NO Such Thing as non-self-organizing system

Thu Mar 17 06:38:11 PST 2005

Artur Wrote: "I think we are seeing reality from two different points of
view (it is the same reality...)."

Precisely! If I may put some words in your mouth - I would guess that you
feel that the various acts of the several players establish the
organizational context. They organize, they set procedure, they out line
protocols - they essentially create the organization. Although it may also
be true that there are also elements of self organization. 

I find myself looking at precisely the same organizational reality and
coming to a different conclusion. I feel that the organizational context is
fundamentally established by the powers of self organization, although it
may be true that certain individuals and groups make every effort to
organize, establish procedures, outline protocols, and manage the result.  

I suppose someday you could "prove" which view is correct, but that day may
be a long time in coming. In the interim I think we are left with an
interesting situation in which proof is not possible, and so we are at
liberty to look at things either way depending on what makes the most sense
to us. Tradition is certainly on your side, and for sure the majority of
people in organizations of all sorts would agree with you.

Personally I have found myself becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the
traditional view. Perhaps it is the anarchist or revolutionary in me, but I
honestly feel it goes deeper than that.  For me the critical points of
discomfort appear in the anomalies I perceive. Tradition says that
organizations are created by some individual or group sitting down to design
the mechanisms and then implementing them in time and space. However,
whenever I have attempted to do a careful natural history of how things
actually occurred - I have found that what is said and what happened are at
some critical variance. We say there was a nice, linear, sequential process.
But upon closer inspection it appears (at least to me) that the clean
linearity, to say nothing of rational process was imposed after the fact. In
the moment it was pretty much of a mess - which was "cleaned up" when the
story was told. 

And "mess" of course is the word we use to describe a situation that is out
of control, is not following the plan. "Mess" is also the way many people
have used to describe the generative situation for a self-organizing system.
Another word would be chaos. 

So - two ways of looking at things. And the way I have chosen, almost
reluctantly, just makes more sense to me. I say reluctantly because it did
not happen over night, and it certainly has gotten me in a world of trouble,
misunderstanding and marginalization with many of my colleagues and friends.
Frankly it would be a lot easier if I could just go along with the
traditional view.

When I say "it makes more sense" I have a number of specifics in mind. With
reference to this particular community and Open Space Technology, I long ago
came to the awareness that if the Traditional view was correct, Open Space,
as we all have experienced it, simply could not happen. Everybody "knows"
that inviting a large group of antagonistic people to solve a complex issue
without the benefit of pre-planned agenda, an army of facilitators managing
a carefully controlled process was insanity. And yet this is an "insanity"
we all have experienced on countless occasions. Worse yet - it works. And it
shouldn't, But it does. So I asked my self - What view of reality would
allow for Open Space? And the answer that came (as everybody here on OSLIST
knows ad nauseam) was - the primacy of self-organization. In a world viewed
as a totally, all levels, all sectors, all scales self-organizing system -
what happens in Open Space is predictable. In a world understood as the
mainline organizational tradition would under stand it - Open Space is
impossible. 

But - one might reasonably ask - is it legitimate to extrapolate from this
funny Open Space experience to the larger world of "traditional"
organizations? I think so, and that has been the adventure to date. And it
certainly makes sense to me. But others will think differently, which makes
for a good conversation.

Harrison

Harrison Owen

7808 River Falls Drive

Potomac, Maryland   20845

Phone 301-365-2093

Open Space Training www.openspaceworld.com <http://www.openspaceworld.com/>

Open Space Institute www.openspaceworld.org

Personal website http://mywebpages.comcast.net/hhowen/index.htm
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-----Original Message-----
From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of Artur
Silva
Sent: Wednesday, March 16, 2005 6:38 PM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: Re: NO Such Thing as non-self-organizing system

A very short comment in another 10 minutes, Harrison.

I think we are seeing reality from two different points of view (it it is
the same reality...). If I understand well, you are too much concerned with
bosses that think they are in charge. I don't think that those "in charge"
control organizations.

I am thinking more of something similar to the "invisible hand" - rules,
regulations, assumptions taken for granted, etc that condition you, myself,
and all the other humans. We don't act like quarks and quasars, and the same
rules don't necesseraly apply..

I insist that reading Argyris (in Action Science) is very conveniente. He
shows how, in organizations, a Model 1 of behaviour is always present, and
that it closes the space as it closes communication.

The merite of Open Space IMHO is that it reduces or supresses Model 1 and
enhances Model 2.

But that would need a very big explanation that  I have not the time now to
give.

But, don't worry - some day YOU will see the light ;-)

Warm regards

Artur 

Harrison Owen <hhowen at comcast.net> wrote:

Artur Wrote: "This allows me to say that I agree with you (except perhaps in
your mantra, because I still think that there are some organizations - like
the Catholic Church and most armies, some companies and even countries -
that have a lot of success in acting as closed systems - even if there are
also open processes happening in them."

  _____  

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