I love this discussion! Here is what I think: In my opinion, organizations are living systems, since the objects, rules, procedures, hierarchies, etc. were made by people in the first place. And how people and teams in organizations handle these objects, rules, procedures, hierarchies, etc. again depends on the people. I do agree that the smaller the system is the more obvious self-organization can be, i.e. the bigger the influence of a single individual or organizational unit can be. But even in large, slow-moving organizations people have come up with amazing strategies - constructive or destructive - in order to influence their environment. This understanding of a living system in mind has completely changed my approach to resistance and sabotage in organizational development processes. I consider resistance and sabotage not as annoying obstacles but as valuable information and valid strategies of people in this organization which have to be integrated in the development process in order for the "change" to come into life.
I am looking forward to your opinions and thoughts, Mayke ___________________________________________ essence - Beratung, Training, Coaching Mayke Wagner Hanser 3 88279 Amtzell GERMANY mayke.wag...@t-e-a-m.org Tel (+49) 07520 / 9232 02 visit us: <http://www.t-e-a-m.org> Von: Artur Silva <arturfsi...@yahoo.com> Antworten an: OSLIST <osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu> Datum: Sun, 13 Feb 2005 07:15:30 -0800 An: osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu Betreff: Re: [OSLIST] Turtles (short) Masud Sheikh <mashe...@cogeco.ca> wrote: HO wrote: "Or put rather bluntly - there is no such thing as a non-self-organizing system. There are only some mildly deluded folks who think they did the organizing. Outrageous for sure, and possibly a break with reality, but that is pretty much where I found myself." I believe the statement "there is no such thing as a non-self-organizing system" is true for living systems, but not for non-living systems. For instance, in any "organization" there are systems of people, who find that the best team-building may be done around the coffee machine or bar, rather than in a classroom, teaching "teamwork". There are other systems (e.g. the financial reporting system) that are non-living. Both the living and non-living systems interact with - and impact - each other. Let me stop here, and invite others to join in Masud - thanks for taking the lead on this. Harrison - there are two things that I don't understand in this last post and in some others from you. I think I have already referred to this, but let's go again. 1. You refer often to Kaufman's conditions for self-organization. Clearly those conditions are NOT current and they occur only in special situations. So it seems to me that there is a contradiction between your references to those conditions and your persistent affirmations that "there is not such thing as a non-self-organizing-systems". Can you clarify your thoughts about this please? 2. I agree with Masud that the statement is true for "living systems". So when we consider the humans as part of an ecosystem we can see them as a "living systems". But human organizations are not only "living material". Masud gave an example with the financial system, but there are others. An organization is a mix of living people with objects, rules, procedures, hierarchies, etc that are not "living" in the biological sense. Those rules and procedures inhibit, in my opinion, their being "living systems". That's is precisely the reason why we talk about opening the space - the fact that quite often in organizations and even in communities the space is pretty closed. Any comments? Artur Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - 250MB free storage. Do more. Manage less. <http://us.rd.yahoo.com/evt=29915/*http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250> * * ========================================================== osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs: http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist * * ========================================================== osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs: http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist
