Its High Time Someone Spoke Up!

Egad, where does the time go? It's been some time since my last entry. No apologies, I've been busy.

I don't have a settled mind as of late. It's not that I'm unhappy or angry, just wondering what is happening in this world? I sincerely think we've all lost our minds. I don't know what else to think.

I watch the news, read magazines and newspapers, browse online and read often. The information is out there in bucket loads. We are very informed. So why, oh why, oh why are we such morons? Why are we so destructive with our tangible world yet so lackadaisical with our intangible world. The intangibles we avoid: politics, religion, government, racism. We "talk "about these issues, sure, we talk a lot. But we don't do anything, not really. When it comes to tearing down trees however, and polluting water, we seem to be ready for action 24/7. When we need to take on the government, we get lazy and wait for action.

What in the world is going on? Why is it so hard? Why can't we do more than talk? I'm not daft, I know it's easier to talk than walk the talk. Yes, that's easy to say. But if we can't walk the talk, maybe we should just shut up and let the real 'doers' do the talking.

I'm flabbergasted by politicians who yammer on and on about topics they know absolutely nothing about, except for what they read in the briefing note. These are our voices? Seriously? We're doomed.

I want to hear from the people who know what they're talking about, who have objective opinions and are not swayed by greed or selfishness. If you exist, I can't hear you through all the noise. The media is hugely to blame for this. What did Brittney do today? I don't care. Where is the pot hole in NB that is so big you can fit a chicken in it? I don't care. What is Hillary wearing? I DON'T CARE!

Phew, I needed to vent. Where are you, the voices of clarity, knowledge and sincerity? I know you're out there. Make yourself known please. There are people out here who need to hear from you.

Stimergy - Self Organization

Have you ever wanted to speak up but didn't because you knew that no one would listen? Not a good feeling is it? Well, sadly, this is the state of affairs in hierarchal organizations. Many organizations have tried to be less hierarchical by shifting around upper management, but the results are usually the same. Isn't it strange when organizations who try to be less hierarchal still focus on their higher ranks. How could they ever expect to improve the organization?

Self organization is what they should be looking at. Creating change is not about the role of upper management or middle management. It's about the employees; it's about trust; it's about nature. Why it is difficult for management to think about employees first? What would happen if the hierarchy disappeared? Would the organization survive? That is the true test of the health of an organization.

When you look at natural systems, there isn't a 'boss' who runs the show; nature is self organizing. Organisms have the authority and materials they need to survive. In organizations, which are also living organisms, employees are directed and classified and cannot act naturally. Why is this? Why do we have an incredible need to classify and organize? Why does authority not equate with roles and responsibilities? It's interesting to consider the implications. If employees cannot function naturally and the organization cannot function without someone at the helm, can the organization actually survive or, given the laws of nature, should it survive?

It's a radical concept to imagine organizations without leadership because it's so foreign to our society. We've always had leaders who tell us what to do, think, and say. I'm not talking about Mom and Dad raising kids, I'm talking about organizations, institutions, government. What would happen if employees were empowered, trusted and listened too? What if front line employees had a greater voice in the organization? How would they self organize? Would they do a better job organizing themselves?

Stimergy is a method of indirect communication in a self-organizing emergent system where individual parts communicate with one another by modifying their local environment. The term was introduced by French biologist Pierre-Paul Grassé in 1959 to refer to termite behavior. He defined it as: "Stimulation of workers by the performance they have achieved." It is derived from the Greek words stigma ‘sign’ and ergon ‘action,’ and captures the notion that an agent’s actions leave signs in the environment, signs that it and other agents sense and that determine their subsequent actions.” (from wikipedia)

Participatory organization is an organization which is built based on people participation rather than their contract obligations.

Most current organizations are contract-based. Contracts define a functional structure that holds such an organization together by imposing mutual obligations on people. For example, an employee of a typical organization is obliged to perform a certain function in exchange for some previously agreed compensation. Once established the contract relationship is quite rigid and inflexible. A breach of contract implies severe penalties in most cases. Contracts facilitate organizational planning and often shifts risks from one party to another. Contracts are necessary for existence of fixed and rigid organizational structures primarily because these structures cannot easily accommodate changes: a failure of one element can easily become a cause of the failure of the whole organization. On the other hand, the rigidity of contracts creates a major stress for the people involved, primarily, employees.

Participatory organization is an alternative to the contract model. In the absence of obligations, any participant is free to contribute or not to contribute, free from deadlines to meet. This requires flexibility and robustness from the organizational structure. It should easily accommodate new participants and their contributions, without failing if some participants leave or fail to participate. This way it gives much flexibility to all people involved, while the organization still performs its function reliably. Some participatory organizations emerge spontaneously and are better described by the word self-organization, others are initially designed and organized by entrepreneurs. Human-based genetic algorithm is one possible model to design such an organization. (from wikipedia)

Permanence

Permanence is an interesting concept. What is it about permanence that grabs us and pulls us in? We long to own stuff, long for security, longevity and a home base...why? In life, at work, with friends and family, there seems to be a desire for permanence. Is permanence the ideal state of being or is it something more worrisome?

What is permanence? It is defined as the quality or state of being permanent; continuance in the same state or place; duration; fixedness; as, the permanence of institutions; the permanence of nature.

As we get older, the desire for permanence develops and intensifies; the young ones crave variety and change in their efforts to find an identity and a place in the world. But, is it a desire to make a difference that requires permanence? Do you need to be stationary to change things in the world? I wonder...

Let me explain my curiosity about permanence. Last week, my employer held the annual 25 year awards. Every year, groups of employees are celebrated for 25 years of service. I can't get my head around it. How can someone remain with one employer for 25 years? A symptom of the industrial age, boomerism? I don't get it. Obviously there is a sense of security in a permanent position with an employer; receiving a paycheck every 2 weeks is desirable. But, is that enough?

More and more I'm noticing the sense of permanence in our society. Lifers in corporations, professors with tenure, etc. We're swarming with permanent institutions that run the show: the oil companies, the utility companies, the banks, the government, the post office, the universities, etc. All of them permanent, sluggish, influential beasts. And then there's the rest of society, swarming around the big permanent hives, trying to earn a living, start a business, make a change or two...maybe even generate a buzz (not to go too far with this bee analogy).

In schools, colleges and universities, instructors find permanence. In government, employees find permanence. They get the job, sigh a big sigh of relief and then...settle in. Yep, it's time to wind down once you secure that permanent job. The big buzzing world you just escaped has now become a cubicle space about 12 feet square. After an enthusiastic couple of years, you start to slow down, gradually, and let yourself become absorbed by your new, safe, small world. Your eagerness to improve and change things probably has been met with much resistence. Your energy to overcome obstacles is waning.

I can relate. I enjoy relative job security, permanence and comfort. I know a paycheck is coming. I know I have a desk and a chair in an office and all sort of goodies like colour printers and trips to conferences. But something is wrong. I feel like I'm being kept back, molded, altered somehow. I am afraid of this sense of oppression. I don't feel a part of the bigger picture, the world, anymore.

Sometimes I imagine what it would be like to live in a society where everyone changed jobs every 5 years or so. Would we travel more, learn more, do more, see more? I think we would. I wish we could live like that, without the need for permanence and security. I wish we didn't live in a society where we wait 25 years to honour employees. Risk and change is a part of life, just like in nature. We can't live in a bubble...that's not living. Permanence is not natural and it certainly is not living.

Organizations are not 'things', they are alive.

I don't see a difference between living systems in nature and organizations, institutions and business. They're all the same. We cannot look at organizations with a solid structural mindset. It won't work, it will never work out. Separating organizations and production from the living environment is disastrous, as we can see with environmental degradation. This mindset is viral to organizations, both large and small.

This article snippet caught my attention:

All biological and social systems are comprised of components, or actors, with partially overlapping interests. When component interests are not perfectly aligned or when information is imperfect, conflict inevitably arises. ‘Conflict’ in this sense refers to interactions characterized by an asymmetrical payoff matrix, or those in which individuals rank the set of possible interaction outcomes differently. The role of conflict in facilitating or impeding the emergence of new biological units is of particular interest. Krakauer, Flack , SFI External Professor Nihat Ay, and collaborators have been studying the multi-scale network dynamics of behavioral conflict in relation to how behavioral strategies for managing conflicts evolve in systems in which interactions are polyadic (involving multiple individuals rather than being simply pair-wise) The development of a new, network conflict theory, to include the development of new measures of causality and information flow in networks are in their early stages, and new methods of data analysis of non-linear time series over networks, informed by careful measurements of conflict in a model system (macaque society), are important goals of the project. SFI Professor Jon Wilkins works on closely related issues in the context of intragenomic conflict.

Is there something here? I think so!