New Year's Resolutions/eliminating the Middle Man

Harrison Owen hhowen at verizon.net
Thu Jan 3 07:56:56 PST 2008


Doug -- I don't think there is a great mystery here and each one of us who
has been working with Open Space will have our own versions. More to the
point, those version will only get better and more powerful to the extent
that we share and probe. So that is the invitation to one and all.

For me, the first, most critical, and possibly the most difficult step is to
fully recognize the "source." After all you can scarcely get there if you
don't know where you are going. And the possibility really diminishes if you
don't believe there is a "there" there. The "source" so far as I am
concerned is the fundamental power of self-organization -- not just a little
bit, not just occasionally, not just in some odd backwater situations -- but
everywhere, all the time, and from the top to the bottom. My phrase: "There
is no such thing as a non-self organizing system." If this is true, it would
seem that there are also a number of mildly deluded people who think they
did the organizing.

This is a rather "flip" way of describing a quite major reversal of fields.
We have been taught, and all the books confirm, that organization is
something we create. If you want a picture of it (organization) we produce
the Org Chart. This is known as the Formal Organization, and for many (most)
people, that is all there is. Way down at the bottom, in some footnote there
may be a reference to the "informal organization," but all good managers
know that their job is to eliminate it, or at least marginalize and confine
it to the coffee pot and the water cooler. But the "real deal" is and
remains the formal system. And of course, were you to ask who created the
Informal Organization? -- The answer is clearly Nobody, Everybody -- or
perhaps most accurately, it happened all by itself (self-organized).

I think our first step is to flip the fields -- and understand that the
informal system is in fact The Organization. And the Formal Organization is
actually just a figment of our imagination. We can draw any picture we want,
make any complex diagram of interconnected offices and people, but at the
end of the day when we seek to implement it -- this marvelous Formal
Organization joins the world and becomes like all other aspects of the
world; self-organizing. No matter how hard we try to control things, the
system will take on a life of its own.

The implications of this heretical view are considerable. If true much of
what we do under the heading of organizing is pretty much a waste of time.
It would also be true that much of what we have been taught about managing
and the role of management will require some drastic revision. And we are
left with the interesting question: How can we do something useful and
intentional in a self-organizing world? After all, it is out of our control!

So what do you think?

Harrison  

Harrison Owen
7808 River Falls Drive
Potomac, Maryland   20854
Phone 301-365-2093
Skype hhowen
Open Space Training www.openspaceworld.com 
Open Space Institute www.openspaceworld.org
Personal website www.ho-image.com 
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-----Original Message-----
From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of douglas
germann
Sent: Wednesday, January 02, 2008 9:20 PM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: Re: New Year's Resolutions

Harrison--

Happy new year to you too!

Now you have surely piqued the interest of many of us with your peek at
Wave Riders. Perhaps there is a way we can get you to lift the curtain
just a little and let us see what it looks like when we "eliminate the
middle man and go straight to the source"? 

			:- Doug.

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