This is a post in my series on organizing “between and beyond.” Other posts are here. This is a retrospective of what has happened during the week. The purpose is to reflect on the journey itself. Here is my previous retrospective. Here is my next retrospective.
What has happened? What needs to be done?
I have, so far, focused on approaches where I have personal experience. Here is an analysis of Integral Management.
I have continued exploring the notion of “order,” and discovered that “order” is not only discussed by Bohm & Peat,1 but also by Bohm & Hiley.2
- I need to re-read Bohm & Peat on “order” and dialogue.
- I need to read Bohm & Hiley on the general notion of “order”.
Simon Robinson (@srerobinson) inspired me to write this post on “the way of seeing” in Sociocracy a year ago, where I introduced the distinction between authentic vs. counterfeit rules. I took this idea further and wrote this post on authentic vs. counterfeit “orders.” Here is an explanation of this subtle but important distinction. Here is an example of play as authentic ”order.” And here is an example of the egalitarian dynamics among the G/wi people, which I also think is an example of authentic “order.”
A conclusion so far is that the analyzed approaches are not wrong, but I think that many of them are based on specific assumptions which are not generally applicable. It’s as if we treat organizations as approximate machines, since we only understand how to operate machines. (Similarly, we’ve treated natural phenomena as approximately linear, since we only could solve linear differential equations.) Living and non-living systems are very different. Here is a post on the difference between autonomic vs. allonomic “orders.”
And, finally, here is a new post where I will synthesize all findings.
- I will continue adding existing organizing “orders” to this post.
- I will continue to summarize the findings in this post.
What was good? What can be improved?
I have received the book3 by Hernes which Simon Robinsson recommended last week. I really appreciate Simon’s continued support and feedback.
- I need to read Hernes’ book.
- I need to make a smart selection of the next approaches to analyze.
Jeff Loeb (@JDLoeb) asked whether I have come across the work of Fernando Flores and suggested this book by Fernando Flores.4 I added the book to my reading list.
Daniel Mezick (@DanielMezick) suggested that play is related to authentic order and provided the following link to Peter Gray’s definitions of play. I used Gray’s definitions as input to my post on play as authentic “order.”
Frands Frydendal found my analysis of Holacracy “very negative and just as clearly [a] misunderstanding.” I clarified my analysis by adding several references to the post.
Notes:
1 David Bohm & F. David Peat, Science, Order, and Creativity (Routledge, 2000).
2 David Bohm & B.J. Hiley, The Undivided Universe (Routledge, 2005).
3 Tor Hernes, A Process Theory of Organization (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014).
4 Fernando Flores, Maria Flores Letelier (Editor), Conversations for Action and Collected Essays: Instilling a Culture of Commitment in Working Relationships, (Createspace Independent Publishing Platform, 2013).
Related posts:
Organizing in between and beyond posts
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