[OSList] OST Foundations again (Was:...)

[Artur Silva]

Harrison:


Thanks for your
thoughts. And for not have commented some parts of my mail. Quite often,
silence is the correct answer 


Some further
comments inline (sorry if this post doesn’t seem to be polite but it is only
lack of time and bad domain of the English language):
 

________________________________
 
From: Harrison
Owen <hhowen at verizon.net>
To: 'Artur Silva' <arturfsilva at yahoo.com>; 'World wide Open
Space Technology email list' <oslist at lists.openspacetech.org> 
Sent: Monday, September 17, 2012 2:38 PM
Subject: RE: [OSList] OST Foundations again (Was:...)
 
Artur – As usual
you are there! To continue the conversation, some thoughts about your comments:
--
 
You said, “It is true that everything
self-organize. But there are known phenomena (like crystals, for
instance) where past self-organization created a "closed system".
In what concerns organizations, if they cease to have enough diversity or of
being open to the environment they can also get trapped in an "almost
closed organization". 
 
In what concerns
an OST event that doesn't matter much - just see if the
pre-conditions are there, and if they are, just do it! But from the point of
the view of the organization/community that is not enough: they have a concern
(that I share) about what comes next. How can we (they) profit from that
"magic" in the medium/long term? And that is, for me, a different
question - a different animal, would you probably say.”
 
I like your
“almost closed organization.” My starting premises are – All Systems are open.
All systems are self organizing.

You have not answered (again)
to my observation about "crystals". Are crystal closed systems
or not? (Prigogine said that they are; but you may have a different
opinion...) 

And that includes human systems. 
 
If crystals are
closed systems, your statement "that includes human systems" means what?
 
But as you say,
there are some “almost closed organizations.” What gives? One thing is that
while we cannot/do not organize self organizing systems 
 
First, I would
like to comment that human systems are generally purposeful. I agree that "we cannot/do not
organize self organizing systems", but would you agree with me
that we can design purposeful human systems in such a way as
to cultivate or enhance their self-organizing
characteristics? (I have done that quite often with many classes of students of
mine, but maybe I am wrong and I have designed nothing... Maybe all happened by
chance.... Some of my positivist and mechanistic colleagues would agree with that,
btw. Even if it is consistent over the years, they prefer to think it is (lots of) chance…!  




– it is totally
possible to stop or certainly impede the process of self organizations. It
seems to me, this is what happens in many, many organizations. When our efforts
are fully successful, the organization dies. Even with partial success, we
managed to reduce organization function to minimal levels. 


Agreed!


This is a story
that is told every day and the outward symptoms are lack of creativity,
boredom, frustration, low morale, etc. All the things that we can now charge a
lot of money to fix! But there is an easier way (but not so good for the/our
bottom line) – just re-energize the self organization process, and most of the
pathology will fall away, if the patient is not already dead. I think this is
what happens every time we open space in a seemingly closed, moribund,
hidebound, autocratic organizations. Seems like magic, but it is not – Just
good old self-organization doing its job.
 
I like your " just re-energize the
self organization process”, but how do we do that? Imagine for instance a public organization, where
the boss (es) is (are) not open to opening the space and where the
"lateral functions" are minimized by the current systems in place.
How would you suggest that we can " re-energize the self
organization process "?

Warm regards
 
Artur
 
PS: MH - thanks
for your comments. I will answer that as soon as I can digest that...
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