[OSList] Management and Organization

Wed Feb 5 00:36:32 PST 2014

Dear all,

In response to David's question below (how can we have some structure and
boundaries and yet provide space for self-organization?), I think there is
such a model out there.

It is called sociocracy and was developed in the Netherlands by Gerard
Endenburg. It is also out there in the US via John Buck and Sharon Villines.
Below an attempt to summarise in short what the idea of sociocracy is. And
then I am very much interested in your reactions, as I highly appreciate
both open space and sociocracy...

1. Sociocracy is a form of governance based on self-organization and
inclusive, collaborative decision-making. It nurtures creativity and
encourages leadership.

2. It produces highly effective, harmonious organizations that are
exceptionally productive because they engage the energy, knowledge, and
commitment of all their members.

3. Its principles and methods can be used to structure and manage any form
of organization - associations, businesses, communities, schools, social
groups, etc.

4. Members determine the policies that govern the day-to-day functioning of
their domain. A domain, called a circle, is any unit that to which the
organization has assigned a unique aim: sales department, janitorial staff,
loading dock, neighbourhood, school, social programming committee, etc. Each
circle is semi-autonomous, self-organizing, and sets its own policies.

5. To make policy decisions, all circle members, including the operational
leader, meet as equals. In order to ensure that members function as equals
and that all policies support each member's ability to perform their
responsibilities, policy decisions require the consent of each circle
member.

6. The execution of policies defined is delegated to one or more
circle-members, with the mandate to make autonomous decisions within the
policy defined. 

7. The cohesion between (policies defined in) different parts/circles in the
organisation is assured via a hierarchical link between the circles. From
each circle the assigned leader and an elected delegate participate in the
next higher circle (as equal members).  

8. A general management group, composed of the leader of the organisation
and the assigned leader and elected representative from each domain,
conducts long-range planning and makes policy decisions that affect more
than one domain.

Re-used (with some adaptions) from Sharon Villines. Sharon Villines is the
owner of Sociocracy.info and co-author with John Buck of 'We the People:
Consenting to a Deeper Democracy, a Guide to Sociocratic Principles and
Methods' (Washington, DC: Sociocracy.info Press, 2007).

It is my believe that this sociocratic structure can indeed offer the
balance between some hierarchy/structure/boundaries (eg via policies defined
in 'higher'circles) and provide space for self-organisation in all parts of
the organisation. And in addition it helps in "ensuring the free flow of
accurate information" as described in Waverider as "the single most
important concern under the heading of formilizing the system". 

Would this help/work? Looking forward to your reactions.

Best regards, Rob van der Eyden

www.veranderarchitect.nl 

Van: oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org
[mailto:oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org] Namens David Osborne
Verzonden: woensdag 5 februari 2014 0:57
Aan: World wide Open Space Technology email list
Onderwerp: Re: [OSList] Management and Organization

Harrison, 

I had to laugh at my own words as I re-read them.. ."support leaders in
adopting approaches that move toward greater and greater levels of
self-organization."    The system of course is self-organizing all the time
!!!  

Opening space enables the system it to move closer and closer to high
performance versus stuckness, stagnation, decline and death.  If I restate
what I was trying to express, I think we can Open Space in big ways as an OS
does and/or in small ways through the openness in leadership approaches that
provide more space for passion, creativity, personal responsibility etc.
This is working at the micro-level though versus the full paradigm shift you
describe. I agree with your description whole-heartedly. 

You raise for me very pragmatic questions. Both in our small company,
ChangeFusion, and in a global membership organization I'm involved in we're
exploring the question of how can we have some structure and boundaries and
yet provide space for self-organization. it's hard to find models that
enable both. 

I'd love to hear if others have suggestions of examples. 

David 

On Tue, Feb 4, 2014 at 2:54 PM, Harrison Owen <hhowen at verizon.net> wrote: 

Hello David O. and David S. I've re-titled to give the thread a new name if
only because I think it is headed in some new directions with hopefully a
long and useful discussion in prospect. 

This discussion may get a little difficult as we attempt to define and
understand the words we are using, "Management," for example. I had in mind
the more common garden variety of Management's role in organizations. As
Wikipedia (that source of all useful information) notes, "Despite the move
toward workplace democracy, command-and-control organization structures
remain commonplace as de facto organization structure." (Wikipedia). Back in
the old days a common definition of a good manager was one who, "Makes the
plan, manages to the plan, and meets the plan." And we all know how that was
supposed to be done. Single word: Control. Lots of Command and Control.

David has moved in new, interesting and effective directions saying, "What I
have found is that as I'm able to share the conditions that support
self-organization and how they can be integrated into individuals leadership
approach that the leaders move toward approaches that support greater and
greater self-organization."

I applaud the effort, but it seems to me it may be rather a half step. If I
hear David's words correctly, the fundamental understanding of
"organization" remains unchanged (predesigned structure and controls with
Leaders/Managers in charge) and the new effort is to enable "leaders (to)
move toward approaches that support greater and greater self-organization."
Tactically I can certainly understand the approach, but what if organization
is fundamentally, essentially, in totality - Self Organizing? If that is the
situation, "greater and greater self organization" makes little sense for a
very simple reason. It is all self organizing to begin with! But I guess
that is just splitting hairs, and for sure the heart is moving in the right
direction.

The revolutionary in me (and yes there is some of that J) would dearly love
to shake the organizational world by the scruff of the neck saying something
like, Move on, Wake up! You just can't get there from here. And for a
certainty, such an approach would have no chance of success. There needs to
be a change in view, I am sure -- but forced change, were it even possible,
falls back on the old way which wasn't effective then and won't work now.
And there is another way which unfortunately requires some patient waiting.
But we may not have to wait that long.

It is a very common lament -- that, "things just aren't working." What
"things" and the nature of their dysfunction are often left unsaid, but the
universal uneasiness is pretty clear. To date, the usual response has been
to do more and more of what we've always done, but maybe with a different
name (Quality Circles, Process Re-Engineering, Dialogue, maybe even AGILE
when mandated etc.). The results have not been inspiring. Some would even
include Open Space Technology as a new tool. But I don't think that works
either if the intent is to fix the old system.

As the lament continues, some strange things are happening. Every now and
again something actually WORKS! And it works even when the plans are busted,
the leadership is incompetent, the environment sour and threatening. Who
knows how or why - but it worked. The Brits usually call this Muddling
Through, which is what happens when everything goes a different way than it
was supposed to - but it all turns out fine. Phew!

There is another name for this strange phenomenon. Anomaly. Anomaly
literally means being outside the law (lawless) from the Greek a (without)
nomos (law).  Anomalies cause one to scratch the head in wonder...How on
earth could THAT happen? Most often, we just pass them by with a dismissive,
"weird!" I think that is a mistake.

Peter Vaill, an old friend and colleague, had a knack for seriously noticing
anomalies. He observed that some organizations performed at levels of
excellence that definitely blew away the competition. He called them High
Performing Systems. The problem was, these systems broke all the rules of
how organizations were supposed to work. As a Professor of Management, Peter
could be accused of a flawed effort because instead of attempting to analyze
how they worked, Peter contented himself with a delightful description of
what they did, which he captured in a short paper (1977), The Behavioral
Characteristics of High Performing Systems. I say delightful because he
wrote in a totally colloquial fashion, and definitely not in the style of
Academe, even though he was the (then) Dean of the Business School at George
Washington University.

Writing almost 10 years before Open Space Technology, Peter seems prescient,
for his "Behavioral Characteristics" are a perfect description of the common
behavior at every Open Space I have ever seen. Taking a tall leap in logic,
I have argued (Wave Rider) that the link between Peter's High Performing
Systems, and what we have experienced in Open Space is the phenomenon of
self organization. Or put somewhat differently, High Performing Systems are
well functioning self organizing systems. And in function and effect they
are definitely anomalous for according to the accepted wisdom, they simply
could not happen or do what they do! 

On the subject of Anomaly and the importance of same, the work of Thomas
Kuhn comes to mind. Author of, "The Structures of Scientific Revolutions,"
Kuhn gave us that wonderful concept, "paradigm," as in Paradigm Shift. As an
historian of Science, Kuhn describes how the scientific world grew in wisdom
and stature, passing through several understandings of the nature of things,
on the way to new (and presumably better) ones. That passage he called,
Paradigm Shifts. According to his story, the scientific  or learned
community held a certain view of reality for a period of time, which worked
very well, and seemed to explain most, if not all, of the phenomenon of
their experience. This view (paradigm) was taken as The Truth, and defended
with ferocity. For example, everybody "knew" at one time that the Earth was
the center of everything and those who disagreed were considered heretics,
and often dispatched. Galileo, for instance. Then funny little anomalies
began to show up as people observed the heavens. If the anomalies were not
an illusion then Earth centeredness was false - which everybody knew must be
wrong, insanity, or worse. But the anomalies refused to go away, which made
people more and more uncomfortable, to say nothing of angry. Then one
shinning day the view shifted. Same old heavens as before but seen with
totally new eyes. Paradigm shift. Very powerful and never comfortable. 

This brief sojourn into the History of Science can be helpful to our present
concerns, I think, for we are facing a very similar situation in our
understanding of organizations, as well as management. The traditional
understanding of organization, and therefore management, has been around for
a long time. As with all paradigms, it is taken to be The Truth, and those
who challenge will inevitably be subject to dismissal at the beginning,
changing to discomfort, and perhaps ending with anger. The reason is very
simple. The investments in this particular paradigm are enormous, and
include ways of life, ways of making a living, and for some, life itself.
Messing with all of that cannot be done lightly.

And yet the anomalies persist. Some are quite subtle and are perceived only
as a growing sense that "things are not working as we expected." However,
when the system/organization seems broken, it is clear that we must fix it
and we think we know how. If the organizational process is screwy, then
obviously we need Process Re-Engineering. But it didn't work. We try harder
and harder, doing variants of what we've always done, and (surprisingly) we
get what we've always got. But hope springs eternal, and someday we will
find The Fix. Or so it says in all the books. Maybe.

Other anomalies are not so subtle. Open Space Technology is such an anomaly.
I believe it to be true that Open Space violates virtually all principles
and practices of traditional organizational theory and management practice.
To the extent that it (OS) works as we have experienced it working - much if
not all of current practice is called into question. My view is doubtless
biased, but some 20 years ago, a senior official from the American Society
for Training and Development (pardon the repeat) seemingly had the same
impression when he told me, after hearing what happened in Open Space,
"Harrison, if what you say is true, then 99% of what we are currently do
does not need to be done." I would have been greatly relieved had I been
able to argue with him. But I couldn't. I can't.

So David(s) - where does that leave us? Discretion might dictate picking up
our toys and going home. Others might suggest heading for the barricades.
Personally I don't think either possibility is very useful. I simply cannot
deny what I have experienced in Open Space, nor can I resist the compulsion
to share the experience in whatever way with whomsoever might show up. I
think the bottom line may come down to: Move slowly with empathy, and be
prepared to wait.

And what would that mean for us and what we do...? At a practical level, it
could mean something like this. Let's suppose that the Management of a very
traditional Organization shows up on our doorstep. They are concerned that
organizational function is dismal, the people seem to dislike each other and
what they are doing, and profits have disappeared. The request is simple:
Help!  Somewhere they heard about Open Space and believe (hope) it could fix
their system, or at least make a start.

It sounds like a marvelous opportunity, and a natural response would be,
YES! At least that would be my response. All the essential preconditions for
OS seem to be in place (real issue, complexity, etc) - BUT ... There are
some issues to consider. First, if by "fixing their system" the client means
that the "traditional Organization" is going to be put back together as it
once was, that is a real problem, I think. The reason is simple - the root
of their problems is precisely the system (understanding of organization)
they were working under. Make it even stronger. Were I to design a system
that would maximize separation and alienation, minimize creativity and
collaboration - I don't think I could do any better than the system they
were operating under. Fixing, or restoring that system would only compound
their misery. Secondly, Doing an Open Space in that organization is quite
likely to increase the general dissatisfaction with how things are done. As
one senior executive from a very traditional organization said to me
following an Open Space we did, "You have ruined me for work in this place.
I am not sure whether to thank you or hate you." Talk about being caught on
the horns of a dilemma! If fully successful with my task (opening space), I
will have failed the clients' primary expectations (fixing the system) and
simultaneously raised the level employee dissatisfaction. 

All true, I think. And I would still do the Open Space, but my reasons could
cause some problems unless very carefully explained, and that explanation
itself is problematical. At one level I will do the Open Space because I
know that it will enable people to be more comfortable, powerful, sure of
themselves. That's the easy part. But at another level I will do the Open
Space in order to introduce anomaly... one more nudge towards Paradigm
Shift.

I know full well that I can't shift paradigms for people. The same is true
of Transformation, which has a lot to do with paradigm shift. Both will
happen all by themselves...or not. But I can and will nudge when given the
opportunity. After that it is all about waiting...

So what do you think about all that?

Harrison

Harrison Owen

7808 River Falls Dr.

Potomac, MD 20854

USA

189 Beaucaire Ave. (summer)

Camden, Maine 04843

Phone 301-365-2093

(summer)  207-763-3261

 <http://www.openspaceworld.com%20> www.openspaceworld.com 

 <http://www.ho-image.com%20> www.ho-image.com (Personal Website)

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From: oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org
[mailto:oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org] On Behalf Of David Osborne
Sent: Monday, February 03, 2014 9:47 AM
To: World wide Open Space Technology email list
Subject: Re: [OSList] Trust

I'm not sure I agree OS fails as a management tool.....Self-Organization has
become the lens I look at all my work as an individual who supports groups
and organizations in change and in my leadership and management development
work. It's not an either / or for me os works or doesn't work as a
management tool.  

Leadership is simply supporting an organization in moving toward its goals.
The invitation in OS is the goal or issue that people care about. What I
have found is that as I'm able to share the conditions that support
self-organization and how they can be integrated into individuals leadership
approach that the leaders move toward approaches that support greater and
greater self-organization. This is not top-down, traditional leadership or
management. As you propose in Wave-Rider Harrison, I believe the principles
of OS / self-organization can be integrated as a leadership approach with
great results. 

David 

On Mon, Feb 3, 2014 at 8:57 AM, Harrison Owen <hhowen at verizon.net> wrote: 

David - I would totally agree that OS "utterly fails as a management tool."
Then again I think that OS shares this fate/condition with all other
"management tools," at least as I understand "management" and "tool" in the
context of enabling effective human performance. And thereby hang the
beginning of a long and useful discussion, I think.

ho

Harrison Owen

7808 River Falls Dr.

Potomac, MD 20854

USA

189 Beaucaire Ave. (summer)

Camden, Maine 04843

Phone 301-365-2093

(summer)  207-763-3261

www.openspaceworld.com <http://www.openspaceworld.com%20>  

www.ho-image.com <http://www.ho-image.com%20>  (Personal Website)

To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of OSLIST
Go to:http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org

From: oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org
[mailto:oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org] On Behalf Of David stevenson
Sent: Monday, February 03, 2014 1:51 AM
To: World wide Open Space Technology email list
Subject: Re: [OSList] Trust

Ho indeed Harrison! OpenSpace opens space for freedom of spirit and heart,
choice and the weaving of our fates and destinies with that of our world, it
does not achieve complience and so, at least to the extent that people are
to be managed...

On Saturday, February 1, 2014, Harrison Owen <hhowen at verizon.net> wrote:

Brendan said: "And in my view , all germinating from that initial transfer
of trust between mentor and sponsor" Right on! I don't think it makes a bit
of difference how elegantly one "does" the Open Space. It is really all
about TRUST. When I said that anybody with a good heart and good mind can
"do it," that is just a long winded way of saying what I've always found to
be true. Expertise is interesting. Integrity and Trust are essential. A new
comer to the OS world, opening space for the very first time, muffing some
lines, and forgetting others - can do every bit as well as a 20 year
veteran. The coin of the realm is Integrity, authenticity, trust. But none
of that should be news, for that trio is the bedrock of all positive human
encounter, I think. Which may just be another way of pointing out that OS is
not some special process we do, it is just life lived well. Or something.

ho

Harrison Owen

7808 River Falls Dr.

Potomac, MD 20854

USA

189 Beaucaire Ave. (summer)

Camden, Maine 04843

Phone 301-365-2093

(summer)  207-763-3261

www.openspaceworld.com <http://www.openspaceworld.com%20>  

www.ho-image.com <http://www.ho-image.com%20>  (Personal Website)

To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of OSLIST
Go to:http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org

From: oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org
[mailto:oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org] On Behalf Of Brendan
McKeague
Sent: Saturday, February 01, 2014 12:57 AM
To: World wide Open Space Technology email list
Subject: Re: [OSList] Sponsor PreWork Conversation (long)

A very interesting question Chuni Li...

The sponsor was being mentored by one of my colleagues in our local Open
Space community of practice (Wave Riders) who suggested to him that OS was
the right method/model for the task at hand.  As his coach (the formal role
as perceived by the organisation), my colleague encouraged the sponsor to
get in touch with me to avoid any perceived conflict of interest. The
sponsor researched OS for himself first and then engaged me to provide the
specialist knowledge....Harrison often says that anyone with a good heart
and head can open space - and I agree - while at the same time, I
acknowledge that 'Open Space wisdom' is often helpful, if not necessary, in
situations of increased complexity and potential conflict. 

After his initial attraction to OS in theory, and as part of his research,
the sponsor then ran a mini Open Space within his own jurisdiction to see
how it worked in reality - he wished to speak from his lived experience when
engaging with his higher-uppers.  He also watched a few of the growing
library of YouTube clips that are so wonderful for educating potential
sponsors.  

Now totally convinced, the transfer of trust was complete at various
levels....trusting the process (OST works) AND trusting the facilitator (who
was aligned with the essence of OST - i.e living in it) AND trusting that
both facilitator and process were 'fit-for-purpose' in this context. 

And in my view , all germinating from that initial transfer of trust between
mentor and sponsor

Hope this story helps 

Cheers Brendan

On 31/01/2014, at 1:10 PM, chunili2000 at yahoo.com wrote:

Thank you Brendan for taking the time to organize and share this information
- so precious and such a generous gift!

I am curious about the sponsor who "put his neck out" to make the event
happen.

Had he experienced OST before? Did you have to "convince" him? What made him
willing to "jump through the hoops?" Was it the OST process or was it you
that he trusted?

Chuni Li

New Jersey

From: Brendan Mc

-- 
David Stevenson
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