The Heart of Complexity

The Edge of the Edge Report: Results from recent retreat on pushing the frontier between complexity science and organizations

Roger Lewin, Ph.D. and Birute Regine, ED.D.

• Lewin said: "We just came back from a meeting we facilitated at the historic Mohonk House, two miles up Mohonk mountain, in New York. The purpose of the meeting was to push the frontier between complexity science and organizational thinking and practice."

• In this meeting, with about 30 scientists, health care leaders, business executives, we used a process called "open space technology."
  
  
• What is "open space technology?"It is a deceiving name, because it's really more of a process than a tool. It's a technique that's been around a little more than a decade. But in spirit, it has been around for thousands of years -- it's a way of "being" with people and organizations. Open space technology draws on experience from villages in South Africa, where members of a village sit in a circle to hear what others had to say. The idea is, when you put people in rows you create a static space. But when you put them in a circle, it is a space of equality, energy, community... a creative social organization. Open Space Technology is a process that works whether you are a South African village or a Fortune 500 company.
  
  
• How the process works:
  • Bring together people who have a common problem, interest or goal.
  • Form a large circle. In the center of the circle, place large flip chart pages. Anyone who wishes can enter into the center of the circle and write on a piece of paper an issue they care about. The only condition is that the individual must then become willing to take responsibility for doing something about that issue.
  • Individuals stand up, announce the topic, claiming it as their own... and then hang up the paper on the wall. That wall comes to represent the marketplace of ideas.
  • Participants then go around surveying the ideas, and deciding which ones they wish to be a part of. A lot of bargaining goes on between groups, as some will have similar issues.
  • As if by magic, an agenda that was absent before now appears before everybody.
  • Groups get together to discuss their topic. In the end, they produce a report.
    
    
• This process typically lasts 2 to 3 days.
  
  
• It sounds like an unlikely way to achieve results in a business setting... but it works, again and again and again. It sounds and looks chaotic... and it feels chaotic. And it is. The group becomes a complex adaptive system; the space is one in which emergence can occur.

• For Open Space Technology to work, there must be:
  • a diverse group of people who must deal with difficult material in productive and creative ways.
  • mutuality - everyone has something to say or offer.
  • care - respecting the ideas of others.
  • urgency - something that must be done.
    
    
• With this approach, you live complexity; you self-organize around ideas.

• We met after dinner on the first evening. It was "hell:"Lots of intense discussion... and there was a pervasive uneasiness and uncertainty at the end of the day. Participant Tom Petzinger said "I hoped there would be some intellectual breakthrough, but it didn't happen." But when things are ambiguous, it takes time to unfold. Maybe it wasn't time for the breakthrough to unfold yet. This is the feeling of engaging in non-linear processes: fear, uncertainty... As facilitators, we knew we were right on target. But the anxiousness is part of the nonlinear process. There was an effort to control and impose a structure on the second day. As a facilitator, I wanted it to be successful... but the facilitator's role is to hold the space.
  
  
• We saw emerging teams. They were self selected, self organizing, experimental and possibility seeking. It's a way to put the organization "on the edge" by putting out "feelers." On the last day, three teams formed which were beautifully complementary.
  • Team #1 came up with the project to "design health care from a clean slate," as if no structure were currently in place. "
  • Team #2: The question they pursued was "How do we apply these principles to ourselves, to remain a robust group?" They talked about sustaining energy when separated; group health indicators (apathy, etc.); measures of success (e.g., "are people open to listening?")
  • Team #3: This team discussed the parallels between the size of organization and its adaptability. Is "bigger dumber?" They explored the technology of networking, compared to group behavior.

• A big discovery at the Mohonk meeting was that caring relationships is at the heart of complexity. If we bring that to our organizations, these relationships become the conduits through which information flows.
  
  
• Care is not a big power word. But it is a power action.
  
  
• Care creates communication. It creates feedback loops. It brings us into the world of relationships... and that is our access to nonlinear processes. What emerges is soul purpose, which serves a greater purpose. Why do we do the work we do? What is important? What are we passionate about? When you care, you do it better, and more efficiently.

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