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Emergence
The concepts developed in this portion of the digest
came primarily from the experiences in facilitating emergence shared,
and then explored, by group members.
Before delving into the resulting insights a cautionary
note should be made. It has to do with the belief in many organizations
that the answers can always be found at the top, ultimately from the
chief executive officer. Here is how it is described in one organization
– "Our administrative team has for so long looked to the CEO for
direction, and approval that they defer all strategic decisions to him.
They are so busy with operational issues that they almost never step
back and ask some fundamental questions. Like why? What? To what end?
Does this make any sense? It then becomes their expectation of him and
this of himself. Indeed a self-reinforcing process."
Techniques and approaches uncovered and used by members
of the group that they believe contribute to constructive emergence
are as follows:
- Increase the flow of information in the system
(i.e. an email discussion throughout the organization about organizational
values).
- Operationalize the regular use of fundamental
questioning (i.e. use of "wicked questions").
- Keep size of work groups, teams, organizational
units/subunits relatively small - in line with the number of
relationships most people can handle. Some research, based upon the
brain’s capacity and clan size in hunter-gatherer societies, suggests
up to 12 for teams and no more than 150 for organizational units.
- Pay attention to our own 15% sphere of responsibility
and influence, pretty soon others move.
- Remember that you are "of" the system,
not apart from the system. Traditionally, strategy, change and adaptation
literature in management implicitly suggests that we can (1) understand
the system by observing it and then (2) intervene in the system by
injecting something into it. The problem with this notion is it suggests
that we can somehow be apart from the very system we are interacting
with. What we need to do is give up the idea of being an "outsider"
and go into the much more uncomfortable area of seeing yourself as
a participant
- Pay attention to the role of redundancy. One
member of the group observed - "One the big differences I have
observed in our culture as compared to others relates to redundancy.
Knowledge and skill in our place is shared openly and widely so if
there's something you want to try or know it is very easy. In a very
politicized, command and control environment information and skills
are carefully guarded to ensure longevity or security or something."
- Help CEOs (and others too) find a "safe place"
to explore the new, sometimes personally challenging concepts
of complexity.
- Appreciate the strategy of sometimes of "mulling
stuff over and letting the deciding hang" – waiting for emergent
solutions to occur as opposed to forcing a decision that may be a
poor one.
- Engage the organization through action, using
complexity-inspired approaches on difficult organizational challenges.
This enables people to learn from direct experience and appreciate
how concepts from complexity can trigger fresh thinking and more workable
solutions. An example of this approach came from one group member
– "We have done a large group program which puts a cross section
of the system, not just the leaders, in a room at the same time and
has the group work on a wicked question, choose several appealing
courses of action, try them out quickly, all in few hours. The approach
provided a bridge for people to gain some experience with complexity
principles while still feeling somewhat safe." Complexity principles
beneath this approach were tension and paradox, diversity, edge of
chaos, multiple actions.
In the group’s work on emergence some time and attention
was devoted to helping members deal with real issues members they were
facing that related to the general topics of adaptability and emergence.
This effort led to some concluding observations, which
added support to the point in the previous section on attractors and
culture about the central role of genuine, open, and caring relationships
in fostering an adaptable, creative culture. Here is a sample of actual
postings.
- "I think it is great the way you support each other
... and in a way that is consistent with the theories we are exploring.
You look for the patterns in each other’s work that reveal the hidden
potentials in you or your work places. I am so glad that people of
your caliber and spirit are devoting your efforts to health care."
- "Thank you. I have been in need of some energy and
renewed optimism. I need to return to the 15%, and "helping to create
conditions in which the crops grow" and to stop trying to push a boulder
uphill."
This experience in the group also buttressed quite a
number of the points made above – learning by work on real issues, creating
conditions for emergence - openness, information flow, sufficient safety,
diversity of experiences…
Worth pursuing – How can leaders learn to distinguish
seeds of emergence from mere "serendipitous novelty." If so, how? What
do leaders need to do in order to set-up conditions that tend toward
more constructive than destructive outcomes? This issue was raised but
not explored in any depth.
Worth pursuing – How to provide a safe way for
some CEOs and other leaders to come to terms with the expectation they
have of themselves, and the organization has of them, that they must
have the best, right answers.
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