Replying to LO23864 --
> Steve Finegan <steve@hunt.com> writes:
>
>>I'm fascinated by the concept of "co-evolution" and it's
>>possible metaphorical application to teamwork in
>>organizations. Anyone doing any research in this area?
>>Any reading suggestions or people I might contact?
Steve, its bigger than just teams...
What follows is a chapter from my book 'Navigating Complexity' [the xrefs
refer to ther parts of the book, which is organised as a hypertext]
which you might find stimulating, you can find it on Amazon, newly in
paperback, and tell em I said it's available, because they claim it isn¹t!
As Rick will confirm, the Team Learning Lab, developed by ILL from Senge
and the teams work in Ford, is a development very much in harmony with
coevolutionary notions, even if these notions were not explicit in its
development.
Hope this is useful, its long, but easy to read, I'm oft' told...
> Section 4: The web of life
> ³The people who are living on this planet need to break with the narrow
> concept of human liberation, and begin to see liberation as something that
> needs to be extended to the whole of the Natural World. What is needed is
> the liberation of all things that support life - the air, the waters, the
> trees- all the things which support the sacred web of life²
> Haudenosaunee Address to the Western World, 1977
>
> ³During rush-hour on the subway in Upper Manhattan straphangers were only
> mildly surprised to find a 90lb deer waiting outside their station. For
> the last five years wild turkeys, coyotes and deer have been moving south
> into populated areas of Westchester County and last year coyotes were found
> in the Bronx.²
> Observer 2nd June 1996
>
> ³None of the various government systems human have so far devised has
> enabled us to deal with the complexity of nature. Most of the problems we
> face today in every field are of our own making because the
> interconnectedness of mankind, our planet, and its resources is not taken
> seriously or even believed fundamentally.²
> Allan Savory, author of Holistic Resource Management
>
> About this section
> ^ÌThe web of life¹ represents the interconnectedness that is perhaps the
> most striking and perplexing feature of living systems, the most complex
> systems in the universe. The interplay of agents in competition with each
> other creates the environments in which improvements continually evolve, in
> which organisms and organisations seek to preserve themselves against a
> background of constant change.
>
> The entries are:
> ecosystem
> coevolution
> evolution of cooperation
> fitness landscape
> autopoiesis
>
>
> Implication summary:
>
> Ecosystem
> The fragmentation of central and local government, the successive
> privatisations of the last decade, the new waves of quangos, regulatory and
> advisory, have massively increased the interconnectedness and complexity
> of the local government sector. It is simply not possible to draw a clear
> boundary around these sectors. therefore any attempt to apply conventional
> systems thinking to them is doomed to failure.
>
> Coevolution
> The concept of coevolution draws our attention to the inevitable
> interrelationships between organisations. Coevolution is therefore an
> appropriate metaphor to inform our thinking about partnerships in all their
> forms.
>
> Evolution of cooperation
> Organisations need to be clear what strategies are needed for the types of
> situation they operate in. Axelrod¹s work shows how in initially
> competitive or antagonistic environments cooperation can emerge or be
> encouraged, to the benefit of all the players.
>
> Fitness landscape
> There is no such thing as a level playing field: instead we have constantly
> deforming landscapes. Success may come from actually ignoring some
> customers needs- some of the time- and introducing new inputs into the
> system. In this perspective, strategy becomes montoring rather than
> control, and ^Ìgood enough¹ (Herbert Simon¹s ^Ìsatisficing¹) makes a comeback.
>
> Autopoiesis
> Autopoiesisis particularily relevant to two key topics in organisations:
> change and communication. An appreciation of autopoiesis leads to a
> healthily pessimistic view of human communication as innately difficult,
> and human behaviour as both self-determined and resistant to change.
> COEVOLUTION chapter
>
>
> The concept of coevolution draws our attention to the inevitable
> interrelationships between entitites. Coevolution is therefore an
> appropriate metaphor to inform our thinking about partnerships in all their
> forms.
>
> about the idea
>
> Evolution: "don¹t all race, spread out!"
> Coevolution is a concept within the concept of evolution. Evolution, (from
> the Latin evolutio, unrolling) is the theory which explains the mechanism
> by which species change and have changed since life first started on Earth.
> The overall trend in evolution is towards greater complexity and diversity
> of species. The familiar, and erroneous, view of evolution is of steady
> upward progress from fishes to amphibians to mammals to humans at the very
> peak of fitness. This view, with its inbuilt idea of hierarchy is
> dangerously misleading; evolution is perhaps better viewed as a
> spreading-out like the creepers of a vine. Fitness in the biological
> sense, is about adaptation to the environment, not how strong and fierce a
> creature is; in this sense of fitness as ^Ìadaptation¹, insects and rats are
> much fitter than humans. ^ÌMatchness¹ might be a better word to avoid the
> sense of superiority embodied in the term fitness. Fritjof Capra argues that:
>
> ³Detailed studies of ecosystems over the past decades has shown quite
> clearly that most relationships between living organisms are essentially
> cooperative ones, characterised by coexistence and interdependence, and
> symbiotic in various degrees. Even predator-prey relationships that are
> destructive for the immediate prey are generally beneficent for both
> species. This insight is in sharp contrast to the views of the Social
> Darwinists, who saw life exclusively in terms of competition, struggle and
> destruction. Their view of nature has helped create a philosophy that
> legitimated exploitation and the disastrous impact of our technology on the
> natural environment. But such a view has no scientific justification,
> because it fails to perceive the integrative and cooperative principles
> that are essential aspects of the ways in which living systems organise
> themselves at all levels.²
>
> Neo-Darwinian theory goes further, according to Capra:
>
> ³The classical theory sees evolution as moving toward an equilibrium state,
> with organisms adapting themselves ever more perfectly to their
> environment. According to the systems view, evolution operates far from
> equilibrium and unfolds through an interplay of adaptation and creation.
> Moreover, the systems theory takes into account that the environment is,
> itself, a living system capable of adaptation and evolution. Thus the
> focus shifts from the evolution of an organism to the coevolution of
> organism plus environment.²
>
> Coevolution: the larger view
> So the idea of evolution has itself evolved to produce the concept of
> co-evolution. Stewart Brand, founder of the CoEvolution Quarterly offers
> these definitions:
>
> ³Evolution is adapting to meet one¹s needs. Co-evolution, the larger view,
> is adapting to meet each other¹s needs.²
>
> The evolution of evolution sees the shift from the predator- prey
> relationship as ^Ìsurvival of the fittest¹ implying that only rabbits lose
> if foxes eat all the rabbits, to a realisation that foxes will starve
> without rabbits. [xref- attractor/more complex attractors] The history of
> evolution repeats a pattern again and again: organisms start out competing,
> then parasitism emerges and gradually turns into symbiosis. In many
> ^Ìcodependent¹ relationships in the natural world the two parties can no
> longer survive without each other. The ^Ìswollen thorn acacia¹ of eastern
> Mexico has lost its protective thorns and offers shelter and food to the
> acacia ant; in return the ants repel all invaders, including the seedlings
> of other plants that would compete with the acacia. There are close
> parallels in the world of organisations; we ca observe partnerships and
> strategic alliances emerging from initial antagonisms. A good public
> sector example is the partnership between many local authorities and TECs.
> [xref- Engaging with complexity:/Learning from complexity in the public
> sector] John Holland describes coevolution in the context of complex
> adaptive systems like this:
>
> ³Organisms in an ecosystem coevolve. In the natural world this has
> produced flowers that evolved to be fertilised by bees, and bees that
> evolved to live off the nectar of flowers. It has produced cheetahs that
> evolved to chase down gazelles, and gazelles that evolved to escape from
> cheetahs. In the human world, the dance of coevolution has produced
> equally exquisite webs of economic and political dependencies - alliances,
> rivalries, customer-supplier relationships, and so on. Coevolution is a
> powerful force for emergence and self-organization in any complex adaptive
> system.²
> John Holland quoted in Waldrop
>
> Management aping Nature
> Complexity science is now beginning to unravel the underlying mechanisms of
> evolution and coevolution. Robert Axelrod¹s work on the evolution of
> cooperation has set out the mechanisms by which competitiveness gives way
> to cooperation. [xref- evolution of cooperation] Simulations such as Tom
> Ray¹s Tierra, which reproduces the evolution of parasitism and symbiosis in
> ^Ìcode creatures¹ living in computer memory, and the ^Ìboids¹ simulation of
> Craig Reynolds convincingly demonstrate an understanding of some of the key
> processes of nature. [xref- self-organisation] In turn, their ideas are
> being applied to the management of organisations. Stuart Kauffman has
> developed extensive applications of the ^Ìfitness landscape¹ concept - the
> ^Ìspace¹ in which the dance of coevolution
> is performed- to the area of technological competition. [xref- fitness
> landscape]
>
> Coevolution is everywhere
> If there is one key idea in complexity sciences it is ^Ìco¹ as in
> coevolution. Complex adaptive systems are webs of interrelationships
> between yet more complex adaptive systems, self-organised systems are
> codependent ^Ìflocks¹ of agents. Examples will be found throughout this book.
>
> xrefs
> evolution of cooperation, self-organisation, fitness landscape, attractor,
> Engaging with complexity: Learning from complexity in the public sector,
>
> refs
>
> Kevin Kelly, Out of Control: the new biology of machines, Fourth Estate,
> 1994, ISBN 1-85702-308-0, £8.99
> M. Mitchell Waldrop, Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order
> and Chaos,
> Penguin, ISBN 0 6708 5045 4 £7.99
> Fritjof Capra, The Turning point: science, society and the rising culture,
> Flamingo, 1983, ISBN 0-00-654017-1, £7.99
> If Price PunkEekpaper®
> If Price and Ray Shaw, Shifting the Patterns: transforming the codes of
> personal and company performance, forthcoming publication, 1996. (for
> further details contact the Harrow Partnership, Pewley Fort, Pewley Hill,
> Guildford, Surrey GU1 3SP)
> john darwin paper®
> Brian Eno interviewed by Kevin Kelly: Archives at the HotWired Website:
> http://www.hotwired.com
>
> relevance
>
> Coevolution and co-control
> Kevin Kelly says that learning is overrated as the mechanism by which
> humans adapt and change. He describes coevolution as a powerful variety of
> what we know as learning, quoting Stewart Brand:
>
> ³Ecology is a whole system, alright, but coevolution is a whole system in
> time. The health of it is forward^Ësystemic self-education which feeds on
> constant imperfection. Ecology maintains. Coevolution learns.²
>
> In the Zone of Complexity: co-control
> Eno: People tend to think that it's total control or no control. But the
> interesting place is in the middle of that.
>
> Kelly: Right. We have no word for that state of in-between control. We have
> some words like "management," or "herding," or "husbandry." All these are
> words for co-control.
>
> Eno: I call it "surfing." When you surf, there is a powerful complicated
> system, but you're riding on it, you're going somewhere on it, and you can
> make some choices about it.
>
> (from an Interview with Brian Eno with Kevin Kelly, published in HotWired
> on the Internet)
>
> Kelly prefers the terms ^Ìcolearning¹ and ^Ìcoteaching¹ to describe what the
> participants in coevolution are doing: teaching each other and learning
> from each other at the same time. This mutual ^Ìeducation¹ of the
> coevolutionary players can clearly be seen in the game theory simulations
> of Robert Axelrod, [xref- evolution of cooperation] and in the
> Inter-governmental games described by Rod Rhodes [xref -Engaging with
> complexity/ Learning from complexity in the public sector]
>
> Coevolution in service delivery
> In human systems, coevolution is about mutual adaptation and learning.,
> even though each player will have different goals. The emergence of
> coevolution can be seen clearly in the case study on the Schools Special
> Needs Transport Service (SNT): ^ÌSelf-organising for Success¹. The
> cab-drivers wanted to minimise the amount of trips they had to do whilst
> trying to maximise their fares (See the note on ^Ìoptimisation¹ in
> ^Ìfitness landscape¹ for an explanation of why this is impossible [xref-
> fitness landscape]). The SNT obviously wants the opposite: more work from
> cabs for smaller fares). Coevolution started to happen in the service when
> the service partners began to share their learning and their reflections on
> their experiences as a team, thus realising the benefits of their
> interconnectedness. [xref- ^ÌSelf-organising for Success¹]
>
> Punctuated equilibrium: shifting the patterns
> If Price and Ray Shaw of the Harrow Partnership have applied the concept
> of ^Ìpunctuated equilibrium¹, taken from theories of evolution, to issues
> of change management in organisations. Puctuated evolution is a theory
> which states that evolution goes in fits and starts, rather than as a
> smooth upward progression of improvements. As complexity theorists remind
> us, most processes are messy, disordered and strange, and evolution is no
> exception. Millions of years can go by during which there is hardly any
> change at all, the same plants and animals just doing the same things over
> and over again, only to be disrupted by a ^Ìbrief¹ period of ^Ìexplosion¹ in
> which millions of new lifeforms suddenly appear as if from nowhere: hence
> the term ^Ìpunctuated equilibrium¹. (By ^Ìbrief¹ we mean a few thousand
> years; in other words ^Ìbrief¹ in geological terms, not human terms).
>
> Price and Shaw¹s approach involves the use of ^Ìmemetic change¹ concepts in
> organisations in a way that is analogous to genetic change in evolution.
> [xref- memes] They call this sudden change: ^Ìshifting the pattern¹. Price
> says that:
>
> ³For me ^ÌLearning is Evolution¹¹ [a deliberate inversion of Bateson¹s
> ^ÌEvolution is Learning¹]. In this view of the world, learning - like
> evolution - happens when equilibria are punctuated. I believe it is
> possible to do that in a way that encourages a beneficial learning [for
> people, the world, and a corporation/ organisation]. I also believe that
> the learning, like evolution, can be accelerated when the environmental
> shift that will enable it is created.²
>
>By the way, lest the reader be mislead into thinking
> that Price is some sort of new Social Darwinist, be assured that he is
> just as opposed to those toxic Social Darwinist ideas as Fritjof Capra
> (quoted earlier). He continues:
>
> ³I am deeply sympathetic to the view, expressed most eloquently by Stephen
> Gould, that the comparisons may have done more harm than good. But at the
> end of the day I draw a different message. I choose to believe that if we
> can get a better understanding of the workings of learning as evolution we
> have a fighting chance of avoiding its worst outcomes.²
>
> Shifting the shift patterns: an example of punctuated equilibrium
> A restaurant chain appointed a new manager to one of their flagship
> pub/restaurants: an ex-trainer, she was appalled by the effects of the
> entrenched shift system on the performance and well-being of the staff.
> The shift system had been in place for many years, nobody liked it, the
> shifts were long, tiring and unsociable, yet no-one wanted to change it.
> After working there for several months and experiencing the effects of the
> system ^Ìfirst-hand¹ on herself and her staff, she decided to change it. She
> made certain that she consulted everyone as she designed the alternative:
> they all were sure that they would suffer personally, although they could
> see that the change might benefit other staff. Convinced that she was
> right, and after being told that it was ^Ìher risk¹ by her own manager, she
> went ahead and introduced her new system. The response was instant:
> everyone liked it and performance and morale immediately improved, much to
> the surprise of the ^Ìgloom merchants¹ who predicted that the entrenched
> culture of the organisation would cause it to fail. Her senior management
> liked it so much, they have ordered that the new system be adopted
> throughout the region, prior to being implemented nationally.
>
> Please note: this is not a Business Process Re-engineering story. The
> system was not designed by external consultants, it was designed by an
> ^Ìinsider¹ who would suffer the consequences along with everyone else inside
> the system. It was not based on computer modelling of workflow. It was
> not a ^Ìbig-bang¹ implementation. After it was introduced it was changed
> several times, in minor ways, and continues to be amended in minor ways to
> take account of the differing needs of individual staff and the demands of
> service delivery. It is a system that is evolving organically.
>
> Is it really all about culture?
> Conventional management theory would find it hard to explain this overnight
> change. Theories of organisational culture suggest that entrenched
> attitudes are very resistant to change. These theories tell us that
> change, when it happens at all, has to be pushed through using various
> ^Ìchange management¹ processes. Complexity theory, however, is very much
> in harmony with what happened in this case. We can see a ^Ìpunctuated
> equilibrium¹, in which one ^Ìlock-in¹ is exchanged for another. [xref-
> increasing returns and lock-in] The pattern of staff attitudes is very
> reminiscent of a strange attractor in a ^Ìdynamical system¹ when the system
> ^Ìjumps¹ suddenly from one ^Ìtrack¹ to another. [xref - attractor] This
> rich set of complexity metaphors offer a range of insights into change in
> human systems. To find out what happened next see ^Ìecosystem¹ . [xref
> ecosystem]
The above material is seriously copyright Arthur Battram, the author, who
asserts his moral and copyrights to this material.
--"arthur battram" <apb@cityplex.demon.co.uk>
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