start with invitation, invited people to join a circle
bringing both their passion and responsibility - and once there -- follow
the 4 Principles and observe the Law. And of course, Be prepared to be
surprised.

Rather than debating all of this abstractly, let's start with some stories.
I have a few, and I am sure you have many more. And if you have some, please
share. Who knows what we might discover.

Harrison





Harrison Owen
7808 River Falls Drive
Potomac, Maryland 20845
Phone 301-365-2093

Open Space Training www.openspaceworld.com

Open Space Institute www.openspaceworld.org
Personal website http://mywebpages.comcast.net/hhowen/index.htm
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