The Virtual Open House was great fun! We had holiday tunes, pictures and quotes, greeting cards, audience chat, multiple voices, a video, a poll, presents for all, and a list of fascinating questions sent in by guests. The only things missing were the mistletoe and the eggnog, and I’m not completely sure about that.
Thanks, again, to our Webinar Wizard, Denise Easton, of www.ULiveandLearn.com !
The slides, a link to the archive, the chat stream, and other relevant documents will appear on our public network site at http://humansystemsdynamicsinstitute.ning.com/ sometime in the next few days. In the meantime, there is one question that we wanted to respond to and ran out of time. (It is amazing how quickly 2.5 hours passes by!)
What are the most fundamental principles of HSD?
HSD lies at the intersection of nonlinear and social sciences. In that space, we draw theory, models, methods, and tools from many different places, so sometimes the “fundamental principles” aren’t all that obvious. To make the question even more interesting, the core of our work doesn’t lie in principles, it lies in action. We live in praxis: theory-informed work and work-informed theory. As an active, self-organizing community, our individual and collective actions are shaped by a short list of simple rules.
Today there is some controversy about whether or not simple rules are relevant in human systems. I’ve heard and made arguments on both sides, but my praxis-minded self has to be convinced. They work.
The idea is that when a diverse group of agents all follow the same general rules of behavior, coherent system-wide patterns emerge. Search for BOIDS to find demonstrations and explanations of the simple rule phenomenon in agent-based, computer simulation models.
In real live, we see sets of simple rules move an organization or a community toward shared meaning and action, but not all short lists are created equal. Royce Holladay has given us some short rules about constructing (or discovering) simple rules:
• Begin with an action verb.
Rules are about what you DO, not what you think or believe or value.
• Keep it short.
Have no more than 5 plus or minus 2. Our short-term memories max out at 7, and you have to be able to keep the rules accessible at all times.
• Include the essentials.
Be sure that there is at least one rule to cover each of the three conditions for self-organizing—container, difference, and exchange.
• Expect consistency but not identity.
Everyone, everywhere in the system has to follow the same rules, though each person will interpret them to fit in their own contexts.
With this rather extended preamble, I can tell you the fundamental principles of HSD in the form of our simple rules:
• Teach and learn in every interaction
• Reinforce strengths of self and other
• Search for the true and the useful
• Give and get value for value
• Attend to the part, the whole, and the greater whole
• Engage in joyful practice
Does this give you a sense of what you might expect from one of our Associates? Can you imagine what kinds of system-wide patterns would emerge from our interactions? Can you see how our fundamental principles are embedded in this list of shorts and simples, and how the list embeds our principles in our individual and collective actions? Would you expect us to host a Virtual Open House in which celebration, learning, inquiry, and humor were braided together into a community experience?
Comments (4)
I get the impression that you are called upon in situations where there is excessive conflict, in which case a focus upon building trust, and even "harmony" is certainly called for. But how would your principles help organizations which are all but oblivious to the rapidly changing world around them? For example, how would you help the IT Department which inspired what Dave Snowden calls his recent brief polemic? I have been involved with organizations that espouse values quite similar to what you seem to be proposing - but they are used to actively discourage any "negative feedback". How do you avoid having your principles used to justify/promote such "corporate narcissism"?
Posted by Keith Fortowsky | December 10, 2008 9:39 AM
Posted on December 10, 2008 09:39
I should clarify my use of the term "corporate narcissism", in my earlier comment. The organizations that I've encountered with this attitude have not been publicly-traded corporations. They are public sector organizations.
Posted by Keith Fortowsky | December 10, 2008 3:07 PM
Posted on December 10, 2008 15:07
Keith, I can see ow your question can play itself out in a system....and it is important to remember that the simple rules create a total grounding to inform the behaviors that establish patterns across the system. For example, an organization that is committed to "teach and learn in every interaction" seeks feedback--both positive and negative. And if the organization is to "consider the whole, part, and greater whole" then it uses these simple rules at all levels in the organization. Simple rules can only bring coherence in the system when there is a real commitment to use them to guide all decisions and to inform actions throughout the system.
We have all been part of or worked with systems that espoused one thing and "lived" another. The key to using simple rules to create the patterns we desire is to support their use throughout the system, and to assure that they are used in all aspects of decision making and behavior across the system.
Posted by Royce Holladay | December 10, 2008 7:11 PM
Posted on December 10, 2008 19:11
Keith and Royce, these are really good perspectives. I've talked elsewhere about the zone of emergent patterns that lies between locked-in constraint and total pattern dissipation. I think that's what you are both pointing to here. Without any shared simple rules, a group lacks any coherence at all. With over-specified rules, a group lacks freedom to breathe and create.
There are two ways we try to miss both those risky outcomes. First, the rules are structured not to over specify behaviors. Second, the rules are expected to be implemented differently in different parts of the system. Agents are expected to interpret the rule and use it to enhance adaptation in a particular moment in a particular place and time.
I can't promise you that none of our Associates feels constrained by our rules. I also cannot promise you that we always generate coherent patterns. I can assure you that we've had many interesting conversations about what it means to follow a particular rule in a particular context.
BTW, I've also seen lots of institutional narcissism in private industry--maybe more even than in public!
G
Posted by Glenda Eoyang | December 12, 2008 3:56 AM
Posted on December 12, 2008 03:56