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Natural
Living Processes Lexicon
Obtaining
Results with Others
Written 2002. Updated 21 July 2014. The wisdom on the Laceweb website has been drawn from
the grassroots people of the East Asia Oceania Australasia Region. This
Lexicon embraces Natural Business Concepts and Artistry – ‘natural’ in that
they have been drawn from Natural Living Processes and systems. The eco-history of this Lexicon can be traced to
gatherings in Sydney of business innovators in the late 1960's and early
1970's exploring businesses as living systems. These gatherings were enabled
by Dr. Neville Yeomans - a barrister, psychiatrist, sociologist,
psychologist, and biologist. The Lexicon has emerged from PhD and
Post-Doctoral research into these gatherings, network discourse, and Yeomans'
wider life work. The Lexicon also draws upon and adapts to the business
environment recent understandings in the natural sciences - quantum physics,
ecosystems, chaos, natural networks, complexity theory, fuzzy logic and the
like. It is a guide to possibilities. It holds forth possibilities for
extending thinking and action about businesses and organisations celebrations
festivals gatherings as complex systems. This Lexicon also applies to
government and non government organizations at all levels. It also applies to
community based organizations and networks. In glossing this glossary it is possible to get a feel
for the very frontiers of living systems thinking and action. At the same
time it links to very old understanding of those living very close to nature.
It makes use of bio-mimicry to replicate aspects and processes that make
nature thrive so that we can explore together how human nature can also thrive. It may be noticed that many of these concepts imply a
whole new way of thinking about engaging and relating with people and their
capacities, and their linking to organizational and other systems as living
systems - beyond assigning people just to, for example, departments, teams,
groups, or assigning them to others as personal assistants or mentors, or
just to be the executive or management – beyond one category of people who
‘assign people’ - even beyond the notion of ‘category’. What if we begin to
notice the pervasiveness of ‘categorisation’ as a potentially divisive force,
such that we focus on the bits and miss all of the interconnecting? What if
we recognise difference and celebrate and respect difference for cleavered
unity? This Lexicon is dynamic and being continually reviewed
and expanded by Laceweb mutual-help groups including E-Matrix and Connexion. Terms listed
in this Lexicon:
Business Ergotropic and Trophotropic
Systems Business Surviving and Thriving Causation of Business Sickness Cybernetics - First and Second Order
Emergence and Sustaining Innovation
Emergence of Resonant Strange
Attractors in Business Four Aspects
of an Organisation
Geosocial Mindbody Processes - Keyline
and Cultural Keyline INMA - Inter-system Normative Model
Area Natural Systems - Organisational and
Operational Principles of Healthy Business-People Systems Process and Outcome approaches Social Re-constituting of Business
Realities Structural Coupling and Eco-history
Tapping into Alternative Sources of
Power Organizations tend to have 'usual' challenges
(performance challenge). Changing circumstances and contexts can create
'unusual' challenges - different sequences. These may range from those well
within the competency domain of the organization to those that are well
beyond the competency range. Living systems disturbed by unusual challenge
adapt or die. Adaptation may be by incremental change or discontinuous
change. Refer Bifurcation. Organizations that seek to thrive continually scan for
and create Adaptive Challenge. Responses to Adaptive Challenge are defined
and refined in conversation. Asset ‘Asset’ is from the Old French asse
- ‘sufficiency’, satisfaction, compensation’,
noun use of adverb meaning ‘enough, sufficiently; very much, a great deal,’
from the Vulgar Latin ‘ad satis’ ‘to/toward sufficiency’ from Latin ad (to
toward) + satis (‘enough). Notice
that the original flavour and feel of the term ‘asset’ is sufficiency and enough. Earth and all living and non living things are ‘assets’
in the original sense of being precious, desirable, useful aspects with
extraordinary valuable qualities Traditional modes of power and empowering tend to be based
on a zero-sum equation - if you have more, I have less. Power becomes
constituted as a scarce resource that people compete to attain. Traditional
hierarchical organization structures have constituted the zero-sum power
equation because of a preoccupation with control through delegated
decision-making power. Power unconnected with hierarchical structures'
zero-sum power has always being a bane of the powers that be. Examples are
the power of knowledge and wisdom possessed by a person without decision-making
power. Another is the person of influence by dint of social charisma, length
in the organization, or because of possessing important and or sensitive
information or connections – for example, the influential and militant savvy
shop steward. A traditional solution to the other-powered troublemaker is to
promote him into the formal power structure where he/she can be neutralised
by system leverage - 'Now you are one of us!' Within traditional zero-sum power structured systems,
like a modern day Shakespearean drama, we may find ourselves drawn into a
tangled web of artificial boundaries, territories, enclaves and fickle
alliances. In this context, power becomes the ability to exert one's will
over others. The upward mobile thrive on this non-thrive process (refer Business Surviving and Thriving). Others typically become
ambivalent or indifferent. Some can transcend and see the processes and the
processes for processing processes (meta-process), and like the
anthropologist in a strange land, they may notice most things while never
becoming one of the natives – taking the anthropological perspective, they
can view from a detached perspective – setting aside for a time their
socialization and all of their ‘received notions’, and begin to perceive and
make sense of their senses in new ways - transcendent
anthropological relating. While zero-sum power is attractive, it's also a
tremendous distraction, tending to derail everyone involved in it by limiting
their opportunity for expression to the principle dimension of extending and
securing territorial domination. Other capabilities potentials and capacities
are neglected and ignored. Top people never miss not noticing enormous
organisational potential that they stifle without noticing! There was a model of the natural world, about the time
of the Industrial Revolution, which saw 'nature, red in tooth and claw' and
described life in terms of a battle for survival. Business is described as a
'jungle' and it entails the 'survival of the fittest'. Current understanding
in biology shows that while competition is indeed part of the natural world,
it is not a strategy which living systems adopt for sustainable living and
development. Rather, living systems will engage in competition and conflict
in times of crisis and emergency, moving through it to new levels of
synergistic, symbiotic and co-operative (living together) relationships in
the ecosystem. While evolutionists speak of the 'survival of the fittest',
natural systems tend to operate, in fact, on the principle of the 'survival
of the fitting'. Organizations could usefully learn from this! Competition and conflict are legitimate survival
strategies, good in the short-term crisis time frame, but becoming
detrimental in the long term. In seeking to thrive in their environment,
living systems develop strategies of increasing inter-relationship and living
together in sustainable ways. Living systems seek to do more than survive,
they seek to thrive: this is the drive to thrive and our drive to thrive in
our bodyminds is wired up to complex neuro-immuno-endocrinological cross
process linked by neuro-peptide pathways releasing bliss molecules like
endorphins (natural opiates) into the bloodstream as the system experiences a
deeper level of resonance with its network/ ecosystem. Refer Business Surviving and Thriving. The shared experience of
verve in vibrant organizations is
the experiential correlate of the endorphins (refer Stimmung).
In contrast, when the system is fighting to survive,
the ergotropic system (which see) kicks in and the
system loses resonance and coherency with its network/ ecosystem and goes it alone.
The price the system pays for spending too long in this unsustainable state
is to lose sensitivity to internal and external cues for growth (see Trophotropic) system. This is the battle fatigue (shell
shock) which combatants experience; the thousand-yard stare of the combatant
who is dislocated in time and space and cannot make it back to life,
spontaneity and joy. In today’s rugged business environments many human
systems within government and business are in shock. Human systems can learn
to adapt and thrive at the margins in far from equilibrium conditions. Living systems are naturally powerful. This is the
genuine and authentic allure and seductiveness of nature and natural systems.
Living things thrive and grow in ecosystems, which
nurture, support and enable them. They use freely available energy in order
to carry out the living autopoietic function and in order
to generate the conditions for more life. In reality, a living system is not a separate entity;
rather a node in a distributed network or web of life and its thrival is a
function of how it enables the thrival of its network (refer holon).
For hundreds of years, organizations have typically had
structures and processes, which have squashed authentic power. Authentic
power (re)constitutes power as a freely
available property of a living system's internal and external networks;
hence the notion ‘Free Energy’. In this context, personal
power becomes a function of enabling others to develop and exercise their
power in a positive feedback and self-amplifying cycle. Organizations that
seek to tap into their living system’s authentic
power may find that it is there, and has always been there in
abundance. To restate what was said above – the living system’s thrival
is a function of how it enables the thrival of its networks. Refer Enabling. Organizations seeking to explore indentifying and
evolving more authentic power
within their systems may well seek out people within their systems (if any)
who have moved to transcendent anthropological relating within the system (as
discussed above). These people tend to be the natural enablers. As they go
quietly about their good work, they may not stand out at first. Their good
work is often subtle (refer micro-interventions and
nano-interventions). An example - let us say that our project is to bake a
cake. We have assembled the best team in the kitchen. We have spared no
expense on the ingredients. We use the best recipe, assembling the mixture
most carefully. In other words, we have attended to the personnel, the
resources and the procedures. Now comes the time to put the mixture into a
preheated oven. But the oven stays lukewarm. Why? Because the ‘power’ that
heats the process comes from the way that all the components (people,
resources and best practises) work together. It may well be that this Connexity is dysfunctional. It may be that divisive
power and demarcation issues abound. It may well be that interpersonal issues
create tangled mess. In this murky manipulative mess, non-understanding may
have emerged as an indispensable technique! And so, the heat in the system is
faulty and the cake turns out an indigestible mess. Authentic power resides in and emerges from the functional matrix. All the different components form the
structure of the matrix. The power of the matrix comes from the 'connexity - the pathways, relationships and processes
that bind and interconnect all the different parts into a living pattern of
organization. Without this power, even the best mixture will still turn out as slop. The wisdom of Natural Lexicon Processes comes from a
focus on process and quality rather than on outcome (see 'structuring
excellence' and 'process and outcome approaches').
It may be seen that focussing on outcome, e.g. a good cake, tends to obscure
what's happening along the way. People get so concerned about getting to the
finish line that when they encounter dysfunction in their
ability to perform their tasks they will shut down shop, shut up and most
importantly, not communicate their dysfunctionality to the network. Enough of
this type of behaviour accumulates to weaken the matrix. A different approach is where dysfunctionality is
communicated, acknowledged and talked about, perhaps even welcomed - not in
the sense of fault-finding - rather, in order to evoke the wisdom of the
system to enable the challenged part to explore and develop new pathways and
strategies. In this way the 'connexity; the ability
of the system to nurture and enable a safe internal environment in which it
can explore and navigate change and complexity, supports its drive to succeed.
When the part is enabled to negotiate the challenge, the result may well be
that the system as a whole bootstraps itself upwards in power and
functionality. In reference to the cooking example, all kinds of yummy stuff can come out of a good oven linked to
sustainable power - cakes, roasts, bread, and puddings. E-Matrix (life) seeks
to enable the emergent matrix so that whatever is put in – cooks well. In
this way the system thrives in the realm of greater possibilities, in
contrast to mere surviving in the realm of few possibilities. From Greek auto : self, poiesis : making
- therefore meaning self-making. A network of producing/constituting
processes (refer co-re-constituting) in which the
function of each component is to participate in the producing and or
transforming/reconstituting of other components in the network. A business
unit/entity/network is socially constituted (refer reification),
and in this process the people and the people system are themselves
constituted (refer 'normative action research). In this
way, the entire network continually remakes itself. It is constituted by its
components and in turn constitutes those components. And also, the business
as system, constitutes a permeable boundary specifying the domain of the
networks' operations. Business sub-systems likewise have permeable boundaries
for ebb and flow interaction between other subparts and
the wider world. In so doing, these boundaries help define the system and
sub-systems as units. Structure and process are
pervasively interconnected, interdependent, inter-woven, inter-related and
inter-constituting. Resonant concepts are Cleavered Unity',
Connexity, Dichter and Denken, Holon', Co-Reconstituting', and Reification. A natural example of the connectedness of
structure and process is the whirlpool. It only is sustained as structure in
process.
A system state change often through perturbing
leading to the potential and emergence of sudden whole system transcending
transition to higher and more unpredictable complexity and improved
performance. Also see Holon. This Lexicon is in part
about creating and sustaining opportunities for bifurcation to occur. Normative action-research embracing
the wellbeing of the people-business system and its relating with the wider
business environment (refer Ecology, INMA
and Business Ecosystem). Systems of related subsystems in their habitat;
also refer holon). This raises the issue, 'What is the
natural place or locality for people, systems and subsystems? What would
occur in nature (refer Geosocial Mindbody Processes)? How
would things be interconnected? What 'free energy would
be entailed? Business system designers in the past have imposed on nature rather than perceiving
the inherent wisdom in nature, and incorporating nature's design
principles in their action (refer 'Keyline' as model in Geosocial
Mindbody Processes). Exploring the resonance between land topography and
social topography. Business Ergotropic and Trophotropic System These concepts are modelled on the bodies Ergotropic
and Trophotropic Systems. The Business Ergotropic system ensures a
business/organisation’s long-term wellbeing. The Business Trophotropic system ensures a business/organisation’s
short-term wellbeing. Both systems are in a 'Connexity'
relation. The Business Ergotropic System's Function: o The principal function is
the control of short range, moment-by-moment adaptation to events in the
world and the internal environment o It gears the business or
business part to initiate and carry out action - often extremely quickly o It's particularly
connected to fight/flight/avoidance behaviours o
The
system's activation shunts the system's metabolic energy (renewal) away from
long-range developmental activities, towards fast response, though renewal is
not ignored o It enables the
expenditure of vital resources o Quick response energy
pathways are opened and Quick Response Networks are
engaged o It mediates stress
relative to events in the World and the internal environment o Historically, it allows
us to eat without been eaten The Business Trophotropic system's function: o The system operates to maintain
the optimum internal balance of business functions for continued good health
and development of the business as a people-system holon o Controls the business
functions responsible for the long term wellbeing o Links to business and
business part growth and longevity o Regulating all of the
business's vegetative functions: o reconstructing and growth
of system 'cells' - sub-parts o digestion of new
input/output from within/without the system o relaxing for renewal o sleeping on aspects Business Surviving and Thriving To survive is to fight to maintain relationship
to the present reality. To thrive is to use natural processes, available
resources, emerging resources and evolve relationships with future possible
potentialities and realities – the motivation to explore and constitute new
possibilities, choices and realities, that in turn nurture future growth and
ongoing success. Refer Autopoiesis, Sickness
and Disease Model, the Illness-Wellness continuum,
the Causation of Business Sickness, Self
Organising and Self-help. Small changes having big unpredictable consequences in
complex systems far from equilibrium - hence having
system-wide capacity for scanning, identifying and using such effects. Causation of Business Sickness We can use the metaphor of business 'sickness'. In most
diseases prevalent in the industrialized nations, e.g. degenerative diseases
and autoimmune diseases, there is typically no single causal agent
identified. Furthermore, there is typically a large spectrum of changes (signs
and symptoms) that occur with the disease in joints, muscles, attachments,
organs, circulation, psychology and so on. Much effort and money continues to
be spent elucidating each and every pathway that deviates from the expected
norm. The assumption of the research strategy is that
eventually the experts will identify the critical pathway that can then be
modified to control the business ‘disease’. This is a profoundly first-order
'cybernetic approach in which an expert, remaining
'outside' the organization, seeks to steer a system. In the best case
scenario, in which a critical pathway has been identified and interrupted so
as to limit most, if not all of the expressions of disease, the attractor(s)
that governs the system's behaviour have/has not shifted; only the
system's ability to express itself has been controlled. Refer 'Emergence of Resonant Strange Attractors). Furthermore, the outside intervention introduces
multiple variances into the complex feedback and feed forward processes which
maintain the integrity and 'connexity’ of the living
system. We call these 'side-effects' but they are really effects of attempting to control complexity. An analogy would be
trying to control the environmental and social problems in As in physical health, generally, the more ongoing intervention that is
required to control the 'disease', the poorer the quality of life outcomes
for the person/organization. A useful question may be, 'What options are there which
enable living systems to thrive, grow and evolve, and organically respond well,
even if they happen to be in trouble or diseased?' A more natural and fundamentally different approach to
the traditional 'outside business expert diagnosing disease and prescribing'
is the using of a second order cybernetic approach. This
approach involves using enablers who are embedded in the system, to support
the people experiencing 'sickness'. These enablers may come from 'outside'
the organization. However they have transcendent
perception, which enables them to quickly enter the organisations transcendent realities and become insiders. The focus is the living system in all its connexity. The energy-consuming feedback processes
in the process of life are very
dynamic. In other words, the system is very actively engaged in these
processes. Even when deep in the basin of attraction of a sickness process,
some subsystems are relatively freely operational (refer using 'free energy). If the larger system can entrain itself to,
and enhance these inherent processes, then it will tend to become sensitised
to higher order attractors and will
make a global and spontaneous upwards shift in self
organisation. In other words, the system uses intrinsically available, or
endogenous (internal to the system) processes to steer itself towards better
quality of life outcomes, regardless of the presence or reversibility of
previous structural changes. Refer 'Structural Coupling’.
A second order cybernetic approach is basically about
enabling the living system to locate and enhance its innate drive to thrive
which in turn enables it to steer itself successfully through change, crisis,
catastrophe and chaos. Refer 'Cybernetics'. Typically, people tend to think of 'chaos' as a
'complete mess'. The essence of chaos is randomness with constraints - the
constraints of the context and system. Much of the
business world is chaotic. Chaos tends towards order. Chaos in nature often
unfolds into things of great beauty, design, and symmetry. Chaos may be self organising (which see) and have emergent properties
(refer emergence ). For example the random build up of
calcium deposits on the seashell is constrained by being only able to attach
along the exposed edge. The shellfish can only enlarge the shell's opening in
constrained ways. This constrained randomness builds to make the wonderful
spiralling seashells.
Random events, within constraints, may produce
interconnected systems (refer 'connexity') self-organizing),
hence the practicality of having system-wide capacity for scanning and
identifying business opportunities and threats in the flux (refer 'danger alert'). Functional matrices may
take this form. Refer Ebb and Flow. Simultaneously apart and together -
dissipative/replicative - respect for difference enhancing unity - rich
implications (also see 'Colindivity', 'Connexity, 'Dichter and Denken' and
Holon); entails the joint engagement of both the
following concepts: Dissipative (dis-sipative from the Latin dissipatus
- dis = apart, sipare = to throw) hence, 'to throw apart' Replicative (re-plicative: from the Latin replicare
- re = again, plicare = to fold) hence, 'to refold' Co-learning may take place in supportive learning
contexts that break down the artificial divide between teacher and learner.
All participants may bring capability, local knowing and capacity. Everyone,
including teachers and trainers, can be co-learners and all can take on the Enabling role in supporting each other’s learning. In these
contexts, learners can learn things that teachers have never dreamed of, and
participants may learn very different and personally relevant things. The pioneering Australian barrister/psychiatrist, Dr.
Neville Yeomans used the term 'colindivity' (col from collectivities
and indivity from individuals) to refer to a gathering of individuals
and collectivities interacting as individuals and collectivities. The most
frequent collindivities would be those including both the extreme
individualists and extreme collectivists working together on a common problem
in interaction. The collectivists would tend to function as parts of a team
and for its stability, while the individualists would function as single
entities and for their own separate stabilities. Such a subgroup of
individualists could be called an indivity', that is, a collectivity
functioning under an individualistic ideology with its individual units
primarily fostering the reality of their own systems; for example an
international gathering of extreme nationalists. From the Latin com-plex : com (with), plexus
(ply or to fold) When we frame action as
endeavouring to conceive the inconceivable we experience phenomenally what
happens when reaching limits. There’s ‘nothing coming’. Our mind struggles.
There may be confusion and blankness. Often all our mind presents is old
stuff. It streams ideas pretending to be novel that have been pervasively influenced by our prior
socialization. Keeping this in mind, a fascinating challenge is to empty mind
and surrender, completely surrender and then contemplate about how even our
ways of knowing are limiting our knowing. There are many cultures in the
world that do not use our ways of knowing. They do not, explain, describe,
define, conceptualise, categorize, or ask questions. How would we be without
those? What if we dropped all of these and emptied our minds and surrendered
to our being in the world and began looking with fresh eyes, and hearing with
fresh ears, and feeling with a very fresh hyper-aware body aware of our
awareness shifting between moving, sensing, and feeling and awaiting for and
appreciating what we become aware of – not recognising by filtering perception through current conceptions, rather re-cognising
in new ways. Indigenous peoples for example have profound embodied experience of being very
closely connected to their world. They walk it. They draw it on the ground,
on bark and rock faces, on their bodies, they tell of it in stories, they
sing the stories and dance the stories and sing the stories on their musical
instruments. They widely use metaphors. And all of this they know through
embodied experience of being and being in the world with others. Mostly,
people up in their heads being rational are profoundly disconnected from most
of what is going on in their being and their being in the world with others.
Setting out to conceive the inconceivable may lead to a profound awaking to
our full potential. From the Latin con-nectere:
to join together; simultaneously having complex pervasive
interdependence, interrelatedness, interconnectedness and interweaving; a
system having all of these characteristics; a system design frame;
connexity is usefully explored using Dichter and Denken.
Also refer Logic for the link between 'reason' and
'connexity'. Attending, noticing and perceiving simultaneous system
interdependence, interrelatedness, interconnectedness and interweaving
entails using connexity perception. Refer Objectivity and
Subjectivity. Connexity Perception Connexity Perception is a form of advanced perceiving
that may emerge through awareness of awareness of attending to the
co-presence of interconnecting, inter-relating, inter-depending and
inter-weaving of parts of a system of systems. Refer holon. From the Latin con-scire : knowing together,
i.e., consciousness is essentially a social phenomenon - an example of
separated unity or cleavered unity One of the massive aspects
contributing to organisational, personal and interpersonal dysfunction is
disconnect. Examples of disconnect: For consciousness-raising, consider experiencing what
it’s like reading some examples of disconnect type behaving and functioning.
Noticing what happens when you experience differing forms of disconnect, so
as to recognise if these start occurring: o
disconnect thinking feeling sensing moving o
disconnect mind from body o
disconnect awareness from moving o
disconnect our ‘inferior’ right brain from our ‘superior’
‘dominant’ left brain o
disconnect all other parts of our brain from our frontal cortex o
disconnect our corpus callosum -
the connections between our brain hemispheres o
disconnect norms from action o
disconnect non-linear from linear o
disconnect imagination and passion from order and control o
disconnect everything below our neck from our head o
disconnect the left side of our body from the right side of our
body o
disconnect our left hand from our right hand o
disconnect our left eye from the right eye - though both still synchronise when moving o
disconnect our heart from our head o
disconnect our shoulders from our arms o
disconnect our inner experience from our outer experience o
disconnect our past and future from our present o
disconnect our subjective from our objective o
disconnect from process via reducing verbs to nouns (as done in
this list – nouns like ‘passion’, ‘reason’, ‘will’, ‘brain’ and ‘emotion’) o
disconnect from whole processing via categorising o
disconnect our experience of flow-of-experience from
specific-experience o
disconnect our body from place o
disconnect our embodied
knowing from our will and reason o
disconnect our child-within from play and spontaneity o
disconnect awareness from context o
disconnect our passion from our reason o
disconnect our imagining from our thinking o
disconnect function from meta-function and both from value o
disconnect our values from our acts o
disconnect scrutiny and doubt from our norms and values o
disconnect our ‘crap detector’ from our beliefs o
disconnect other from self o
disconnect my pain from others’ pain o
disconnect the multidimensional from the linear o
disconnect the web of life from self o
disconnect quantity from quality o
disconnect from our subtle energies o
disconnect our selves from our abilities, resources, and
capacities o
disconnect our values from our perceived interests o
disconnect the rest of the world from our narrow interests o
and many, many more ....and then
disconnect each of the above disconnects from each other. Then for
ecology reverse every one of these: o
connect thinking feeling
sensing and moving o
connect mind with body o
connect awareness with
moving o
connect our right brain
with our left brain o
connect all other parts of
our brain with our frontal cortex o
connect our corpus
callosum - the connections between our
brain hemispheres o
connect norms with action o
connect non-linear with
linear o
connect imagination and
passion with order and control o
connect everything below our
neck with our head o
connect the left side of
our body with the right side of our body o
connect our left hand
with our right hand o
connect our left eye with
the right eye o
connect our heart with
our head o
connect our shoulders
with our arms o
connect our inner
experience with our outer experience o
connect our past and
future with our present o
connect our subjective
with our objective o
connect with process via
transforming nouns to verbs o
connect with whole
processing via connecting & relating o
connect our experience of
flow of experience with specific experience o
connect our body with
place o
connect our embodied knowing with our will and
reason o
connect our child-within
with play and spontaneity o
connect awareness with
context o
connect our passion with
our reason o
connect our imagining
with our thinking o
connect function with
meta-function and both with value o
connect our values with
our acts o
connect scrutiny and
doubt with our norms and values o
connect our ‘crap detector’
with our beliefs o
connect other with self o
connect my sensing and
feeling with others’ sensing and feeling o
connect the
multidimensional with the linear o
connect the web of life
with self o
connect quantity with
quality o
connect with our subtle
energies o
connect our selves with
our abilities, resources, and capacities o
connect our values with
our perceived interests o
connect ecologically the
rest of the world with our interests Then for completeness, we may
explore connecting with yourself through entering into the following feeling
states. Either recall a time when you have experienced feeling the following
state, or imagine a context where you are experiencing the feeling. Feel: o Able o Accepted o Accepting o Acclaimed o Acknowledged o At peace o Balanced o Calm o Competent o Complete o Confident o Connected o Creative o Discovering o Ease o Expansive o Flexible o Focused o Friendly o Fun o Functioning o Funny o Giving o Growing o Imaginative o Inspired o Integrated o Involved o Large as life o Loved o Loving o Noticed o Occupied o Open o Peaceable o Personable o Playful o Receiving o Recognised o Relaxed o Spontaneous o Thriving o Understanding o Welcome o Welcoming o Well Processes for increasing
connect and removing disconnect are explored through this Lexicon and Laceweb
pages. From the Latin contexere : 'to weave together'
or 'webmaking'. The setting of experience which can shed light on its
meaning. We may use awareness of context, especially scope for multiple
realities (refer 'realities) as a frame
for dichter and denken and kennen.
See also comments on context in interpreting. Business people in line management are accountable to shareholders.
Line managers' control is associated with the prerogative and power to make
decisions and authorize action. This top-down control is often accompanied by
system resistance expressed as noise and filtering in the up-flow of the
feedback used in control (refer the concepts 'Fuzzy' and
'Fuzzy Logic'). Line management is vertically linear. In
contrast, matrix or network processes are non-linear (refer Process
and Non-Linear Process), in that they involve multiple
local, inter-local, lateral and three dimensional (mainly horizontal) energy
flows (refer 'connexity'). See also discussion on
forms of power and control in authentic empowering. Line managers may be preoccupied with protecting their
prerogatives in relation to decision-making and delegation. Worker
participation by non-line managers in decision-making has been resisted over
the past forty of so years. Natural business concepts included in this
lexicon and 'Normative Action Research' may subtly alter
the absolute linear control of decision-making and action authorizing. The
nature of delegated accountability and action initiating may shift. Delegated
accountability and action initiating may be given more to matrices,
networks and people systems rather than only to line personnel. Even decision-making may have complementary processes
whereby, 'what to do' emerges from normative action research
(which see), so that all those involved sense what to do, often using
embodied knowing (refer Embodiment, and begin doing it,
without a 'let's decide' meeting even taking place. Refer Authentic
Empowering for a discussion on similar themes. 'Effectiveness' and 'does
it work' are continually being monitored (refer 'Normative
Action Research'). Action is continually assessed for fit with other
interconnected, inter-related, inter-dependent aspects of the business or
other organisation (connexity). All of the prudent business checks and balances as to
resource access, allocation, review, and acquittal may be built into the
emerging matrix process and in this, the numbers MUST work for sustained
existence. Some non-monetised energies tapping into free energy in people for
good works may have little use of the numbers
must work criterion and little use of control within Self
Organizing Systems. Traditional linear processes may be supported and
complemented by non-linear processes, with open flow of information,
negotiated meaning, and action between the two modes (refer Process
and Non-Linear Process). Computer networks, email,
e-groups, and the Internet may facilitate this process. Social systems/realities are socially constituted, and
hence can be reconstituted. 'Co-reconstituted' implies an interconnected
mutual interaction for reconstituting system(s) (Refer 'Connexity',
'Realities' and especially, 'Reification'.
Also refer Normative Action Research). In the process of mutually constituting and
reconstituting social realities, this process tends to fold back to constitute
and reconstitute the people involved as socially constituted products of the
process (with differences) - a connexity based
intertwining and intermingling of causes and effects (refer Non-Linear
Process). Back to Terms listed in this Lexicon
Cultural Healing ‘Culture’ in this context
refers to how we live well together. Organisations may have very problematic cultures
that resist change. Organisational and community processes termed Cultural Healing Action and
Cultural Healing Artistry have a long and successful history on the margins.
These processes may be adapted to organisational context and blended with
other concepts in this Lexicon. First Order Cybernetics models close-to-equilibrium
mechanistic systems (refer 'equilibrium'). When first
order cybernetics is applied to living systems it typically treats the living
system in mechanistic terms. The focus is homœostasis - keeping the system on
an even level and dampening flux. A thermostat is an example. First order
cybernetics does involve a shift of focus from the individual part to the
system interaction. It views the observer of the model as external to the
system. Second Order Cybernetics models far-from-equilibrium living
systems. The focus is morphogenesis (the evolving of structure and pattern in
living systems) and integrative functions at the edge of instability. Second
Order Cybernetics recognizes that all people in the business are in a connexity relation - they are profoundly
interconnected. This raises the challenge of business people observing and
understanding a system of which they are, of necessity, an integral part. Second Order Cybernetic observers and actors include
themselves as a constitutive element in the system they are observing and
acting in, and recognize that their very observing has constitutive and 'co-reconstituting potency. This view changes the 'them-us'
stance with the accompanying, 'We are right and they are wrong'.
Understandings and action take account of connexity.
Also refer Logic for the link between 'reason' and
'connexity'. It follows that attempts at knowing are constitutive.
The word 'fact' comes from the Latin word facere : to make - hence manufacture,
(from Latin manu : hand, fact : make) originally meaning 'make
by hand'. Facts, as meanings, are 'made' by people in the role of factors,
that is, as the maker of the facts. Facts are extracted from the complex of
human experience and the very process of extracting facts makes more facts.
This process embraces 'kennen as well as wissen (refer Process and Non-Linear Process). Second Order Cybernetic thinking and perceiving (making
sense of our senses) gives up a relentless quest for certainty. Uncertainty
may be scary, or at least disconcerting, though it liminally (refer limin) opens the door to many new possibilities -
possibilities for example, of scanning for gain, loss, safety, and danger in
the context of opportunity and threat (refer 'dichter and
denken' and 'Fuzzy'). Second Order Cybernetic
thinking views things tentatively (refer 'Fuzzy Logic')
and has everything under continual review. It breaks down reified (refer reification) dogma and sacred cows. However it fully
respects and draws understanding and inspiration from the businesses' structural coupling and eco-history without being bound by
these aspects. Pervasive among the web of life is a sense of danger.
Some people and groups have this sense blocked – they do not recognise danger.
Businesses can set up network processes with the function of continually
scanning for, recognizing, and immediately responding to danger (refer Dichter and Denken). From the Latin destino : the weaving; hence the
notion of stacking and weaving together future possibilities - making
futures. These words combined form a German expression. As an
example, some great creative people are called 'dichter and denken'. When
using this term to refer to say a poet, the speaker is suggesting that the
listener simultaneously merges in his or her reflection the poet, the poem making and the poem. This is calling for us to
engage in a very rich form of reflective contemplating. It is about our intersubjectively
responding to the intermingling of the three elements, i.e., the poet, the
poem making and the poem. In the business context, an example is the merging
of firstly, system designers/reconstitutors, secondly, system
designing/reconstituting, and thirdly, the system(s) themselves; and
perceiving these three as a connexity/holon.
Note that it is easy to think about any of the three
separately. Thinking of two simultaneously is more 'work', and merging the
three in contemplation (refer kennen) is typically a
challenge - though a worthwhile experience into a new (higher?) more 'connexity based mode of reflecting/perception (making
sense of the senses). An example of Dichter and Denken is simultaneously
scanning for firstly initiators of gain, loss, safety, and danger, secondly,
the initiating process that are evolving, and thirdly, the unfolding of gain,
loss, safety, and danger and the interplay of high/low levels of each - eg,
safely doing dangerous things, while maximizing gain and minimizing loss;
another is spotting when relatively safe things are being done dangerously
for little gain and potential for high loss (refer Non-Linear
Process). Another expression that is similar is 'connexity perception' (refer connexity). A part of this in the visual sense is
simultaneously attending to visual full field - the ever shifting
background-foreground distinction, the flitting point of high acuity, the
distant-close distinction and the peripheral; and including in awareness the
aware self as responding perceiving (sense-making) mindbody-viewer, the
viewing and the viewed and using all of this in being aware of and attending
to all of the connexity in the context – the inter-connectedness, the
inter-relatedness, the inter-dependence (refer structural
coupling and eco-history). Using dichter and denken may be useful in Fuzzy contexts. People rarely have connexity perception
although it is a potent capacity to develop through increasing awareness of
awareness. Back to Terms listed in this Lexicon
Business organizations are open dissipative structures
- structures that dissipate energy. Far from equilibrium, the systems flow
processes are interlinked through multiple feedback loops (refer Second Order Cybernetics). When the system encounters a bifurcation point, it may branch off suddenly into an
entirely new state of greater potential. Put another way, a special
characteristic of dissipative business structures, is that as the system
moves further away from the equilibrium state, the system may develop
suddenly into forms of ever increasing complexity and capacity - a process of
neg-entropy, meaning the opposite of entropy. This is a wide spread
phenomenon in natural organic complex systems. Life is primarily innovative. In this context, living
systems are historically being challenged with levels of environmental change
that exceed their current capabilities and capacities. To be immersed in a situation which exceeds one's
present functionality is to be dysfunctional in that context. Evolution
happens when a living system innovates a new pathway or new sub-system (see liminality) which can handle the challenge, and the system
as a whole moves to a higher level of functionality and coordination between
sub-systems. In this regard, refer 'agency' and 'transcendence' in holon. Adaptation has occurred. Dysfunction is therefore an
essential ingredient in the evolutionary process. See incapability
capability. When part of a system is challenged by an event that
exceeds its capabilities and capacities (the definition of dysfunction) the
system as a whole draws upon the resilience of its network (see 'Connexity ) to enable the part to develop a new strategy/pathway
to handle the challenge. A key talent in this context is having incapability capability. If the process is successful, the system as a whole
grows and evolves to a higher order of interconnection, complexity, and
functionality (see 'self organisation' , 'logic'
and 'connexity'). If not, the system stagnates, withdraws
from that region of the environment, or begins to fragment. Systems in which none of the components are exposed to
dysfunctionality can be seen to be in a state of complex equilibrium. In living organisms and organisations a state
of equilibrium is not consistent with natural evolutionary processes - both
ecologies and markets are characterised by dynamic non-linear change and
far-from-equilibrium states. Naturally occurring forces eventually select out such
unresponsive systems from the ecosystem. The process of 'structuring
excellence’ (which see) enables the organisation to develop strategies
for identifying, amplifying and nurturing its network and 'connexity’ in order to navigate through dysfunction towards
adaptation, innovation, and growth. As an example, a bodybuilder works specific muscle
groups - to challenge them. What's happening in this process is that the
muscle is being worked to the threshold of physiological dysfunction, i.e.,
it is deliberately exposed to demands, which exceed its capability and
capacity. As a relevant metaphor to business contexts, at the
physiological level - the muscle begins to break down - catabolism -
hopefully, a limited process. Now the next phase is critical - traditionally
called the recovery phase, but actually much more. During this time the
muscle is rebuilt bigger, stronger, and faster, depending on the kind of
training. But what enables this process? What rebuilds the muscle? The rest
of the system! The ability to handle the challenge and provocation depends
upon the rest of the system being able to support and nurture the muscular
component through its 'crisis' so that it can emerge at a higher order of
functioning. Nutrition, rest, stress, and a myriad other things which affect
the bodymind also affect the training outcomes for the individual muscle. In terms of the phase portrait -
the map of all the potential behaviours of the system - it grows to reflect
the new capability of the system as a whole. Depending on the quality of the
training - how the phase portrait evolves may vary. For example, one type of
training is appropriate for Mr. Universe, another for a competitive rock
climber. This also ties in with the ebb and flow concept
- flow is the doing - on the out breath -and ebb is the integrating of
experience - on the in breath. Learning, co-learning, evolution, and growth
depend on this coupling. Capability means the potential to perform behaviour.
For example, strength capacity means the potential to sustain behaviour, e.g.
stamina. So there's a twofold process- we can call the first a
'primary enabling' - the challenge that puts us squarely in the realm of
dysfunctionality. The second we may call a 'secondary enabling' - when we
draw upon internal and external resources to meet the challenge of developing
new pathways and strategies. Dysfunction tests the resilience of the network
- this is 'connexity’. In terms of self - when I face a challenge that reveals
dysfunction, what is my response? I may recognize a choice: either
self-enabling (nurturing the networks and PRONOIA), or self-negating
(defending against the change and Paranoia). Our E-Matrix (Emergent Matrix) is all around us - it is
life itself. Life creates us. Every moment. How is life supporting me to face
the challenges? Where is the 'free energy? Is my
neurophysiology going into defence/survival mode, or growth/thrival mode? There
is nothing wrong with defence. Sometimes it's the most appropriate response,
especially when survival is the issue. In evolving and using Natural Business
Concepts in this Lexicon we're focusing
on enabling growth strategies, not trying
to eliminate defensive strategies. The concept 'ebb and flow' is drawn from the ebb and
flow of the tide. In some business exchanges, such as negotiating and
mediating contexts, it may be appropriate to slowly withdraw (ebb) from
interacting and then at an appropriate moment begin to flow back again
(flow). They may have a series of these ebbs and flows as appropriate to
context - like peeling layers of an onion. Interact a bit and recede and then
return again. Coastal and Estuarine people living close to nature are
familiar with the mingling flow of the fresh water and the salt water with
tidal changes, and others may experience the muddy water of a creek or river
flowing into the clearer water of another waterway. Each of these contexts is
a useful metaphor for negotiating, mediating,
understanding, and respecting of meaning within and between people and their
respective and typically differing realities. From the Greek oikos meaning household; study of
relationships linking all members of the Earth household. Coined in 1866 by
Ernst Haekel: 'science of relations between organism and the surrounding
outer world'. Systems of related organisms in their habitats (see 'Business Ecosystem' and 'Habitat') Embodiment is a central Lexicon concept. There is
pervasive interrelating, inter-depending, inter-connecting and inter-weaving
(connexity) between organisations, ideas and
feelings about organisations, and our
bodies. Each of the ideas in this Lexicon may be embodied; that is, experienced and sensed
as phenomenal knowing and understanding. When we walk terrain we engage
with it as a lived-life bodily experience. We have experienced our bodies
engaging in the process. Later we can relive the terrain in our mind’s eye.
We have embodied the terrain. In experiencing the applying of Lexicon
concepts and embodying Lexicon concepts, our 'bodymind' functions differently.
The latest research in neuro-psycho-biology has
'bodymind' as the appropriate single word. Everything is profoundly linked.
E-Matrix has over fifty years of history in researching and enabling others
in embodying Lexicon concepts in thinking and acting as a living system.
Embodiment is about evolving as a living system with other people as living
systems (refer Gouldner). Take a dysfunctional extreme example: up tight people with
cold, deadened emotion, rigidity, standing to attention, with unquestioning
obedience - ideas, feelings, body functioning and action merge. As an entry
point for exploring this, notice the expressions we use. When a person says
they're 'up tight', typically they are raising their shoulders and are
holding them rigid (experience what this feels like and then let go and
notice the difference). Other expressions are 'bitter and twisted', 'on the
back foot', 'down', 'that's heavy', 'stiff upper lip', 'depressed' and 'shut
down'. Each of these is a descriptor of how people shut down in response to
aversive contexts. While each of these body shifts has survival value, there
are more adaptive things we can do with our bodies! There’s no ideal state,
rather flexibility to move between different adaptive states appropriate to
context happening at appropriate times – and this is sustainable - as we are
not going for an ideal; rather, that we may better adapt to challenges and
contexts. Refer ‘Transforming’ for a brief discussion
on links between moving, sensing, feeling, and thinking. Typically, it is
easy to start change by moving differently! Reflecting mind-body split and disconnect, organisational metaphorical stereotypes
have leaders as the 'brains', the workers are the 'brawn'. Further splitting
has leaders as 'left brain' - logical, linear and rational. Others may be
derided as 'right brain' - non-logical, non-linear and irrational. A touted
ideal is 'to be objective'. 'Being subjective' with some people is a term of
abuse. In this regard refer Objectivity and Subjectivity.
There tends to be strife with the people side of organisations - with the
intersubjective. All of this splitting or disintegrating has aversive
consequences for people and organisations. Consider all of the ways used to
split mind from body. Loud music, alcohol, body tension, holding one’s head
on an angle, drugs, addictive behaviour, hyperactivity, amusement, TV, radio,
books, using the linguistic form 'you' when referring to myself (e.g., 'You
feel so disconnected') - the list is long. Organisational norms further the
splitting. There may be sanctions against being subjective and emotional;
there may be unspoken protocols on what is unmentionable and undiscussable.
We must use channels for communicating and there are sanctions against 'going
outside the channel. Research has shown that the hard driving, high job
involvement Type A personality often found among business leaders correlates
with heart trouble, ulcers, divorce and marital breakdown, as well as mental
breakdown and early death! That which contributes to success brings with it
the seeds of failure. Illusion by splitting is that ideas are real. What is
real is the experience, the feeling and the emotions connected to mindbody
whole system complexity - useful for adapting new behaviours. This Lexicon is all about integrity and connexity -
thinking, sensing, perceiving, feeling and acting as a living system imbedded with others in social living systems and all that that implies and involves.
This is not a metaphor. It is the way it is. We can recognise and remember
this - as in re-cognise and re-member, that is, to change our thinking and to
get it into our members - our arms and legs. We can realise this in a
two-fold sense - as understand, and as in 'make real'. To embody. Think of a particular people challenge you have been
involved in - how did you respond? From a personal perspective? From an
atomistic perspective? From a stereotypical categorical perspective? From a
fault finding, scapegoating, blaming, judging, and demanding perspective? If
so, how is this frame embodied? What is the emotional tone and
resourcefulness? What happens if we change to sensing and thinking like a
system? What is that like? if we look for what is the freer energy? Looking
for what works? What if we begin working with the free energy close to what
is working? Add more of the Lexicon concepts as internal resource states and
modes of responding and we are evolving a very new type of person and a new type of organisation. Explore thriving beyond defence. Also refer Eco-history. Emergence and Sustaining Innovation When a system advances to a minimum level of
complexity, emergent properties arise that were not evident at lower levels
of complexity. For example the taste of Glucose can’t be ascertained from the
individual Carbon, Hydrogen and Oxygen particles that make up glucose. The
sweetness emerges as a system property when the three components are mixed in
the particular 6:12:6 ratio. 'Self-organisation occurs naturally
in far-from-equilibrium systems, manifesting as dissipative
structures. The emergence of dissipative structures in these systems is
congruent with the concept of innovation described as new effective and
efficient strategies to get a system where it needs to go. Dissipative structures are sustained when the
far-from-equilibrium systems that produce them are sustained. If the system
is allowed to fall back to equilibrium then the resultant downward shift in
organisation and complexity will tend to cause the emergent phenomena to
disappear. Emergence of Resonant Strange
Attractors in Business
Within complex multivariable systems of motion there
may be one or two points in the phase plane that 'attracts' the system
energy, as in the rest point of a simple swinging pendulum. Some more complex
multivariable systems may have their movements restricted to what are called
'strange attractors', having say three variables. Do Businesses, as
multivariable systems in motion, have something approaching a 'strange
attractor' as an essential aspect adding/influencing form(s)? What, if any,
person or group, or aspect would be a 'strange attractor' in business? What
would be their/its function and effect? Is this at least a useful metaphor?
For example, how may nodal people influence the complex shape of
self-organizing systems by a few strategic interventions? How, if at all may
free energy in a business system be linked to strange attractors? Gouldner (1970,
pp. 222) writes of the
potency of one nodal person: The embodied
and socialized individual is both
the most empirically obvious human
system, and the most complex and
highly integrated of all human systems; as a system, he is far more
integrated than any known ‘social system’. In his embodiment, the biological,
psychological, social, and cultural all conjoin. And a single
creative individual, open to the needs of other and the opportunities of his
time, can be a nucleus of spreading hope and accomplishment. This Lexicon supports people involved in organizations learning
about evolving their own personal
agency through their embodied
experience of their biologically
flexible responding to their own moving, sensing, feeling, and verbalising in relational
social engaging with others in evolving together organisational
cultures (as in living well together) of their own making. Refer Flexibility.
What of such a nodal person with authentic power outside of the dominant
control process engaging in enabling of possibilities for the good of all
aspects of the organisation? Some numbers: 3 different things can be
arranged in 6 ways (3X2X1) - called 3 factorial 10 different things can be arranged in over 3.6 million ways
(10x9x8x7x6x5x4x3x2x1) - 10 factorial 11 different things can be arranged in over 39.9 million ways
(11X10x9x8x7x6x5x4x3x2x1) – 11 factorial We have around 100 billion neurons in the adult human nervous system
each having around 7,000 synaptic connections to other neurons – and we have
an estimated 100 to 500 trillion synapses in our nervous system. Now if just 11different things can be arranged in over 39.9 million
ways, how many different ways can 100-500 trillion synapses be connected? As
well, that is just the complexity of the networking. An infinite number of
phenomenal experiences can pass along this enormity. We have astronomical potential
for experience! As an indication, one trillion is a number 13 digits long (1,000,000,000,000). One trillion
factorial is a number somewhere in the vicinity of 11.5 trillion digits long. 500 trillion factorial is a
mind-boggling number. To rephrase
Gouldner, a human being is far more integrated than any known ‘social
system’ and in his embodiment, the biological, psychological, social, and
cultural all conjoin. In just one talented
embodied nodal individual with Connexity perception we have astronomical
potential. Community may be a potent resource within
organisations. Typically, organisations have many aspects that may disable
and limit the forming of 'community' among participants (refer Authentic
Power). Some processes used for centuries within organisations arguably
have inherent dysfunctional consequences in disconnecting people from
potential. Taken for granted assumptions about running business
organisations and other organisations may be a potent force limiting community and functioning. A few possible examples: o
Always behind – little free time for
community o
Coercive Culture – this is the way we do
things around here o
Categorisation – dividing people and the
world up into departments, sectors, programs, discrete enclaves, professional
enclaves and the like o
Competition - Power becomes
constituted as a scarce resource that people compete to attain and jealously
guard. Traditional hierarchical organization structures have constituted the
zero-sum power equation because of a preoccupation with control through
delegated decision-making power. o
Complex salary
administration systems –
linking salaries and salary-increase potential to aggregation of task bits
restricting use of multi-skilling and cooperation o
Controlled movement – Sit ‘properly’ in the
chair. Watch the walk of the grey suit people – the managers; the people with
power and authority. Dress and movement as intimidation o
Departments and sections
competing for budgetary resources – others parts seen as ‘the
opposition’ o
Divide and rule – having all manner of
ways that keep people apart o
Divide between structure
and process –
compared with structure as process in action o
Double bind behaviours – Certain things being
undiscussable, as it would up the ante, and this undiscussability being
undiscussable o
Evolving professional
languages, acronyms, terminology, jargon only known to those in
the enclave o
Fixed Agendas – past ideas imposing on
the present context o
Focusing on bits – Never seeing Emergent properties - those complex system properties that
emerge at a certain level of complexity but do not exist at lower levels, and
hence can never be found by looking at smaller and smaller bits. o
Going through channels – strict controls on who
one can talk to and information flow o
Hierarchical organization
– tends
to limit who one talks up to or down to skewing meaning and understanding o
Inter-contextual
algorithms –
typically, step-based processes to be applied independent of changeable
contexts o
Ivory tower and executive
dining rooms –
exclusive areas – use of space o
Mind on your job – focus on the next thing
in the pile o
Minimising redundancy – if more redundancy
emerges, more resources tends to be coopted to the control function o
Nominalisation – Collapsing dynamic process to thing by changing verbs into nouns –
‘deciding’ to ‘decisions’, ‘delegating’ to ‘delegation’, ‘innovating’ to
‘innovation’ o
Non-understanding as an indispensable
technique –
tough decisions affecting people are easier to make if you don’t know the
people o
Norms against spontaneity
–
business is serious. Show decorum. o
Objectivity – repressing the
subjective and intersubjective. Refer Objectivity and
Subjectivity and Four
Aspects of an Organisation o
Power and empowering based on
a zero-sum equation - if you have more, I have less o
Power dressing – white collar – blue
collar o
Power environments – size of office, expense
of furniture and fittings – dis-enabling environments o
Regulations – requiring certain
kinds of behaviours o
Reification – treating human evolved
entities as if they are unchangeable – they have been constituted by human activity
so they can be re-constituted o
Restricted to job role – not paid to think o
Them and us divides – between sections of the
organisation o
Time distortion – time drags and numbs
any verve o
War as a metaphor – ‘it’s a jungle and it’s
the survival of the fittest’, compared with ‘life is filled with
possibilities and it’s the survival of the fitting’ One organization had around half of
its people attend a snow weekend where they were snowed in. The community
that naturally emerged from this experience of living close together in the
cramped quarters fundamentally transformed the business culture. Knowledge-based protocols tend to eventually annihilate
natural, spontaneous and vivacious emergent processes of self-organization.
Community is formed in relational conversation fostering authentic power,
mutual respect, openness, trust, respect for diversity of opinion and
creative use of conflict. Emergent Communities continually scan for and foster strange attractors, and emergence. Those complex system properties that emerge at a
certain level of complexity but do not exist at lower levels, and hence can
never be found by looking at smaller and smaller parts. (Refer ‘Bifurcation Point’ 'Connexity' and
'Holons'). 'Enablers' as the name suggests 'enable' – they support
people to be able. They endeavour to create the physical and social 'context, 'frame and 'stimmung
within the person or group that maximises worker's capacity for personal, group
and network empowerment. Enablers identify and create possibilities for
extending other people’s abilities - in making effective responses, and in
taking cooperative and effective action to enrich business system wellbeing
together - self help. Typically, every large group of people naturally have
people who are enablers. They are an integral aspect of both formal and
informal systems. Typically, enablers have Authentic Power. Enabling
Environments are: ·
Places
where positive relationships promote well-being for all participants ·
Places
where people experience a sense of belonging ·
Places
where all people involved contribute to the growth and well-being of others ·
Places
where people can learn new ways of relating ·
Places
that recognise and respect the contributions of all parties in helping
relationships Concepts in this Lexicon and in Laceweb sites support
achieving an outstanding level of best practice in creating and sustaining a
positive and effective social environment. From the Latin equi-librium: 'aequus':
make same (level as in even); libra: to balance. Most phenomena that
we encounter in the universe, including ourselves, are embedded within, or
are actually are far-from-equilibrium systems. The dynamics of
far-from-equilibrium systems tend to naturally produce spontaneous 'self-organisation with 'emergent
properties. If our heart is in equilibrium we are dead or about to die;
living hearts have rhythms far from equilibrium. Businesses in equilibrium
are inflexible. Vibrant businesses are characterized in part by being far
from equilibrium. In conditions of instability, far-from-equilibrium
systems tend to spontaneously self-organise as emergence
unfolds linked to the capability of the system to maintain its integrative
functions at the edge of chaos. As a context, evolution tends to occur as a boundary
phenomenon where chaos becomes maximal. The global ecology (Gaia) has thrived
for the last 3.5 billion years due to the ability of its subsystems to
self-organise and innovate in response to crisis, catastrophe and chaos
(far-from-equilibrium). The effect is ongoing upward shift in complexity,
self-organisation, and connectivity (refer 'connexity').
Businesses can learn from this. Back to Terms listed in this Lexicon
The following picture
depicts a synapse in the human nervous system.
The following diagram
introduces some of the processes enabling both habit and flexibility within our
nervous system.
The diagram depicts in
simple terms aspects of the flux and flow of electrical and chemical
information flow. On the left is electrical
flow of information The blue arc stores
information carrying chemicals that can Release
across to the mauve arc containing differing Receptors. These receptors can
receive the chemical-based information and pass it on further to the right as
electrical-based information. Notice the up arrow. This depicts the first of
the flexibility features. Information-Chemical flow may disperse through the wall and return to the blue storage arc
before it reaches the receptors. This is
Dispersal. Dispersed
Information-Chemicals may return to storage. This is one form of
Information-Chemical Re-uptake. After passing through the
Receptors, Information-Chemicals may: a) Return
to storage. This is another form of Re-uptake,
or b) Disintegrate
and pass into the body fluid system to be reassembled or filtered out through
the kidneys and bladder Note the five blocks in
the system. 1. On
the left - Electrical signals may be blocked before transforming the
information to chemical-based information carriers 2. The
Chemical-based carriers may be blocked: a. From
storage release. b. Part
way across the gap to the Receptors (hence involved in dispersal) c. At
the Receptors (Receptor Blockers) d. On
their way back to storage (Re-uptake
Blockers); these chemicals then further disperse or disintegrate. This set of system ‘stop’
and ‘flow” properties provides massive scope for both habitual and flexible
behaviours and experience. The flexibility woven
into the human body may be used as a metaphor for organisational process
flexibilities using flexible ebb and flow processes: o
Release o
Blockers o
Dispersal o
Re-uptake o
Receptors o
Re-uptake
Blockers o
Disintegrators Ways are available for
supporting people to increase flexibility and break dysfunctional habits
using the forgoing understandings of how our nervous systems work. Also refer
Flexibility and Habit Four Aspects of an Organisation The following segment is adapted from Ken Wilbur. Organisational
people (and other) systems have both internal and external aspects.
Organisations consist of individuals linked into collectivities. Combining
these aspects we can use the following model. Note that the two left
quadrants have the interior aspects and the two right quadrants have the
exterior aspects. The two upper quadrants have the individual aspects and the
two lower quadrants have the collective aspects. The upper left quadrant uses
'I' language. The lower left quadrant involves 'We' language. The right hand
quadrants involve 'It' language.
Note that most business people focus on the right hand
side of this model. Typically, the left hand side is often where difficulties
and fuzziness are nested. Context based interpreting
is fundamental to left side knowing. People who are strongly focused on the content of the task may be blind to the context of the task
and how the context changes over time. Action that embraces and links all four quadrants is
required for completeness. There is a connexity relation
between and within the three worlds mentioned in the right quadrants. It is pervasively entangled. Note that each quadrant has its own way of knowing and its own
bases for confirming validity claims, hence the value of negotiating of
meaning. Often change away from dysfunction
in one quadrant can be facilitated by action from within other quadrants. For
example, getting interpersonal matters resolved (lower left) can improve
individual internal functioning (e.g., concentration, peace of mind, feeling
confident and the like)(upper left). In turn, both of the foregoing may lead
to more appropriate chemical balance in the brain and less stress chemicals
in the system (upper right). These changes may facilitate the refining of a
people system's functioning so that dysfunction in technical systems is
resolved (lower right). Fuzziness - uncertainty, ambiguity
and doubt - is pervasively an aspect of ongoing stuff occurring in each of
the four quadrants. In respect of the claim of being 'objective' typically
used in the two right quadrants, a quote from the above segment on second
order cybernetics is germane (and well worth revisiting).
'Second Order Cybernetic
observers and actors include themselves as a constitutive element in the
system they are observing and acting in, and recognize that their very
observing has constitutive and 'co-reconstituting
potency.' From this perspective, to be 'Objective' with a capital
'O', we have to include the subjective with the objective, and to take
account of the observer and the
observing. The way of knowing of the left quadrants may add aspects to
the understanding of the right-hand quadrants that the right-hand ways of
knowing would never find out. Repeated form/process - holons
within holarchies (refer holon). The following picture is
of a fractal pattern in Broccoli. How may we better recognise and use fractal
phenomenon, fractal metaphors and bio-mimicry in organisations?
Frame – Framing - Frame Making Frame - a border, edge, setting something apart,
creating a space, place and/or context with a particular
mood (stimmung), meaning, and ways of looking,
hearing, seeing, feeling and savouring. A frame 'sets off' and enriches a
painting. A frame may put a 'boundary' on a context - as a context of a
'particular kind' - this is what is going on - this is the 'definition of the
situation'. Refer the Segment on ‘Meaning’ in ‘Coming to One’s Senses – By
the Way’. The stage border frames the context of the play and the
rise and fall of the curtain frames the beginning and end of the play
reality.
A frame may assist in clarifying the meaning of
behaviour. For example, a person sees another jumping around outside in a
'crazy' fashion - clutching his shirt. Having the additional piece of
information that an acid has fallen down the front of the shirt 'frames'
what's going on, or reframes 'crazy' into 'self care'. Framing and reframing
may be extensively used in business, for example, in fuzzy
contexts and where interpreting is required. Frames may be 'set up' or 'made' in many ways. Example A: By using signs as markers and signifiers, e.g. putting
up a sign:
Example B: By using verbal and non-verbal behaviours, e.g. by
simply saying, ''X' is what is happening ', or using the language of
assuming, possibilities, presupposing, implying, and arousing curiosity. Example C: After meeting an acquaintance in the lift, saying: 'I heard that the emergence response team has made a
breakthrough - get in contact with Harry directly'. This may reframe the
acquaintance’s action for the ensuing few minutes. A meta-frame is a frame on a higher logical level.
It is the frame in which other frames take place - like the 'first quarter'
within the 'game'. Example: The
'Weekend Retreat’ frame System energy may be potential, emergent, free, or
blocked. A useful mode is to work with
free energy near blocked energy; it’s easier than working with the
blocked energy. The people system may have positive and negative
aspects. Work with the positive aspects of each person and group. As an
example, one section which had been very successful at the expense of another
section of a business in gaining budgetary funding and resources was given
the challenge of using their strengths to assist the other section. In
accepting this challenge the successful section strategically gave up some of
their position without weakening themselves, and greatly assisted the other
section. Refer Walking and Free
Energy. Refer 'Matrix'. In talking about a
functional matrix, no specific entity
is being referred to. Rather, it is the focus or function of the action;
it is focused energy in action. The term 'functional matrix' is used to refer
to the generative and formative developing and shaping of functions, fields
or foci of system action. For
example, a functional matrix may be set up within a business or government
organisation to foster and enable possibilities for emergence.
Others foci may be 'Business Ecosystems', 'Connexity', 'INMAs', fostering 'Dichter and Denken perception'. In turn, each of these
functional matrices may be interconnected and inter-related - sharing
insights, concepts, designs and the like. Functional matrices may be short or
long term. Functional matrices tend to cut across and through the formal
structure for system action. Having people enter into possible futures and engage
together to resolve presenting issues, to explore hypothetical realplay and
attend to outcomes. Refer Hypothetical Realplay and Conceiving the Inconceivable. 'Fuzzy' is a term being applied to situations and
experience involving uncertainty, ambiguity and doubt. Much of life is
neither 'black' nor 'white'. Most falls into the 'grey' area. Much of our
thinking, feeling, speaking, and writing is inevitably fuzzy. The interpreting of subjective and inter-subjective experience
is typically fuzzy (refer Objectivity). Business and Government take place in a very complex milieu
containing much that we can't be certain about. Fuzziness is pervasively
present in our quest for understanding of this complexity. Together we create
and are a part of this complexity and fuzziness. We are immersed in
fuzziness. Much of business life is pervasively inter-related -
parts affect the whole. The whole is linked to other wholes and their parts
(refer Holon and Holarchy). This complex linking and
networking extends in all directions and each link can add another 'layer' of
fuzziness. We can't eliminate fuzziness. However, we can learn to
live better with it. We can learn to recognize the sources and ways fuzziness
is manifest. Some things are just so complex we cannot know for sure. The behaviour
of others is often unpredictable. One source of fuzziness is that people set
out to deceive others, or have hidden agendas, or a engaging on automatic
with irrational and dysfunctional habit as their ‘drivers’. We can learn to
avoid the manipulation of those who use fuzziness as a means of hiding
suspect motives and secret agendas, and as a way of maintaining power and
control. In some contexts some things may be undiscussable. Any
attempt to discuss them would 'up the ante' so much that it is considered by
all involved to be not worth the risk. It may be that this undiscussability
is also undiscussable. This situation can be fuzzy-toxic and virtually
impossible to resolve. One approach that may work is to structure
excellence whereby people are placed in contexts where they usefully
narrow their behaviour to bits that they use functionally. Another source of fuzziness is in making inferences and
then making further inferences based on these inferences. Often we have
second, third, and higher orders of inference - a context where (typically
unrecognised) fuzziness abounds (also see 'interpreting').
By learning to recognize and live with fuzziness, we
empower our capacity for creative action in uncertain times. Businessmen are learning to use fuzzy logic
as a way of living with fuzziness. Fuzzy logic is now used extensively in engineering and
robotics. An example is having multiple sensors responding in certain ways to
a range of probabilistic conditions. In this way the system can cope with
variety, uncertainty and complexity rather than being limited to an 'if X,
then Y' rigidity. Now business people are learning to apply fuzziology in
the subjective and the inter-subjective 'people side' of the business. This
Lexicon contains a simple model that refers to this. Refer Four Aspects of an
Organisation. The upper left and lower left quadrants in the model
refer to subjective and inter-subjective experience. Fuzziness does apply in
all four quadrants (see Objectivity). Geosocial Mindbody Processes - Keyline and Cultural
Keyline
Cultural Keyline - adapting natural placeforming and
placeforms - links between people, processes, place and landform; between
land topography and social topography. Example: isomorphic (of identical
form) relation between main ridge, primary ridge and primary valley systems
and some business networks and the implications flowing from this, e.g., the
key position of nodal points and
those that link to nodal points
(shown as the larger spots in the diagram below) at the junction of network
pathways for flow of information and energy) (refer Natural System
Design, Free Energy and Walking and Free Energy).
Copying nature for example, where are things placed
relative to other system parts and place - for maximizing functionality and
use of free energy in the system - eg gravity in Keyline agricultural design.
Refer ‘Whither Goeth the World of Human Futures – The
Life Work of Dr Neville Yeomans Volume One and Cultural Keyline - The Life
Work of Dr Neville Yeomans Volume Two.
The concept 'Cultural Keyline' was developed by Dr.
Neville Yeomans from his father P.A Yeomans' 'Keyline' concept. The above
panorama is of the property at This allows storage at the highest point in the valley
so the free energy of gravity can be used to distribute water for stock and
irrigation. The dam wall has a specially designed and constructed pipe that
comes out at the base of the dam wall with a valve on it. The second dam is
situated so that overflow from the higher dam can flow by gravity into it.
The irrigation channels are filled from the valve outlet by gravity flow. The
irrigation channel is sited below the overflow channels. Keyline has many
design features all resonant with natural system connexity. This is discussed
more fully in other places – Refer ‘PA Yeomans’ and ‘Keyline’ on the
Internet. Also refer Cultural
Keyline - The Life Work of Dr. Neville Yeomans - Research towards a PhD
thesis P.A is viewed by many as making the greatest
contribution to sustainable agriculture of anyone in the world for the past
250 years. Seems that no one through all time had noticed what
P.A. and his two older sons Neville and Allen noticed. P.A. used many of the
concepts in Natural Lexicon Processes - seeing how everything was
interconnected, inter-related, inter-dependent, and how he could design
landscape to merge with the natural design features of nature. Once under way,
P.A. allowed nature to be his guide so that he, his farm design and nature
were self-organising. Thirty years after P.A.'s death the system works with
little maintenance required. As can be seen from this photo taken in Oct
2001, the farm still looks like sweeping gardens or golf course, though none
of its Keyline features had been maintained for over 20 years.
The above photo was taken at the Yeomans property in
2008 where there was community action to have the Yeomans properties being
given an Emergency listing under National Heritage. This failed. Developers
want to cover the Yeomans farms in asphalt and housing. In social contexts, themes may emerge that have
resonance for all participants. There may be a divergence of views about the
themes. However, the resonant themes may have the resonance because of the
defining quality of being conducive to coherence as Keypoints
of discourse. Keylines of discourse may usefully follow on these
themes. It has value to stay on theme while group energy sustains it. Individual energy desirous of prematurely shifting
theme may have salience for change agents, hinting at defensiveness in those
seeking to shift theme, perhaps relating to unresolved and distanced issues
entangling these people and the theme. The astute change agent may pick up on
this. This paragraph is an aspect of Cultural Keyline –
tapping into inner landscapes and the landscape of the mind and the emotions.
Cultural Keyline uses notions of land topography to tune into and sense social topography, and how social topography typically suddenly
shifts when a group changes to a new theme. Change Keypoint theme and you
change valley as it were, so you have a new ‘Keypoint’ at a higher or lower
‘level’ or ‘charge’, and everyone’s ‘position’ in the new valley changes.
There is much in all of this for discerning group process facilitators to
play with. Refer Groups Processes
for Event Enablers Back to Terms listed in this Lexicon
Natural local abode or locality of living things.
Refer: We may use the integrated life system in natural
habitats as a metaphor for organisations-as-habitat as an aid to noticing system
complexity and scope for fostering emergent possibilities Holarchy Refer Holon The philosopher scientist Arthur Koestler used the term
A In a human social system, the growth phase creates new
norms and values. These are codified, formalised and elaborated in the
mature, stable phase. They are then meaningful rituals and ceremonies, which
provide a stable background to human interaction and organisation. In the
phase of decline, norms and values lose their relationship to the reality of
the system's behaviours. They become meaningful rules, which people do not
follow. With a human system in
decline, the take off point for the next cultural synthesis, typically occurs
in a marginal subculture. Such a subculture suffers dedifferentiation of its
loyalty and value system to the previous civilization. It develops a
relatively anarchical value orientation system. Its social institutions
dedifferentiate and power slips away from them. This power moves into lower
level, newer, smaller and more radical systems within the society.
Uncertainty increases and with it rumour. Also an epidemic of experimental
smaller and micro organisations develop. Many die away but those most
functionally attuned to future trends survive and grow. Gouldner’s writing on
this in his book ‘Coming Crisis in Western Sociology’ is seminal: The embodied
and socialized individual is both
the most empirically obvious human
system, and the most complex and
highly integrated of all human systems; as a system, he is far more integrated than any known ‘social system’.
In his embodiment, the biological, psychological, social, and cultural all
conjoin. And a single
creative individual, open to the needs of other and the opportunities of his
time, can be a nucleus of spreading hope and accomplishment. He contains within
himself the ‘information’ that can
reproduce an entire culture, as well as the energy that enables him to
‘imprint’ this information upon patterns of behaviour, and to strand these together into social systems. If on the one hand, the
individual’s extensive enculturation provides him with a measure of
functional autonomy in relation to
social systems, on the other hand, his capacity to create and maintain social
systems provides him with a measure of functional autonomy from specific cultural systems. To
conceptualize systems in terms of their interdependence, as Talcott Parsons
does, tends to focus primarily on the ‘whole’ and on the close
interconnectedness of the parts. It tends to stress the oneness of the whole. A conception of systems in terms of
‘functional autonomy’ tends, quite differently, to focus on the parts themselves, and it stresses that their
connectedness is problematic. A concept of interdependence focuses on their
parts only in their implication within a system’ It sees them as ‘real’ only
in and for a system. A concept of functional autonomy, however, raises the
question of the extent of this implication and, more distinctively, focuses
on the other, extra system
involvements of the parts (1970, p. 224-225)(our italics). Typically, during a people system ( During transforming towards transcendence,
holons differentiate and integrate (refer cleavered unity).
Transcending to a more complex functioning typically brings scope for
different contextual dysfunction. It may bring
repressing, denying, dissociating (non-attending to aspects of the social and
natural worlds) and alienating action. The term 'holarchy' denotes a
universe of such holons within holons - (from the Greek: a source of wholes.)
Refer 'Realplay'. Entails setting up a group assignment
that creates a context which involves participants
engaging with very real issues
which are not directly part of the ongoing business. It is ideal for having
participants explore and engage with very 'real' possible futures, to develop
skills and maybe constitute that very future or steer clear of it, as
appropriate - a form of future pacing. Also Refer: Globalocal
Realplay - Healing Nightmares - A Process For Transforming Senior Bureaucrats o
An Example of Hypothetical Realplay Incapability capability is the ability to navigate well, environments that exceed
one's current capability. Stagnation - even functional crisis - may set in when
organisations/people are subjected to environments to which they are totally
capable; in these kinds of environments there may be little stimulus for
growth and innovation. Typically, capability is recognised and rewarded. The
incapable are disregarded. People who are capable at working in contexts
where they (and everyone else) are incapable are rarely recognised or sought.
These people have incapability capability. Shortage of intrapersonal and interpersonal
incapability capability is an important limiting factor for growth and
abundance in organisations and the wider world. Traditional education attempts to minimize incapable states
by rewarding and recognizing only capable states. The familiar adage goes
that 'people are promoted till they exceed their competence'. Conventional
institutional vocational learning gears the student towards 'organisational
death'. It vocationally guides and equips students to work in environments to
which they are capable. It does little to prepare students to work
effectively in environments beyond their capabilities. When organisations are
being stretched beyond capability only new people capable of working
within the new environments are sought. We suggest that people with
incapability capability could useful be sought or generated from within. Streetwise, life-based learning may gear the
exceptional individual to acquire intrapersonal and interpersonal
incapability capability. Such people are adept in fuzzy
contexts. They may be skilled in entering and using liminal
states, as well as using kennen, and dichter
and denken approaches. They tend to flexibly use a variety of thinking
styles as appropriate to contexts. They use their current abilities such that
these are functional and not dysfunctional (using highly refined abilities in
dysfunctional ways and in inappropriate contexts tends to be widespread and
often not recognised). People with intrapersonal and interpersonal
incapability capability tend to have persistence, tenacity, and pervasive
curiosity. They recognise when they are confused and value this state. They
add 'being curious' to it. They recognise, value and regularly use this state
of being 'curiously confused' - recognising that this is a potent learning
state in fuzzy and novel contexts. Refer Conceiving the
Inconceivable. Preconceptions and prejudices may be suspended so that
the fuzziness of the novel context can be connected with and its flux and
flow experienced for possibilities. All aspects of the flux and flow is
recognised as an enabling matrix, which may be sourced non-linearly in real
time and recognised as being omnipresent and freely available. Refer Ebb and Flow .These people with intrapersonal and
interpersonal incapability capability are adept at merging with the fuzzy and
the novel - establishing a connexity relation with
them. Refer Ebb and Flow. The people side of a business may have varying degrees
of wellbeing. Refer Four
Aspects of an Organisation. The illness-wellness continuum frames
a person's and collectivity's direct lived experience. Wellness is a state in
which a person feels tremendously alive, thriving, fully inhabiting the
present moment of life, able to boldly think in new ways, to consider fresh
possibilities, to explore new choices with a heightened sense of personal
generative power and vitality. Similarly, a collectivity of people can have a
vibrant energy and shared vital mood (refer 'stimmung').
By contrast, illness is the state in which a person
feels overwhelmed by their current circumstances, a pervasive and complicated
sense of inhibition, frustration and worry about all sorts of things. Again,
a collectivity can also exhibit these responses. Wellness cannot be delivered through expert intervention.
Rather, it emerges as a person/organisation develops uniquely situated (refer
'context' and ‘complex’) strategies
for recognizing and enhancing what works. See 'Free Energy
and Walking and Free Energy.
Also refer the 'Sickness and Disease Model. People with very advanced
competencies may have major limits on accessing Wellness. Refer Accessing Wellness Refer 'Colindivity' INMA - Inter-system Normative Model Area A business INMA is a vibrant psychosocial system having
an ecological frame and culture for the sustained emergence and exploration
of wellbeing possibilities – a model area for exploring emergence of new
norms, behaviours and processes. The 'I' in the term may also mean, 'intra-system',
'inter-business', 'intra-business' and 'inter-sector'. This Lexicon was born in a business INMA. As stated at
the outset, the eco-history of this Lexicon can be traced to business INMA
gatherings in Sydney of business innovators in the late 1960's and early
1970's exploring businesses as living systems. These gatherings were enabled
by Dr. Neville Yeomans - a barrister, psychiatrist, sociologist,
psychologist, and biologist who’s first INMA was in Fraser House – a
residential enabling environment in North Ryde Sydney. Innovation can be operationally defined as that
activity which results in a change that has usefulness beyond a current
application and that alters the ability of the system as whole. Innovation
increases the flexibility, functional capability and/or computational
complexity of the larger system. Innovating behaviours occur as an innate drive within
living systems. Clearly, not all systems are innovative to the same degree.
It seems that it is the capability of the system to engage itself (integrate)
(refer 'co-reconstituting') in far-from-equilibrium
conditions, which largely determines whether or not it will develop new
emergent dissipative structures. How does a system learn to support itself
and to maintain its integrative functions at the edge of chaos where the
probability of innovation and evolution are optimal? Seems that a person who experiences what
self-organising phenomena feels like in their own physiology tend to have the
potential to be able (as an emergent capability) to scan for these phenomena
in their relationships and activities. They may become sensitised to the
self-organisation phenomena in a far-from-equilibrium world. They may so surrender to this process that they
can catch their slide into
defensiveness, and challenge this by exploring edge experience in a Thrival
state. Refer Conceiving the Inconceivable. The natural
drive of such an individual may tend towards acting to support and amplify
this Self Organizing perceived against the history of 'structural coupling' recorded within their unique biological
architecture. We all experience our internal experience of our
internal and the external world. Many people dissociate from much of their
experience. Refer interpreting and Objectivity.
Especially refer Connecting. From the Latin interesse (inter meaning: to
enter and esse: the essence, or god energy), hence to enter the god
essence of the other. This is the original meaning of the word. Later the
termed was used in the sense of ‘It’s not in your interest to be interested
in that girl. Now it’s the price of money. Back to Terms listed in this Lexicon
Typically, understanding of inner experience within and
between people (subjective and inter-subjective experience) involves
interpreting. The context is important when
interpreting. As an example, the meaning of the word ‘bark’ in speech depends
if we are talking about trees, dogs, musical composers (Bach) or manner of
speaking (as in ‘his bark is worse than his bite’) (Refer 'Objectivity').
The German language distinguishes two forms of knowing.
Both have a role in business. 'Kennen' is a word meaning to know in the sense
of becoming acquainted with other
people and things. It is a knowing linked to forming business friendships
and relationship. Kennen is a knowing which is always unfinished and
unfinishable. It is an ever-unfolding relational mutuality. It denotes
something that 'interests' me, as in inter esse -
to enter into the essence or spirit of the other. It denotes something very
personal and subjective - entering into a relation with empathy, respect,
deference and openness. The German language has a different word, 'wissen' for
the form of knowing that seeks to grasp the other so that they can be
known, predicted, and controlled. Kennen is contemplative. Wissen is
manipulative. Wissen is a technical knowing, which can get people to the moon
and back. Kennen is a knowing contributing to the astronauts living and
working well together during the challenges and stresses of the trip. These forms of knowing are very different (cleavered).
Used together they can be very useful (unity). Refer 'Cleavered
Unity'. Also refer Objectivity and Subjectivity. From limin (Latin) meaning the threshold at the
doorway - the last step before the entrance. 'Liminal' experience is 'at the
threshold' - being open to change - a turning point (refer bifurcation).
Staying and 'working at the threshold' is to stay in liminality. The steps
that lead up to the limin are 'pre - liminary' - i.e., the familiar
word 'preliminary'. Liminal experience is a peak state for being creative
and innovative. One can be creative and innovative without entering liminal
experience. At this stage of business evolution it may be fair to say that
few business people enter liminal states. Being 'liminal' may have the
feeling of 'safe abandoning' of the old - to safely surrender to the 'moment'
in that word's two meanings - as in 'small amount of time' and as in 'turning
power'. Refer Conceiving the Inconceivable. It may embody the shift from ordinary reality to an
altered internal way of processing of ideas and images - dissociating and
profound engrossment in increased awareness of awareness and creativity flow.
. For some experiences, it may involve leaving the familiar grounded here and
now to a state characterized by super awareness. Refer Peak Experiences. Liminal states are extremely fertile states for the
emergence of intuitions, new ideas, innovations and profound business related
insights. 'Enablers may set up liminal contexts and
liminal spaces and support key people entering liminal states. People in liminal states may be for the time 'threshold
people'. In these states. Their attributes are necessarily ambiguous. This is
because the condition of 'liminality' and being a 'liminal person' elude or
slip through normal classifyings that locate places and positions in social
space. 'Liminal people' are neither here nor there; they are betwixt and
between the normal. Liminal states are enriched with possibilities.
Typically, liminal people are able to quickly return to everyday states of
functioning and function and bring with them peak skills. The ambiguous and indeterminate attributes of
liminality may be expressed in rich metaphors and symbols such as being
invisible, being in darkness, being in the womb, being in the wilderness,
metamorphosis, forgetting, floating, drifting, the light at the end of the
tunnel, the dawning, the new dawn, flying, and as one person characterised
it, the merging together the following three metaphors: o the underground mole, o the sheep huddled
together for warmth on the cold day, and o the lone far-sighted
eagle on the high mountain Gateways, doorways and the proverbial, 'light at the
end of the tunnel' as liminal places are excellent metaphors for change. Liminalizing From 'limin' (Latin)
meaning the threshold, the last step before the entrance. 'Liminal'
experience is 'at the threshold' - being open to change - a turning point.
Staying and 'working at the threshold' is to stay in liminality. The steps
that lead up to the limin are preliminary.
Being 'liminal' may have
the feeling of 'safe abandoning' of the old - to safely surrender to the
'moment' as in 'small amount of time' and turning power. It may embody
the shift from ordinary reality to dissociating and trance in increased
awareness of awareness. Enablers
may set up liminal contexts and liminal spaces. For
example, attendees at Healing
Sunday, Spiral
Gatherings, the Well
and Laceweb workshops at
ConFest tended to individually and collectively enter into liminal
states. People in liminal states
may be for the time 'threshold people'. Their attributes are necessarily
ambiguous. This is because the condition of 'liminality' and being a 'liminal
person' eludes or slips through normal classifyings that locate places and positions in
social space. 'Liminal people' are neither here nor there; they are betwixt
and between the normal. Liminal states are enriched with possibilities. The term 'logic' comes from the Greek word logos
meaning 'reason', originally denoting 'the universal principle through which
all things are interrelated and all natural events occur' (refer Connexity). The word matrix has the following meanings: 'A place where anything is generated or developed; the
formative part from which a structure is produced; a network or web-like
structure; intercellular substance; a mould, a type or die in which anything
is cast or shaped'; a womb; Also see 'Functional Matrix'.
Back to Terms listed in this Lexicon
We regularly use metaphors to make sense and
understand. We recognize that something is like something else. Also refer
comments on metaphors in On being Tentative' and Limin‘. Below is a list of metaphors resonant with Natural
Business Terms Micro-interventions seek to capitalize on the self-embedding and non-linear nature of
complex systems, so that optimal output and change is achieved with minimal
input. Nano-interventions are super-micro-interventions that
are resonant with the 'butterfly effect'. Sometimes a
very deft nano-intervention in highly salient Keypoints can have major
implications including creating emergent possibilities. They are akin to
substance super molecules that may emerge and form when a micro amount of a
substance is added to another fluid. Interventions that seek to manage and control
(pre/first-order cybernetic approaches) living systems may drastically limit
the richness of transactional possibilities and feedback. Preferably, micro-interventions by enablers are as
minimal as possible, in order to maximize possibilities for self-help
consequence, including learning and co-learning gains, developing new
strategies, engaging peoples' and collectivities' sense of
personal/collective safety and opportunity, and the capability and capacity
to utilise available resources and networks to help steer the larger system
towards successful outcomes. Natural, because design follows the patterns inherent
in nature (refer, connexity', 'Geosocial
Mindbody Processes' and 'self organizing systems') Natural Systems - Organisational and Operational
Principles of Healthy Business-People Systems Self-creation (autopoiesis)
Self-help Self-evolving Self organizing Self-reflexivity
(autognosis-self-knowledge) Self-regulation/maintenance
(autonomics) Communications among all parts Empowerment - full employment of all
component parts Coordination of parts and functions Complexity (diversity of parts) Reciprocity of parts in mutual
contribution and assistance System redundancy enhances connectedness and potential
(c/f traditional way - where increased redundancy requires that more of
system energy is diverted to the control function to ‘control’ the redundant
parts) Embeddedness in larger holons and
dependence on them (holarchy) Co-re-constituting part and whole
(self and community) in continual flux with other communities and the web of
life context Input/output of
matter/energy/information from/to other holons Relational networking within nested
networks Response-ability -- to internal and
external stress or change - emergence of new
response-abilities as system feature Transformation of matter/energy/information
Use of free energy - metabolism, gravity, solar energy,
subtle energies, the bodies' short and long-term wellbeing energy systems - (ergotropic and trophotropic) Balance of Interests (from Latin: inter-esse, meaning
to enter into the essence of the other in its relation with me -- negotiated
self-interest at all levels of holarchy Feedback and feed-forward and the
surviving of the fitting Conservation of what works well In a context of continual change,
continual mutual nurturing towards stability (not equilibrium) Symbiosis Connexity - cooperating
inter-dependence, inter-connecting, inter-weaving, inter-relating For humans - Respecting, nurturing and
celebrating the diverse web of life Cooperating with and being mindbodyful of other people,
life forms and matter in finding and using niches and places in the landform See 'Dissipative Structures' Research into Network Care of the body's Central
Nervous System (CNS, i.e., brain & spinal cord) holds forth promise as a
model for the care of business networks. The central nervous system is a
complex, dynamic, far-from-equilibrium system capable of autopoiesis,
self-organisation and evolution (morphogenesis). It is
also congruent with second order cybernetic modelling of living systems as
autopoietic and self-steering (refer cybernetics). Concepts in this Lexicon are being used effectively in
central nervous system care. An example is that excellent results have been
obtained by working with the 'free energy' near blocked
spinal energy. One useful business functional matrix can
be the Business Network Care Matrix. Other concepts in this lexicon may be
tapped into to create business network care and network emergence. In a world
where people are increasingly perceiving everything as inter-related, network
care of workers' central nervous system has potential as a business wellbeing
strategy. Refer Walking and Free
Energy. When referring to 'process', people typically think of
linear process - a sequence of actions, a series of 'things to do', how
things are done - step-by-step. In using natural business concepts, action may unfold
as non-linear process. Multiple
related bits may be happening simultaneously. The 'beginning' may be added in
later. Stuff that seems unrelated may suddenly have relevance and be added
into action. Emergent properties may arise in non-linear
action (and linear action), which were not evident at lower levels of
complexity. For example, the taste of Glucose cannot be ascertained from the
individual Carbon, Hydrogen and Oxygen particles that make up Glucose. In a
6-12-6 mix. These holons may then be fitted
into the ongoing non-linear process. Action may have no preplanning and
pre-organising. What to do next or later may emerge from ongoing non-linear
action. Linearity - describing relationships in which change in
one factor is reflected in change in another. Linear relationships belong to
the Newtonian world of simple machines; an input produces a proportional
output. Non-linear relationships characterize most of the world
in which complex systems interact; in this case output is disproportional to
input and vice-versa. Refer 'normative action research' In using a normative action research way, people take
action based on shared local knowings and tapping into emergent possibilities
(refer emergence). In the process of
action, people are consensually assessing outcomes - hence the term 'action
research' (refer also non-linear process). Actions that
may apply or be adapted to suit in similar contexts are also implemented and
outcomes assessed. If these adapted ways do not work, they are discarded.
What 'works', is repeated and tends to become the norm until something better
emerges. What continues to work becomes policy. Policies formed in this way
work, as they have emerged from actions that work. Norms and policies are continually up for review - so
everything is viewed tentatively (refer 'kennen) and
reviewed continually (refer 'Second Order Cybernetics').
This normative action research becomes the 'way' of all action. All action is
'action research' and action research enables emergence. This 'way' emerges
as a normative action research culture of continual action, adapting,
renewing, and emergings, towards maintaining and improving wellbeing in all
its forms. New action, norms and policies emerge from the flux. Refer Ebb and Flow. The business is constantly being 'co-re-constituted. This 'way' is typically pioneered in INMAs - Inter and Intra Network Normative Model Areas; also
refer, 'control'). ‘Objective’ meaning based on facts
rather than feelings, prejudices or opinions; having actual existence or
reality. ‘Objectivity’ meaning the quality of being objective.
‘Subjectivity’ the quality of possessing perspectives,
experiences, feelings, beliefs, desires, and/or power; proceeding from or
taking place in a person's mind and inner experience rather than the external
world. ‘Intersubjectivity’ is a term relating to my inner experiencing of
your inner experiencing of me. A big ‘O’ ‘Objectivity’
recognizes the actual existence of
subjective and intersubjective phenomena and includes all of these phenomena
in really relating well with others while being intersubjectively in the
world. Refer Connexity. Refer Four Aspects of an Organisation for inner and outer aspects of
organisations. On Being Purposefully Tentative In a world where little
is 'black' or 'white' and most is 'shades of grey', where so much is fuzzy and uncertain, being
tentative and valuing tentativeness can have value. This also applies in
complex contexts placing demands on people and collectivities beyond their
current capacity. Recognising when we are being dysfunctional, and evolving
and using incapability capability is a way through to a
higher functionality. Being tentative is also an essential phase aspect of
creativity and innovation. The incompetent thinker, certain that his poor
solution is the best and selling it, and in the process collapsing the
creative states of talented creative peers, is sadly an oft-played scenario.
Another oft repeated scenario is very competent people using their
competences incompetently – for example using devil’s advocate competencies
in the middle of a group brainstorming session. Being too quick to judgement
in order to eliminate tentativeness is dysfunctional (refer dysfunctionality). An oft-used metaphor
to suggest certainty is a building with strong foundations. In
fuzzy contexts, which are pervasively complex and uncertain, the ‘building’
metaphor is misleading and a potential source of distortion and deceit based
fuzziness. Perhaps in these cases more appropriate metaphors are 'shifting
sands', quicksand', 'mire', 'bootstraps' and 'flying by our bootstraps'. It
is for this reason the Lexicon uses the expression the 'social constitution of realities'
rather than the sociological expression 'the social construction of
realities', with the term 'construction' implying, 'building' something
'solid' on 'strong' 'foundations. The language, which
respects, acknowledges, conveys, and expresses fuzziness, uncertainty and
tentativeness, is the passive voice and 'softener' words and expressions
like, 'perhaps', 'may', 'maybe', 'it may be', 'we could' (rather than 'we
will'). The verb 'to be' is avoided ('He is', 'They are'). The 'soft' 'language of
tentativeness' has been used extensively throughout this Lexicon. This 'soft'
language has been traditionally spurned by business people. It is immediately
derided as weak and wishy-washy. The only thing that has been acceptable is
expression that conveys absolute certainty and a certain future, even when
contexts and futures are far from certain. The computer spell and
grammar check is set to point out and by implication, eliminate, every
sentence in the passive voice. As an example of using
fuzzy language, let's say that an enabler is setting up possibilities for
self-help among members of a dysfunctional matrix called the 'Innovation
Matrix'. These people are currently out of their depth in a challenging
complex context. The enabler may say: 'Ideas
are emerging for a gathering to explore possibilities. An open agenda may
evolve with themes like: o
finding
the edge o
living
with fuzziness o
exploring
'butterfly effects' emerging from fuzziness o
recognising
abuse and misuse of fuzziness Perhaps other themes may
be added if this gathering gets under way.' Notice that the person or
persons possibly initiating action have been omitted from all of the
foregoing sentences. The 'flavour' is that these are 'ideas floating in
space' and that members of the matrix may pick up and run with them, if they
fully accept ownership of them, and do it all themselves. Notice the difference in
feel if the above is translated to the alternative, certain, zero-sum
authority language (refer authentic
empowering).
'I
am arranging a gathering of the Innovation Matrix so that you can learn
skills in handling fuzziness. The agenda is as follows: o
How
do we find the edge? o
Seven
ways we can live with fuzziness o
Ten
ways to increase clarity in our communication o
Nine
ways to recognise when fuzziness is being misused and abused Please advise me of other
themes you want me to include. This later version will
have a familiar ring to most people. It is what tends to happen. 'I am the expert with the
solution. I have arranged everything
(an extension of the medical model – ‘as expert, I diagnose and prescribe’) One way is strong and
imposing. The other ways is weak and natural. Water beats rock every time in
the long haul - naturally. Consistent with the rest
of this Lexicon, and because the taken-for-granted is so strong,
perhaps we may be explicit here - we are suggesting that the weak and fuzzy
may, in certain circumstances, be far far and away better than being strong
and imposing in our imposing. The tentative suggestion of ideas that staff
take up and develop themselves tends to create 'ownership' far ahead of ideas derived by, and imposed by outside
experts. The following uses various metaphors to enrich
understanding of organisations. Organizations as Living Systems Adapting Autopoiesis Being Dynamic Being Well Developing Energizing Environment interfacing Flowering Food Fruiting Generating Germinating Grafting Growing Healing Homeostasis Life cycle Metabolising Nourishing Nodes Nodal point Renewing Resources Second Order Cybernetics Seeding Vibrating Organizations as Biological Systems Adapting Autopoiesis Being ecological Developing Food chain Interacting systems Natural selecting Niche Nourishing Reproducing Self organising Survival of the fitting Sustainable comparative advantage Symbiosis (associations advantaging
two or more organisms Organization as an environment Biological systems Boundaries Climate Contour Ecology Emergence of shared futures Environmental ecology Geosocial Habitat Health Niches Place Placemaking Population ecology Ridges Rivers Self organizing Supply Terrain Topography Valleys Organization as a Brain Chaos Creating Intelligence Left brain/Right Brain Logical Memory Networking Random access Sensing Viral networking Organization as Holograph · Chaos · Connexity · Dynamic thinking · Fractal · Holarchy · · Multidimensional · The whole in every part Organization as culture Co-reconstituting Creating cultural contexts Culture shift Cultural mapping Definition of the situation/context Intercultural awareness and action Multiculturalism Paradigm shift People and people systems as
socially constituted realities Placemaking and event making Recognizing multiple cultures
within/without the organization Respect for cultural diversity Shared realities Socially constituting realities Organizations as New Physics All is flux Bifurcation point Chaos - randomness with constraints Creating energy Energy and matter are
interchangeable Energy out of the vacuum Holding ourselves up with our
bootstraps - No fixed foundations Influencing chaos Its all rhythm and dance Phase space Spotting changes and trends Strange attractors Symmetry, design and functionality
emerges from chaos Things have a tendency to exist Organizations as Community Belonging Caring Community Cooperating Developing each other Helping you helps me Mutual respect Nurturing Self help Self organising Sustaining We all serve each other We are all in this together Organizations as Habitat Physical factors: ·
soil ·
moisture ·
temperature
range ·
available
light Biotic factors: ·
available
food and water ·
presence
of predators. Location: ·
geographic
area ·
body
of its host or even a cell within the host's body A few words in a sentence surrounded by brackets are
said to be in parenthesis. Being parenthetical means that you bracket
yourself off from being immersed in the taken-for-granted of the organization
or subsection. You have not ‘gone native’ as in the ‘anthropological’ (a
similar metaphor to parenthesis). Being parenthetical may support attending
to and perceiving dysfunctional processes and meta-processes being used by
the locals. It may support sensing and identifying the taken for granted and
the undiscussable. It is possible to have switching of state between deep
immersion in a context (awareness of awareness of an associated state) and
being dissociated so that one can step outside as a disengaged observer.
Refer A video of Dr Neville
Yeomans on Handling Criticism Well at the end of the 19 Audio Files. Perturb To subject a system, moving object, or process to an
influence tending to alter its normal or regular state or path. Perturbing
may lead to Bifurcation A phase portrait is a picture of how a system
dynamically behaves across multiple dimensions. In other terms, a phase
portrait is a map of (all) the potential behaviours of the system. A phase
portrait has the potential to grow to reflect the new capability of the
system as a whole. 'Phase portrait' is a term that derives from the
mathematics of chaos. It may have useful business applications. A particular pattern of oscillation, which the system
tends to remain in, is called a basin of attraction. Complex phase portraits
contain many different attractors. For example, a pendulum shows different
patterns of oscillation in relation to impulses it receives. Occupying the
centre of a basin of attraction is an attractor. (Refer 'Emergence
of Resonant Strange Attractors). Attractors do not control behaviour so much as exert a
field of influence that the system responds to. In the course of its life, a
complex system moves between constellations of attractors. The movement from
one phase portrait to another cannot be ascribed to a random phenomenon;
rather it seems to be determined by some kind of 'complex’
interactive computation, and this holds true from single-celled organisms to
multi-celled beings like us. The phase portrait may be a valuable concept,
which may help us to look at the superficial behaviours and 'mechanisms' of
the system as well as the underlying living processes (refer 'Objectivity).
Could phase portraits be made of our organization, and
the way energy flows - the patterns of oscillation? The fields of influence?
The attractors? The strange attractors? If so, what would they look like? How
useful would they be? 'Phase portrait' is also discussed in the context of dysfunction in that entry in this Lexicon. From polis the gatekeeper (see limin).
In older times the gate was the growth point for exports and imports and the
gatekeepers primary function was ensuring the growth of the system. Refer 'Normative Action Research' From processus/procedere - to go (into
procession). It typically connotes a linear sequence of actions, a series,
how things are done. In using natural business concepts, action may unfold as
a non-linear process. Process and Outcome approaches Business people tend to focus on the content of what is happening. Many business people do not perceive or notice
or attend to the process they or
others are using. They tend not to sense how
things are happening. They lack process perception. In seeking change, are we attending to what is
happening as well as how it is happening along the way? Visually, what,
where, and how things are happening are processed by different parts of our
brain (what is processed in the temporal lobe and how and where are processed
in the parietal lobe). A focus on final outcomes may lead us to non-attend to
current process. A focus on final outcomes may tend to lead us into
control-oriented ways of thinking and doing, which may be appropriate for
transactions with machines but generally inappropriate for transactions with
and within living complex systems (refer 'self-embedded
phenomena', 'kennen' and 'objectivity').
Often we end up producing the opposite result in the
long term to what we achieved in the short term because living systems are
highly resistant to control-oriented transactions (refer discussion on top
down imposed control compared with natural system control in 'Authentic
Power'. Including a focus on process in our approach to
enabling change helps us to attend to the quality of interactions in
real-time as well as developing depth of mutual sensitivity and awareness
that can lead us to new possibilities and emergent pathways of growth which
we could not separately imagine. Refer 'dichten and denker',
'interpreting', 'kennen', 'logic' and 'objectivity'). Attention to process enables possible access to the
realm of all possible outcomes.
Fixation on predetermined outcomes tends to constrain awareness of
possibilities and quite often retards emergent processes (refer 4 quadrant
sensing in 'Objectivity'). Refer Four Aspects of an Organisation. Attending to and perceiving the processes being used to
carry out a process (metaprocess – the processes we use in observing and
using process) is typically a competence that few business people have.
Processes are available to acquire metaprocess attending competencies. There has been a long history of some Australian
business people attempting to do business on the naive assumption that their
Asian counterparts live in the same world as they do. While trivially true, the
reality of everyday life differs radically between the Asian and Australian.
There are different cultures, values, norms, protocols, beliefs, ways of
doing business, frames of reference etc. We tend to not notice that we in Similar to roleplay with the change to engaging in
real-time business process as if it was roleplay - hence a shared state with
increased focus on attending to content and process and metaprocess, with
some/all participants assigned to observer and feedback roles, with a shared
understanding that ongoing action can be frozen at anytime to go into a
feedback/review mode for a short time. Realplay may be an aspect of normative action research and INMAs.
Refer Hypothetical Realplay. Natural systems typically have massive redundancy.
Think of the abundance of healthy sperm counts, or the release of an egg a
month through childbearing years. The thousands of acorns that drop each
year. It is natural in natural systems to have resources superfluous to
requirements. We are told we use a minuscule portion of our brain and central
nervous systems capacity. Now we find that the very micro-tubular material at
the core of our structure also has mind-boggling 'information carrying and
processing capabilities'. This magnifies beyond imagination our information
processing capacity. Our personal redundancy is astronomic! Refer Emergence of Resonant Strange Attractors in Business. Natural system connexity
thrives by living well with redundancy (refer Business
Surviving and Thriving). In natural systems, an increase in redundancy
adds to the system's richness. Increasing redundancy in traditional hierarchical organisations
requires, of necessity, more system energy to be diverted to the control
function. Traditional hierarchical organisations have made imposed control
through zero-sum authority a central aspect (refer authentic
empowering). In natural systems, control is pervasively woven in with all the other pervasive aspects
(refer autopoiesis, connexity
and holon). A simple example of redundancy in business is
multiskilling. Business organisations may usefully explore new ways of
working with system abundance and control. To reify a system is to assume that system aspects are
'god given and immutable (unchangeable). Reifying is a prevalent view and a
distortion (refer 'reconstituting'). Reification is
sustained by distortion and the language of distortion - especially,
'necessity' and 'impossibility' - 'We have to' (necessity), and 'We can't'
(impossibility). Relational Mediating The mediator is a peace-maker. S/he is a middle friend to two or more
conflicted people. S/he helps ease disputes and stop fights. S/he is neutral
– this means not one side or the other, but for the goodness in both or all
involved. The mediator is someone who can help people to find the good in
each other; and to dream up agreeable new ways. They can then learn to sort
things out in a safe, friendly and respectful way. They help negotiate and
clarify differences in meaning. As matters are resolved side by side and in
harmony, nasty arguments go away. Mediators help people to listen to and hear
each other, to tune in, to understand and to step into each other’s feelings.
They can see eye to eye, feel good and be in balance. People find common
ground and begin to trust and respect each other more. Relational mediators
enable people to move beyond conflict toward relating well. Relational Mediators details
of how this form of mediation differ from traditional mediation. From Latin Religio to reconnect Refer Cybernetics Natural systems are self-organizing. The random falling
rain makes a groove.
This groove increases the chance that some later
falling rain will run into the groove and deepen and widen it. These groove
systems expand to become complex creek and river systems. Creek and river
systems have self-organised.
During the past decades of tightly controlled business
organizations, there has always been what has been called, 'the informal
organization' - the grapevine, the buddy network and the like, which are all
typically self-organising. It is possible for a business entity to encourage
self-organizing structures and still hold these less formal, non-linear
structures accountable for results. Connexity based business
networks (matrices - refer matrix) tap into the energy
and capability of self organizing action where local-knowing driven
action-research contains an inherent control function - evaluation and
assessment of outcomes is an integral aspect (refer 'Normative
Action Research'). Act, and if it works, replicate. Consensually validated
'outcomes that work' become informal policy. That is, informal policy
becomes, 'that which works'. Self-organisation manifests as dissipative structures:
the spontaneous emergence of new behaviours and relationships that were not
evident in the system in its close-to-equilibrium state. These new behaviours
and relationships allow the system to get where it needs to go more
effectively and efficiently. An example from nature is a vortex that forms as
water escapes through a drain. Things which in their organisation and structure
reflect the bigger systems that they are part of, and the subsystems which
they consist of (refer 'Fractal' and 'Holon').
The unfolding of these phenomena in time and space
reveals rich layering of meaning (laminas), movement and context.
Living systems tend to be nested in this way - interconnected by dense
networks of feedback processes. 'Self-help' and 'self organisation'
are resonant natural biological process. In natural systems, knowing how to act
is intrinsic. Typically, those who are part of the system (the
parties) know it best. They are familiar with the local contexts. This has
become apparent to many senior people in 'lock out of staff' contexts. Much
of the wisdom is at the floor level. Expressed differently, actual 'expert' level knowledge
and wisdom typically exists within a system, not outside of it. Both
enabling strategies and the natural flow of self-help may, in fertile
contexts, evoke and enable people to make the transition from inhibiters and
conservers of rigid rule bound organizations, to designers and re-designers
of fluid functional and adaptive systems and organizations. Over the pass forty years there has been constant
resistance to the notion of worker participation. Back in the early seventies
a document purporting to be Businesses Response to the notion of ‘worker
participation’ had as one of its main planks ‘giving the worker a sense of participation. The implication was hidden in this word ‘sense’; the
drafters of the document did not use the word ‘actual’. Many processes have
been set up to give the workers a token 'sense' of participation. That is -
only sense of participating - not actual participating. Almost invariably
workers could see through this. The consequence has often been a withdrawal
of wisdom contribution, ambivalence, indifference, and non or token
cooperation. A pervasive issue flowing from imposed change on people is 'lack of ownership' of the change.
The outside expert that comes in and 'does it for people' can dis-empower
people. An alternative is for an outsider to assume an 'enabler of
possibilities' role and a 'co-learner' role in supporting
and fostering self-help. Self-help is the most
potent process for constituting ownership of a process. Natural Business Concepts tend towards creating
contexts where, while all prudent control is maintained by senior people,
innovative ways are constantly being explored towards actually tapping into
the potency of living systems natural propensity to use self-help for 'self organising' - with the consequent diversifying of
control prerogatives and processes. As an example, in some contexts
accountability has been delegated to a matrix of peers working in a network. As an example of self-help in nature, a bird like a
kookaburra is not 'taught' to fly. Rather, it is continually provoked by its
parents to push the boundaries until it 'discovers' its own capabilities and
capacities (see 'Structured and 'Dysfunction).
A key operating principle is that self-help optimises
learning, learning-to-learn and co-learning. Features of
the self-help paradigm include context based process-driven approaches and
context based 'micro-interventions' including
micro-experiences. Social Re-constituting of Business Realities See Realities
o Brown depicts the social
life world o Green depicts the
economic life world o Blue depicts the
political life world o Pink depicts innovative
action on the margins of the economic and social life worlds Actions are occurring at the
margins. This action potential is mainly not one of power, but of renewing: •
socio-cultural •
socio-emotional •
socio-psychic patterns of everyday social
relations penetrating the social
life sphere of society
The economic sphere has for decades
been taking over the social life sphere
The political sphere (at all levels
of government) has in turn being taking over, by regulation and other
process, the economic life sphere Some social commentators
are noticing that new social phenomena are evolving within new forms of
social movements. The transformatory potential of these phenomena is not so
much political, or economic; rather it is socio-cultural. Any focus on power
relations would miss this shift! Initiatives are involving people in
acting together to take back ability
over their own lives. People are exploring taking back agency by engaging
in self-help and mutual help. These new forms of social change are
transforming the way people relate to each over at the margins. Some characteristics: o
Social
exchange of experience of things that work – passed on in Social Networks in
everyday life and through the Internet – using small and large gatherings,
celebrations and festivals for evolving enabling environments o Transforming ways of
social relating o
Complementing
top down organizing with self-organising processes (the adaptation of the
grapevine to emergent phenomena o Engaging in self-help and
mutual-help Recognising these new forms
of social change, the knowledge management section of one semi-government
body began tuning into three very separate, though non-engaging informal
social networks amongst their staff, that were
a self-organising phenomenon. Each network was made up of staff from
differing professional backgrounds. These networks were making a very significant contribution to the
organizations functioning. The networks absolutely resisted any outside
management attempt to ‘improve’ them, and resisted any attempts to set up
cooperating between the three networks. The networks were left to
self-organise informally (as they had been
doing very well) and left alone to
function alongside the formal organisation. In Business it has significance to
recognize that typically, speaking can have massive consequences. Speech may
embody what may be called ‘speech acts’, where the speech is more than an
utterance; the speech is an act with transformative consequences. An example of a speech act from
another context is the words of the marriage celebrant, ‘I now pronounce you
husband and wife together’. These words are a speech act, and they have
transformative consequences. A shared mood that attunes people together. While very
palpable if noticed, often people are oblivious of this mood shift. The
presence of stimmung may massively increase group functioning. On mood – mood
is a pervasive aspect of the human condition. We tend to notice people in a
‘bad’ mood. However, mood is such that, as soon as one mood passes it is
replaced by another. Processes are available to engender Stimmung in a
group. Also refer Limin and Liminalizing . Structural Coupling and Eco-history The experiences of living systems - eco-history - are
recorded in their structure (structural coupling) (refer 'embodiment',
'connexity' and 'dichter and denken').
This experience-structure connectedness occurs at the sub-system
structure-experience nexus as well. Often it has a fractal
or repeated quality. Whilst individual complex adaptive business systems and
business sub-systems may rise or fall, the experimental experiences they
acquire, as they 'boldly go where no-one has gone before', tend to be
recorded in the complexity of the suprasystems they are nested in. The Web of Life of the planet has consistently
responded to conditions of dynamic complexity, crisis, catastrophe and chaos
by system and system aspects self-organising and experimenting in order to
produce higher orders of relationship and integration (refer 'emergence').
All complex adaptive business systems must grapple the
dynamic complexity of territories, markets, ecologies and environments.
Increasingly geo-social and geo-emotional implications are highly significant
aspects of the mix. Being creative and using sustained innovating have
significant survival advantages. Similarly, using adapt-ability appears to be a
significant factor in the success of our species, rather than specialising
into one role. At an individual level it's our using our capability of learning rather than any
amount that we have learned that
delivers advantage in dynamic conditions. People often speak of a business or an organization
being ill or sick and needing a 'cure'. Typically, to say that an
organisation is 'diseased' is deemed too strong a term. Some contexts are
said to be 'toxic'. Sickness is a perception that a person enters into when they
become aware of dysfunction and/or decrease in quality of life. A medical disease is 'produced' in the process of
encountering a medical professional when objective and standardized tests and
other diagnostic practice show significant deviation from accepted normal
values. Without this deviation from normative values no expert diagnosis is
possible, even though the person continues to experience sickness. In the medical encounter a filter is placed over the
person's direct lived experience, through which the expert views and analyses
disease. A critical separation is
introduced between lived experience and the identified disease problem. Refer
Objectivity for a discussion of an exploring of an
alternative form of Objectivity, which includes the subjective, and the
inter-subjective. Also refer Second Order Cybernetics 'Treatment’ of the 'diagnosed disease' focuses on
'attacking' the problem so as to normalize deviation, which is deemed
success. It is highly significant that there is often little or even a
negative correlation between treatment of disease and a person's perceived
quality of life changes. A similarity exists with business, when people in
different levels of an organizational hierarchy, perceive problems often in
widely divergent ways (refer 'realities'). These shared
and differing realities together form a rich and complex picture of the
organisation as an organism (complex living thing). When a medical model is
applied to business, following diagnosis, organisational 'doctors' prescribe
solutions. These are often sought through outside-in, top-down driven
interventions, which seek to solve identified problems through prescribing. These interventions may do little to enable and enhance the connexity, wellness and the
organic drive to thrive of the organisation, for some
good reasons (refer the origins of the term logic); logic
- 'the universal principle through which all things are interrelated
and all natural events occur'. Typically, business diagnosticians look at objective
criteria. They have historically given less attention to the lived life
experience (the subjective and inter-subjective) of the organisation. In
terms of the four-quadrant model (refer 'Objectivity’ and
Four Aspects of an
Organisation), they restrict themselves to the right-hand
quadrants only and use pre/first-order cybernetic
approaches rather than second order cybernetic approaches. As an alternative
to the 'diagnose and prescribe' approach there are natural enabling processes for fostering an organization's
natural thrive capacities. This entails immersing oneself in second order
cybernetics using kennen and dichter and
denker approaches. Also used is an Objectivity Four
Quadrant model approach to connexity with the organisation. See also the 'Illness-Wellness Continuum'. Natural enabling processes are
available. From Latin structura = a fitting together Complex adaptive systems, including living systems and
corporate organisations exhibit two kinds of internal relationships.
Structure describes relationships between actual physical components. Pattern
(Organisation) describes the nature of the inter-relating and overall
interconnecting, which determine the cohering, integrating and functioning of
the system. The Western scientific approach has tended to emphasise
structural analysis and neglect exploration into context,
organisation and pattern. Recall the origins of the term context - from the
Latin contexere : 'to weave together' or 'webmaking'. Small ‘o’
objectivity tends to miss the richness of the Capital ‘O” Objectivity that
includes the subject and the inter-subject and every one’s subjective
phenomena and lived life subjectivity which is close to the energy and
particularly the free energy in the system. Refer Walking and Free Energy. Complexity science heals (literally makes whole) this
artificial separation (refer 'connexity' and 'dichter and denken'). The effective functioning (physiology)
of a complex adaptive system is a property of its structure and
pattern. It is determined by the quality of physical components plus
their connexity and the ability of the system
to integrate itself in order to act effectively in a dynamic environment. A change process where people are placed in a context
structuring functional behaviours
and functional use of competencies. Simultaneously, the structured context is
preventing/interrupting the dysfunctional behaviours and the dysfunctional
use of competencies which specific participants tend to use. This context structuring may create scope for the
constituting of new patterns of interaction. This In turn may allow a group to achieve functional
outcomes and be very aware of this, and then adopt their new blend of
behaviours and use of competencies as a
new group norm. Often, though the people do not even notice the functional shift in their group
interaction, and an important consequence of their not noticing is that they do not sabotage their own change
work. This has another significant advantage in that the
process bypasses even mentioning the previous dysfunctional behaviours, and
also bypasses the attendant possibilities of setting up justifying, blaming,
fault-finding, scape-goating and the like, which in turn could also sabotage
the change-work. A simple example. Perhaps a group has a person who
persists in jumping in and beginning to selling their own poor idea during a
brainstorming session, hence constantly collapsing the brainstorming via
interrupting the creative emergence and flow of ideas. This person may be
assigned the role of silently
recording all of the ideas and silently
adding their own ideas to the record. On contexts where the recognition of dysfunctional
behaviour is functional, refer dysfunctionality. Quick
Response Networks are sometimes called Emergency Response Networks. As the
name implies, these are networks of people with a range of skills, resources,
and access to authority, available to swing into action at very short notice.
Refer Rapid
Assessing of Local Wellness Psycho-Social Resources & resilience
Following Disasters Tapping
into Alternative Sources of Power Tapping into the power
of: o
active wisdom o
and in audience o
attuned mood o
awareness of awareness both of the specific, and the flow of
awareness o
being aware o
being flexible o
connecting and relating o
decentralising and networking o
deep communicating within and between self and others o
experience o
experiencing all of these powers in their subtle potency o
experiencing vocation or a calling o
focused attending o
hope and faith linked to passion and wise acts and discerning o
inter-subjectivity o
intuiting o
letting go o
memory and imagining o
processing and meta-processing o
seeding possibilities o
self feeling o
self knowing o
self sensing o
speech acts o
the alternative o
the emerging collective sense of life’s possibilities for better
futures o
the group o
the unconscious o
the whole o
uncertainty o
using the free energy o withdrawing, as in taking back our ability and our power that we have given to others There is a familiar saying, 'He could not see the wood
for the trees'. From deep within a paradigm or world view some things become
so commonplace they are not noticed and hence never questioned. Some people
however have special perception whereby they can transcend and see things
that are never noticed by others, and like the anthropologist in a strange
land, notice things that the 'natives' never do, while never becoming one of
the natives. Also refer 'parenthetical' and transcendence
in the context of holons and bifurcation.
Also refer Conceiving the Inconceivable. Transducing - Changing Energy Form 'Transducing'
means changing energy from one form into another. For example the windmill
turns wind power into energy for pumping water. The processes outlined n this Lexicon may transform
energy and channel it into wellbeing and healing acts (healing in the
original meaning, ‘to make whole’. The energy generated, bottled and consumed
in resentment and anger may be transduced into passion for wellbeing action. The latest
neuro-psycho-biological understanding relating to the interplay between our
brain and our capacities is that everything is linked to everything. We can
chunk our capacities; the big chunk is ‘being’ which can be further chunked
into moving, sensing, feeling, thinking and acting. Each and all of these are
linked to each other. We say ‘top people have got it all together’; and that
is the case. Every bit of functional and dysfunctional behaviour entails integrated patterns within and between
moving, sensing, feeling, thinking and acting. Moshe Feldenkrais writes of
these integration patterns (1972, p. 39): A fundamental change in the motor basis within any single
integration pattern will break up the cohesion of the whole and thereby leave
thought and feeling without anchorage in the patterns of their established
routines. This statement has potent implications. If a change is suddenly
introduced to any submode of any of the four aspects moving, sensing, feeling
and thinking associated say with recalling something you want to tell
someone, you may lose that memory and have to hunt for it again. A familiar example - a client who is angry may suddenly be
interrupted by his mobile phone. This may collapse anger quickly into
momentary confusion, which may in turn quickly collapses to puzzlement and
curiosity as to who is ringing him, and then to engrossment with the caller.
He has changed through a number of states. This all has massive implications
for not only changing states, but also for transforming dysfunctional habits
within and between people. This also has implications for transforming organisational
cultures. More information and processes for changing states and habits are
available. The discerning reader may
have noticed that there appears to be different way of being in the world
with others that is an underlying thread throughout the Lexicon. This way is
a very subtle thing. One poet said: ‘The way, is searching for the Way,’ The Book ‘Coming to one’s
Senses – By the Way Volumes One and Two provide glimpses of the Way. It contains
over 130 stories, with a number from the business world. See 'kennen'. Back to Terms listed in this Lexicon
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