Philosophical Question

[Koos de Heer]

Hi Marty,

Interesting questions! The way I understand it, 
Kaufman does not refer to an environment with 
abundant food supply. Neither does he mean an 
environment where the food supply is constant. I 
have always taken it as referring to an 
environment that provides at least a minimal 
level of nutrition and is relatively stable, in 
the sense that it does not change radically in a 
short time span. Of course the food supply, the 
number of natural enemies, the weather conditions 
etc. will change over time. But for a self 
organizing system to exist, there has to be a 
reasonable amount of stability. If we look at a 
biological example: the Earth has an atmosphere. 
The atmosphere provides not only an important 
part of the necesarry nutrients, it also works as 
a buffer to eliminate radical changes in 
temperature and radiation. On a planet without an 
atmosphere, it is much more difficult for life 
forms (at least as we know them) to develop, for 
lack of both nutrition and stability. But this 
does not mean that the atmosphere never provides 
any challenges! It changes constantly and does 
not always make us feel comfortable. But these 
changes have so far been within acceptable limits.

Now I am not sure how to translate that to 
organizational change. I gues that it has 
something to do with the notion of Ilya Prigogine 
(Order out of Chaos, 1984) that a system tries to 
adapt to a changing environment untill it can no 
longer keep up with it using the old paradigm. 
There will be a point where it discovers, as 
Harrison has put it in The Spirit of Leadership, 
that it is not doing something wrong, but it is 
doing the wrong thing. It will either die or 
reinvent itself. If it dies, another system will 
take its place, which is essentially the same as 
when the system would have reinvented itself. 
This will happen, whether or not we mingle with 
the whole thing or not. The reason that we as 
consultants find ourselves useful is that we may 
make the transition somewhat smoother, by sewing 
the seeds of the new system while the old system 
is still alive. The destruction/creation cycle 
will have to take place no matter what. But by 
helping it a little bit, we may make the ride a 
little less bumpy and we may limit the nubmer of 
casualties. If we want to provide a suitable 
environment to help this destruction/creation 
process along, we think of it in terms of an 
environment that is stable and nutrient enough 
for the new system to emerge. The old system is 
still there, in whatever shape it may be. So 
there is still an environment that can suppport a 
system. The environment is slowly changing, and 
it is probably time for our system to reinvent 
itself or die. But the environment is still there 
and I tend to assume that it is stable and 
nutrient enough. So I would not worry too much 
about it. I think our aim would be to create room 
in (or close to) the old system for new sparks to 
flare up. It is not that we have to tweak the 
environment at large, it is that we have to 
create small environments, small pockets of 
nutritious space where the seeds of the new 
system can be sewn and take root. Those pockets 
have to be relatively stable and nutritious. This 
means that people have to be safe there, the 
things they say and do there should not backfire 
on them unexpectedly, they have to have the 
opportunity to learn and grow, and of course 
there have to be food, drinks, toilets, beds and 
what other practical things people need. I think 
it will look quite a bit like an Open Space Technology meeting.

Just my view. Very interested in what others have to say about this.

Koos


At 17:23 20-1-2008, Martin Boroson wrote:
>Dear all:
>
>I have a couple of philosophical questions about 
>the concept of a “stable nutrient 
>environment.”  According to Stuart Kauffman, as 
>quoted by Harrison, this is Condition #1 for self-organization.
>
>My questions:
>
>a.  What does this mean 
>scientifically?  Presumably Kauffman is talking 
>primarily about biological systems, as he is a 
>biologist.  Does he mean sufficient food 
>supply?  That would make sense – you need 
>sufficient food in order to do anything -- but 
>on the other hand, fundamental environmental 
>challenges to a system (such as lack of food 
>supply) are surely one of the perturbations that 
>can induce a re-organization.
>
>b.  I’m also curious to know how each of you 
>would interpret “stable nutrient environment” in 
>terms of organizational change.  What would be 
>the “stable nutrient environment” 
>required?   Abundant coffee and cake at your 
>conference?  Lifetime job security for all the 
>organization’s employees?   Or something in between?
>
>;)
>
>Namaste
>
>Marty
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