[OSList] self-organization

Sat Dec 28 14:16:34 PST 2013

Dear all,

I hope you've had a wonderfully emergent holiday and I also take the
opportunity to wish you all a beautiful year.

I've been thinking about self-organization for some time now - or holding
the question of its meaning - as I haven't understood the concept and the
way we've talked about it. But this autumn the penny dropped (!) for me (to
some extent) and I could also understand why I make the connections I do
with OST and human nature, and, maybe, why others don't make that same
connection.

I want to share my little penny with you and see how you understand this,
and would appreciate your input and some push-back. :) Warning - it's a bit
long.

Harrison, it was your response to Hege's thread earlier that exemplified
some of the things I struggle to understand, so you gave me the perfect cue
to put my thoughts together (Thank you!):

"And there is an alternative. Just recognize (in your own mind) that these
folks (whoever they are...) are already “in” Open Space. They are just
doing it badly. Your “offer” is simply to help them to do what they are
already doing – but now with some understanding, expertise, and style.
Short take: you can help them to remember what they already know, and
having remembered, to do everything much better."

I take this to mean that everyone is already self-organizing (are already
"in" Open Space), but are doing it badly.

If we then look at various types of human organisation, from larger
"organisms" like the financial and political systems, wars,
peace-movements, UN, patriarchy, etc to smaller units like families, teams,
etc - they must be examples of some form of self-organization. Some are to
our liking, some are not.

Why do we think that some types of human organization are successful and
some not, if we're all self-organizing? What is the self-organization done
"badly", and the one done "well"? Why does OST *work*, as we sometimes put
it?

The understanding I've come to is that one of the main differences lies in
the organizing principle or philosophy of the "organism". In simpler or
smaller systems the amount of principles might be fewer than in larger ones
(and thus simpler to manage and define). At the macro level, countries
organize themselves based on certain principles - like one of the
foundational principles of the US is the freedom to *be* religious and
freedom *from* the state (from Britain and its monarchy), while in France
freedom *from* religion is foundational and influence what citizens are
allowed to learn and wear in school or say in the public sphere, and in
Sweden the state (or previously the monarchy) have historically been the
guarantor and protector of individual freedom (against the aristocracy). An
even greater and deeper organizing principle we've adopted in the western
hemisphere is the idea of progress - that our societies invariably progress
through scientific and technological advances. And yes, all these ideas,
although found articulated by some powerful philosophers, are in a sense a
product of self-organization. However interesting the ideas, they would go
nowhere if people didn't accept/adopt/spread them or felt they resonated
with their own ideas and experiences. The way ideas evolve and spread are
certainly complex.

I guess these various ideas and beliefs are interlaced into the complicated
weave we call culture, and influence how we live and organise our lives
together. Each country have certain "rules" and one may call them
organizing principles. A company can have organizing principle/s - there
are differences between how General Motors and Apple are organized and what
define ways to "get ahead" or succeed. A family also have organizing
principles (who's the boss, how decisions are made etc).

What makes OST a good way to self-organize is that it's organizing
principle is to take responsibility for what we love (the law of two
feet/mobility). I heard there was a discussion in the European Learning
Exchange recently about the rules of OST. OST seem rigid to some extent -
sit in circle, facilitator introduce the principles, law and market place,
off you go, evening and morning updates, closing circle etc. If it's Open
Space, why keep to these rules as we often come back to doing OST in a
certain way. Why do we (religiously) adhere to a certain format when doing
OST - at least this is how I interpret the query hearing about it second
hand.

However, if we consider that we all self-organise, and many times it's done
badly, we need to create a space that is open and that allows
self-organisation to happen in the most optimal way possible. So we create
a bubble of Open Space that is as open space we can make it. The principles
help us free our minds enough to be present with what's happening (and most
importantly - with ourselves) and the law is the organising principle -
follow your heart (and use your feet to do so). Take responsibility for
what you love.

What happens when we take responsibility for what we love? We feel alive,
we enjoy contributing to other peoples queries, we marvel at what is
created when we come together, and how our 'topic' was taken to another
level with other's contributions. We also marvel at what we create when we
come together. We enjoy giving and enjoy receiving. We love and feel
loving. That's not to say that we don't experience 'bad' feelings in OS or
don't experience frustrations, but (do correct me) that's often to do with
us not following our hearts as fully as we would like to or we're in the
messy chaotic part in our organizing process.

So for me then, Open Space says something about me as a human being. It
says something about us all as human beings. It says that we love
contributing our unique offering to others, to a greater whole than us, and
we thrive when we're connected.

My thesis then, is that the organizing principle of OS (take responsibility
for what you love) is an organising principle that is closer to our human
nature than many other organizing-principles. That's why it *works*. We are
loving beings, not destructive, violent, and selfish as Hobbes surmised -
that idea is btw still one of the basic organizing principles in
international relations (more or less). One of the reasons some systems
work better is that the organising principles are more fitting to our needs
and natures. And some may have worked for some time but no longer does, as
they have grown too rigid or not kept up with time/development. They might
have helped us from a worse condition, but not fully hit home.

To also address the question of rigidity in OST, what we do as facilitators
is to create a particular bubble of OS; and as our bubble is created within
and around other self-organizing bubbles, we use rituals to communicate our
ethos and to show that this bubble works in a different way than others. We
show physically that we're doing something else here than in other systems,
by sitting in a circle, going around it, etc. Rituals are powerful. If all
system would use the same organizing principle these rituals might no
longer matter, or they would adopt the same.

To summarise: yes, we do self-organise, but we organise around some
principles/ideas/philosophies. OS is a bubble of self-organisation that
works better than most as its organising principle is closer to human
nature. And no, I can't explain why the connection to human nature isn't
done more often, as I said I might do in the beginning. Sorry :)

But I think what I'm getting at, taking help from Harrison's image of
dancing with Shiva, the dance between chaos and order - is that we can also
look at OST from the point/perspective of Krishna's dance with the soul
(rasa-lila - the dance of divine love). Away from the cosmic perspective is
also the personal or individual view point, of what the dance can be that
we create together in love and in relationship to each other. And that
might tell a different story about who we are.

I'd appreciate your thoughts, push-back, reflections. This is what makes
sense to me now and I wanted to share it with you.

All the best,

Marie Ann
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