Four Principles, One Law -- Comments from Artur

[Artur Silva]

Harrison:

Thanks for your kind comments.

This is a difficult dialog for me - first because it
is with you, second because it must be conduced in
English (that is NOT even my second language and where
I express myself with some difficulties) and third
because it is in a mailing list. If, at any moment,
you think I am being disrespectful please attribute
that to my bad command of the language. I would like
to have some hours (or days) to talk quietly about
this around some martinis. The point is that I think
that we are approaching some sort of bifurcation -
what kind of bifurcation, and to where, is not clear
to me yet...

If I understand well my thoughts (which I am not sure
;-) and yours (even less...) then we are in
disagreement about some points. I will try to
summarize.

--- Harrison Owen <hhowen at comcast.net> wrote:

> It is no surprise that OST works without mention of
> the 4 Principles and One
> Law - at least not to me.

That is your statement, Harrison - not mine. I have
never tried to use OST without reference to the law,
and I think that it would NOT work as the law is IMHO
the main foundation of OST. I admit that with the law
and the other "foundations" (the invitation, the
circle, enough diversity, etc, etc) everything follows
including MAYBE the principles.

So I am proposing that without the law there is no
OST, and that the principles are much less fundamental
than the other foundations. At least "not needed" -
eventually (please forgive my heresy) non-existing.

But the main point is not that one but the question of
self-organization. We all agree that in OST we have
self-organization. (But it is not clear what
"self-organization" means in this context - more about
that later). Some will add "where does this
self-organization came from? It doesn't come from
anywhere. It was already there. So, all organizations
are self organizations". (We only make the
"revelation" of it - after all, we didn't know that,
but we are all in the  photography business...).

Are all organizations self-organizations? Yes AND No.
It depends on what we are calling "self-organization".

Let me give an example - was a Crystal created by
nature's self-organization? The answer is yes. And
then is a Crystal self-organizing. Maybe yes, if we
accept that some forms of self-organizations are
"closed ones" and will not develop/self-organize
further.

But if we consider the conditions for the "emergence
of a new order" as the conditions for self
organization than a Crystal is NOT self-organizing as
the majority of organizations are not.

When you, Harrison, summarized Kauffman's conditions
for
self-organization-as-creation-of-a-higher-level-order,
you described five conditions (OST Non Guide, page 7).

1) a relatively safe, protected, nutrient environment
- this happens very often in OST but NOT in the formal
organizations (companies, public administration, etc)
2) High levels of diversity - this happens often, but
not always, in OST but rarely in companies (we talk
about the "culture of a company" to refer to the level
of uniformity within that company - hence, the lack of
diversity).
3) High levels of complexity - OK, this is today
present everywhere - even if there are administrations
that don't know that...
4) A drive for improvement - this is created often in
OST by the problem that allowed for OST to be called
in action, but is doesn't happen in Public Admin as
also in many companies
5. Sparse prior connections - this happens sometimes
in OST - created in my opinion by the law - but not
normally in companies where everything is previously
"hardwired".

So, in this precise sense of "self-organization of
higher level order" the majority of organizations ARE
NOT self-organizations, and OST is a good tool to
reduce the "hardwired condition" and to create a
self-organizing open space for the duration of the
event.

Having said that, it is not a surprise that I disagree
with the following:


> I would agree with Artur that OST is
> not the method to create
> organizations of that sort - because I don't really
> think they need to be
> created. They are already there, albeit buried (...)

No, organizations are not "already there". And yes
self-organization cannot be created/controlled - but
it can be nurtured...

> And last but not least, Artur, I do know of at least
> one Open (InterActive,
> learning) organization. It is us.

According to my definition we are not an organization
but a community, which is a completely different
animal...

Best regards

Artur






__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Domains – Claim yours for only $14.70/year
http://smallbusiness.promotions.yahoo.com/offer

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

To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs:
http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist