Replying to LO27747 --
Dear LO'ers,
At de Lange digged further into the issue of leadership. This is such an
important issue - and as always, digging further means uncovering a new
world - that he needed 2 contributions to reply my questions.
In my former contribution I complimented At for his masterpieces:
> >This series of At ["Constructive creativity and leadership"
> > LO27524, 27528, 27553, 27590, 27603, 27633 and
> > 27642) was another master piece of this/our/my teacher.
And At replied with:
> Masterpiece? Like Beethoven I already feel that a lot of changes
> have to be made to improve on them. Your question nr 7 is one of
> them. Let us then do it by way of the LO-dialogue.
For me it were masterpieces, but At's level of satisfaction is apparently
much, much higher. Well, to satisfy you, At, consider them as
'leermeester-stukken' (learning master pieces). Here we encounter one of
the problems with the English language, I need brackets to link words. I
mean '(learning master) pieces', and not 'learning (master pieces)'.
OK, let me add my own thoughts to At's. Thoughts that circled in my mind
when I articulated my questions.
> >1. Could we imagine an organisation without a leader?
> >Is such situation possible?
>
> I can imagine such an organisation, but it will be purely fictive. To
> have a leaderless organisation, all its members must be equal in all
> respects. This means that we will have to deny at least otherness
> ("quality-variety") in favour of equality. Otherness is one of the 7Es
> (seven essentialities of creativity).
When thinking of organisations and leadership, I was also thinking of any
organisation, thus also non-human organisations. My thoughts first went to
biological organisations like coral reefs, bee- and ant colonies (yes
Andrew, that was another coincidence :-)), and so on. All of these
organisations have leaders (or leadresses). There is at least one
organisation I thought of which does not seem to have a leader - the flock
of birds. I do not mean the V-shaped bird formations, but realy these
flocks. We have discussed these flocks in the past on this list.
I thought it was on this list that somebody quoted the following:
"In an avalanche there is no snowflake to blame"
which somehow refers to a lack of a leader too. However, one could also
think of the contrary of a leader: the target/laughing-stock/sitting duck
which each human organisation seems to have too.
Even in the abiotic world, organisations seem to have a leader. I was
thinking of stellar constillations, such as the solar system - the sun
seems to be the leader.
> Even more striking to me, since otherness has been denied none
> of its members will have any constructive creativity. All their
> creativity will be misused for destruction. (It reminds me very
> much of Robespierre and his gang during the French Revolution
> -- freedom, equality and fraternity. At last even he was guillotined.)
> Thus it seems that constructive creativity implies leadership.
> Perhaps this is the answer to your next question.
Before going to that next question, I think that otherness is always
present in an organisation. Since an organisation has always borders and
contacts with its surroundings, the border elements of the organisation
must be different from those belonging to the 'heart' of the organisation.
So there must be otherness. But if this is sufficient for leadership is an
other question.
> >2. Why is a leader necessary?
I still don't know. And I like to know the thoughts of you, LO'ers.
> >3. Is the leader the member of an organisation with
> >the highest available amount of free energy?
>
> I cannot answer this one definitively. For example, the leader will
> need a vast amount of personal free energy to maintain the status
> of the organisation when its members lack learning. I know of
...... [snip]
The reply of At is most interesting. My thoughts went to other directions.
I realised that question 3) is a complex one. I was thinking of the
question WHERE COULD WE LOCATE THE PLACE OF HIGHEST FREE ENERGY IN A
SYSTEM?
Unfortunately, I am not so handy in producing the type of graphs that At
produces. So I must describe in words the pictures that I have in mind.
Suppose an imaginative cross section through an organisation. That means
that in a rectangular frame the horizontal is starting in the left with
the surroundings of the organisation and passing the border line or zone
(depending on the scale of observation) and entering in the organisation.
Continuing along the horizontal axis to the right we will pass at a
certain place the heart of the organisation and with further continuation
we approach the other side and finally we end again in the surroundings
(for simplicity you may think of a symmetrical cross section). Suppose
that on the vertical axis we could indicate the amount of free energy of
the organisation. And suppose that the maximum of free energy is in the
centre of the org. The graph of the free energy shows a peak in the
middle. The total shape could be pyramid like, or somewhat Gaussian. I
don't know the precise shape.
Let us assume (proposition 1) that the area with the highest available
free energy is the area of greatest growth. Thus in our imaginative org
the centre is growing. The centre is rejuvinating, while the borders are
the oldest parts. Could we think of such examples in the human, biotic and
abiotic realms? The first example that jumps in my mind is the sunflower
with its Fibonacci-spirals.
If I think of the rings of the elm tree near my farm house another picture
is uncovered. The youngest tree rings are at the border and the heart of
the tree is the oldest. Do tree cells at the rims of the trunk have the
highest available free energy? In that case the graph will be opposite:
maxima at the borders with the surroundings and a minimum in the centre.
Where is the leader among the tree cells? - if there is a leader anyway.
One of the next questions is somehow parallel to At's answer: could free
energy be transferred from the leader or from one place to another place
so that growth potential could be replaced? But I am afraid that I enter
in a too difficult area, since (free) energy transport generates entropy
which then suggests a self supporting conveyer belt.
If we think of companies, I am not sure how the growth of a company is
distributed. Is the centre with the leader or management team growing in
the same rate as the periphery of the company?
I realise that my first proposition - free energy is converted into growth
- is rather simple and probably not (always) the case. And that is clearly
answered in my question 5) by At:
> >5. Should we make a distinction between 'muscle
> >free energy' and 'brain free energy'. Is a balanced
> >situation of both the ideal situation?
>
> Distinction -- yes, but division -- no. The brain is as much an organ
> of the body as any other organ like the muscles. To starve the brain
> from free energy is dangerous. When the brain dies, the rest of the
> body surely dies (without any external support system).
>
> Perhaps you use "muscle" and "brain" as metaphors for the physical
> or spiritual realms. This distinction (but not a fragmentation) is also
> crucial.
Yes, of course. I thank At to make make it clearer.
Your answer is also clarifying.
> Leo, I found your mentioning of the cap stone (pyramidion) of
> the pyramid of Cheops in Egypt most curious. The Great Pyramid
> (GP) is the oldest of all the pyramids. Even its accurate
> construction is vastly superior to the rest. It is as if the rest were
> merely copies of the GP, beginning almost a millennium afterwards.
> This GP is shrouded in mysteries. Even the assumption that it was
> the burial place of the pharaoh Khufu is based on only two dubious
> inscriptions (hieroglyphs) inside the whole of this GP.
I mentioned Cheops, because I thought that its strong form and the fact
that there is a lot of mystery around it, Cheops would trigger the
imagination of the list members.
It is most welcome that At's historical sketch sustained our imagination
even more.
[snip]
>
> Calculations on the various measurements of the GP's
> dimensions and finding ratios between them support the idea that
> the GP itself never had a pyramidion. If this is the case, then the
> absence of the pyramidion signified an important message by its
> builder. Who exactly planned and oversaw the construction of
> the GP? Carbon dating of the age of the GP is impossible
> because no organic material exists on which such dating could
> be based. To connect it with the reign of Khufu is also dubious.
> Calculations on its orientation to the North Pole and how much
> the latter has shifted through the centuries, as well as the
> orientation of its internal passages and their orientation to stellar
> constellations (Orion and Dragon), point to a construction about
> 5000 years ago. Another curious thing is that should we
> determine the centre of the distribution of the earth's crust above
> sea level, it comes close to the locality of the GP. Adjust this for
> 5000 years of drifting continents and it comes even closer to the
> locality of the GP.
>
And At continues with much more very interesting information. I saved this
part for a particular reason. It is a detail
It is a detail that kept my thoughts busy for more then 20 years. Why are
all the scientists who study the Egyptian pyramids, mention that
mysterious orientation to the North pole. I think it is a little more than
a year ago that an English scientist proposed the theory of Dragon-Orion
orientation. She rambled with her theory all former speculations. But what
keeps my mind busy is that all those scientists (like Pooh :-)) are
searching for the North pole. Is it not much more 'logic' and much more
simple in that sunny land to look for the South? Why are the pyramids
oriented to the north, and not to the south???
At, thank you again for your most interesting reply that opened a lot of
new thinking directions. One of these needs further contemplation with me:
what are the reasons that some managers with intention keep their
organisation unfinished by leaving the final element (pyramidion) away.
dr. Leo D. Minnigh
l.d.minnigh@library.tudelft.nl
Library Technical University Delft
PO BOX 98, 2600 MG Delft, The Netherlands
Tel.: 31 15 2782226
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Let your thoughts meander towards a sea of ideas.
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--Leo Minnigh <l.d.minnigh@library.tudelft.nl>
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