Organizations as complex relational processes, narratives and emergent action (and a story!)

Harrison Owen hhowen at comcast.net
Wed Mar 17 07:55:18 PST 2004


Well Chris, (NO "T") this is interesting soup indeed. I think the real
positive here is the emphasis on Story Telling. For 40 odd years, ever since
the days when I presumed to be an academic delving into the mysteries of
myth, ritual and culture in the ancient near east -- I have felt that we
(all of us humanoids) are essentially story-tellers, it is the way we make
meaning and communicate meaning (as in the natural first question of a new
person -- "What's the story?"). For the last 20 years, after having fallen
into the world of Open Space, I have observed that a (maybe "the") central
activity in an Open Space is storytelling, and it is certainly "fuzified"
storytelling, for initially there is no single story, nor story teller. It
is what I have called Collective Storytelling. Meaning emerges, and action
follows (usually) as the collective tale comes into being, having been woven
from the myriad narrative strands brought forward by the participants. Frank
Smits is definitely riding a train I have been on for quite a while, and
although that certainly doesn't make all of this "true" -- it is certainly
in line with my fundamental prejudices. The fact that he casts the
discussion in the new language of complexity theory is an added gift, for it
gives me (gives us) a new set of spectacles with which to view our
experience. (If anybody cares for the details of my random thoughts, check
out Chapters 11 and 12 in my book, "The Power of Spirit" (Berrett-Koehler,
2000) For an earlier and more arcane version of all of this click on
http://openspaceworld.com/mythos.htm where you will find the opening chapter
of my first book, "Spirit: Transformation and Development in Organizations"
-- now out of print)

But I am not sure that Smits appreciates the full depth of Storytelling as
meaning making. First of all, although it is true that stories can be told
with words, this in my experience is just the tip of the iceberg. Powerful
stories which shape and form cultures (otherwise known as myths) appear in
the rich garments of ALL modes of human communication -- the total dance of
a peoples' life. This may seem just an academic quibble, but I think it has
some real implications concerning our ability to fully understand what is
taking place. In a word, we are faced with a level of complexity (even with
a small group of humanoids) that simply boggles the mind. And when it comes
to the role of the facilitator, the boggled mind is not helpful,
particularly if the facilitator's role is as Smits describes it --

"But, in order for Facilitators to participate, as a listener, a 'neutral'
narrator or focaliser, they need to be able to understand the language,
power relationships, semiotics, etc. in the group of people. In other words,
they need to be 'external insiders'. As the name suggests this is a very
paradoxical role (see Figure 6). By somehow becoming an 'insider' there is
potentially an element of 'risk' for the Facilitator with the outcome
(emergent action). A delicate balance."

A "delicate balance" indeed -- and one which I suspect is neither possible
nor necessary. Does that mean then that as facilitators in Open Space there
is nothing we can do? If "doing something" means acting as the "focalizer,"
then I believe the answer is, Yes. Bluntly stated, we simply do not have the
horsepower to do that -- to say nothing of the mental capacity. But there
are realms where we can and do "do something." Specifically, we can create
the space for storytelling. We can even shape that space when we work with
the client around the theme. And lastly, we can also create a space for
reflection. But when it comes to telling the story, interpreting the story,
and acting on the story -- I think the people do it all by themselves.
Which, after all is what self organization is all about.

Thanks for bringing all this to light Chris! There is lots of good stuff to
explore here, and I look forward to the continuing conversation.

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
OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives Visit:
http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html



-----Original Message-----
From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of Chris
Corrigan
Sent: Saturday, March 13, 2004 3:41 AM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: Organizations as complex relational processes, narratives and
emergent action (and a story!)

Okay, a dose of theory here.

I came across a paper by Frank Smits from Sydney, Australia, courtesy of
the Plexus Institute called How stories affect human action in
organisations,
(http://website.lineone.net/%7efrank.smits/Essays/Stories.htm) last
week.  I've had a chance to read it and it posits a number of
interesting points.

My reading of the paper follows the development of these key ideas:


   1. Organizations are not "things" but rather relational processes.

   2. Human beings use story to represent and understand the patterns of
experience.

   3. Stories only represent partial versions of reality and so
narrative interpretation is subject to power dynamics.

   4. Powerful storyteller can make people "captives" in the story; this
is the process of mythmaking.

   5. "Organisations, in fact the 'organising via relating, exist in
order to 'do something'. Hence somehow, the individuals in the
organisation need to 'act'...if our identity is clear and we are
actively interconnected in interdependent processes that when
information comes available, action can emerge. The information sharing
happens in interactive processes between individuals (either inside or
outside the 'organisation')."

   6. "In the language of Gover (1996) 'our identities are being
constitutes and reconstituted with their physical, cultural and
historical contexts'. The roots of narratives and identity, he claims,
'merge, inextricably embedded and nurtured in the soil of human
action'."

   7. Narratives that resonate with an individual's experience create
meaningful and sustained emergent action.

   8. If people in organisations don't pay attention to the Individual
Intention, the likelihood of the vortices of the narratives in those
organisation resonating with the vortex of the Individual Intention is
purely one of chance. It is due to individuals themselves to actively
spend the time to understand other people's Individual Intention.

   9. By consciously working on understanding Individual Intention and
consciously work on fuzzifying the narrative the complex responsive
process of interaction between the people will move to the attractor at
the critical point. This can only happen in self-organised process of
interactions where meaning can start to flow.

All of this is interesting stuff, especially the deep connection between
narrative and action. Organizations as relational processes, as arenas
for the practice of storytelling and mythmaking (with it's attendant
careful attention to compassion) and all of this as a propellant to
emergent action. It's a lucid thread.

For my money the last point is the most interesting and an example of it
cropped up for me in an Open Space meeting I facilitated last weekend.

I was working as part of a team developing a transportation demand
management plan for a city in British Columbia, basically coming up with
a strategy to get people out of their cars. As part of the process we
convened a 1.5 day Open Space meeting with the intention that the
participants would begin to work on citizen-based initiatives to get the
message out.

These people didn't know each other, and so Day One was taken up with a
lot of conversation about the "typical" issues. The day was essentially
about getting to know each other, testing out ideas and theories,
exploring the stories and myths about the issue and basically sussing
out the power relationships, the allies and the opponents. There was
very little new content, but the day was a rich field of developing and
dissolving structure, process and relationships, coalescing around
stories. Because we were in Open Space and the agenda was driven by deep
personal passion and responsibility, the process of group-forming was
accelerated. By the end of the day there was one story that emerged to
invite action. Someone mentioned that in the very neighbourhood in which
we were meeting, the world's first curbside blue box program had been
initiated. Whether or not this was an observable fact, it became the
story upon which we hung the potential for citizen action in Day Two.

Day Two was a two-hour action planning session, and I opened with that
story and my interpretation of the fact that we simply don't know when
and how small initiatives will blossom. And so the invitation for action
planning was to start something small that could change everything.

Within two hours there were three major initiatives sketched out. One
involved closing a street down for a one-day festival promoting biking,
walking and bussing. One was a project to have coporations sponsor
evening busses into town from the suburbs on weekend nights to encourage
teenagers to stay out of their cars. The third idea was the formation of
a website and the coordination of letter writing and lobbying campaigns
to align actions on specific issues. All of these ideas had champions,
follow-up meeting dates and committees or teams of people committed to
working.

I found the way this Open Space event evolved to be right in line with a
few of the paragraphs from Smits' paper:

                "By consciously working on understanding Individual
Intention and consciously work on fuzzifying the narrative...the complex
responsive process of interaction between the people will move to the
attractor at the critical point. This can only happen in self-organised
process of interactions where meaning can start to flow. That is the
domain of dialogue; it is the art of 'thinking together'... Or, in the
words of Bohm:


                                    From time to time (the) tribe
(gathered) in a circle. They just talked and talked and talked,
apparently to no purpose. They made no decisions. There was no leader.
(.) The meeting went on until finally it seemed to stop for no reason at
all and the group dispersed. Yet, after that, everybody seemed to know
what to do (.). Then they could get together in smaller groups and do
something or decide things.

                                    -- David Bohm, On Dialogue (quoted
in Jaworski, 1998: 109)



                In this quote Bohm describes how dialogue as a way of
people interacting manages to let meaning emerge because of people
understanding each other's Individual Intentions. Effective action could
emerge. Note that the course of action was not decided by someone
outside the process or decided via a compromise! It was emergent because
the process allowed the Group Intention to move to the Edge of
Incoherence."


This is exactly what happened, with people saying in the closing circle
that they were very surprised at how quickly the action plans came
together. This echoes my experience of using an Open Space action
planning process we call "non-convergence," so-called because it eschews
voting, preserves the diversity and complexity of the Day One
conversations and keeps the space open for subtle pattern and
meaning-making by those motivated enough to initiate action.

Smits' paper gives me a nice theoretical frame to understand that
process.  I thought it might spark some discussion here as it suggests a
move from seeing organizations as complex adaptive systems to complex
relational processes.  In Wilberian terms, that seems like a very big
shift from the right hand side to the left hand side.

At any rate, I've also posted this to my weblog at
http://www.chriscorrigan.com/parkinglot/2004_03_01_archive.html#10791665
3320999533 for comment.

---
CHRIS CORRIGAN
Bowen Island, BC, Canada
(604) 947-9236

Consultation - Facilitation
Open Space Technology

Weblog: http://www.chriscorrigan.com/parkinglot
Homepage: http://www.chriscorrigan.com
chris at chriscorrigan.com
(604) 947-9236

*
*
==========================================================
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

*
*
==========================================================
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



More information about the OSList mailing list