[OSList] self-organization

Wed Jan 1 15:47:14 PST 2014

Hi Harrison,

Thank you for your kind response (and all the other responses (I'll be
back!)). I'm still not understanding this, so would love digging deeper
into the subject. I wrote a long response, but now I'm just going to ask
you two questions based on your first point:

"First: All systems are self organizing, even those we think we organize."

1. How do you define a system?

2. What does self-organizing mean?

I'm realizing that we might just as well start with defining the terms and
go from there. I hope that's ok with you.

Wishing you and all on the list a wonderful and Happy New Year!

Marie Ann (to clarify: one name spelt like two - I blame my parents :)

On Mon, Dec 30, 2013 at 5:10 PM, Harrison Owen <hhowen at verizon.net> wrote:

> Marie – I think you have it just right. But maybe you are making things a
> little too complicated, and working a bit too hard. In my simple mind,
> things look like this. First: All systems are self organizing, even those
> we think we organize. Second: Organizing a self organizing system is not
> only an oxymoron, but stupid – especially when the system can do a better
> job all by itself. Third: Whenever we try to organize a self-organizing
> system, we inevitably get it wrong. Our efforts are “clunky.” Even though
> it may look great on paper, our efforts are never subtle or flexible
> (agile) enough. Fourth: Open Space is simply an invitation to self
> organize. In other words it is simply an invitation to be and do what we
> are. The fact that it works as it does has nothing to do with our knowing
> any philosophy, principles, practices... It works as it has for 13.7
> billion years, long before we arrived on the scene, all without our help
> and assistance. Fifth: the real value of OST is as a training program
> enabling us to experience consciously and intentionally what all too often
> passes by unnoticed – Life. It is also a marvelous laboratory in which we
> can learn more about our natural state. And oh yes – all the principles,
> philosophies, practices, etc are fun, interesting, and useful to the extent
> that they help us to understand with greater clarity what is really going
> on. But at the end of the day they really don’t change a thing. I think.
>
>
>
> ho
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>
>
> Harrison Owen
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> *From:* oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org [mailto:
> oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org] *On Behalf Of *Marie Ann Östlund
> *Sent:* Saturday, December 28, 2013 5:17 PM
> *To:* World wide Open Space Technology email list
> *Subject:* [OSList] self-organization
>
>
>
> 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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