Metanoia in LOs - Part 2 LO30235

From: AM de Lange (amdelange@postino.up.ac.za)
Date: 06/05/03


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Dear Orgamlearners,

Greetings to all of you. Let us now continue with part 2.

The following is based on my own (rather too rare) experiences with LOs
and my contemplation on them in terms of complexity theory. Should LOs
have abounded much more, it might have been possible to correct my
personal opinions with more solid research. Nevertheless, my opinions are
intended to catalyze your own thoughts on this subject and to encourage a
learning dialogue.

First of all, I think that metanoia are essential to a LO to distinguish
it from an OO (Ordinary Organisation), even when that OO calls itself a LO
for whatever reason. Metanoia in a LO is like the leaves of a plant, the
feathers of a bird or the legs of a mammal. The function of a LO without
metanoia is impossible. Why?

Once the OO emerge into a LO, these metanoia will also emerge from the
ordinary thoughts ("orthonoia") of its past existence as an OO. Emergence
beget emergences. To think of the gradual transition of an OO into an LO
is to require that orthonoia develop gradually into metanoia with no
radical change of minds. But this is not how any emergence works. When a
baby is borne, it might look as the father, the mother or one of the
grandparents. But actually it has the looks of its own and it will develop
as a unique individual. It is not a clone of one of its parents because it
shares 50%-50% the genes of its father and mother.

The metanoia of the members of a LO are definitely positive, constructive
and goodhearted. By this I mean that LO members do not seek or allow the
downfall some of their own members or even some members of society at
large. These metanoia of them are rather concerned with the advancement of
all fellow humans in body and mind. These metanoia are also concerned
about the ecological preservation of the environment. The Banthu nations
of Southern Africa has the special word "ubuntu" which may somewhat
correspond to metanoia. But sadly, this ubuntu is fast disappearing in a
world of globalisation.

Is it possible to have metanoia without a "Shared Vision", one of the five
disciplines of a LO? I do not think so. The leader of a LO will have to
consider carefully what vision the LO should follow. This vision should
promote metanoia by acting as a foundation on which the metanoia are
masoned. All members in the LO will have to digest carefully what this
vision entails. This requires sufficient time and dialogue to explore it
fully. Many a leader fails by forcing his/her view from top to bottom.
But the leader of a LO rather consults with fellow members on that future
of the organisation which they desire.

Is it possible to have metanoia without "Team Learning", another of the
five disciplines of a LO? I do not think so. The mutual experiences gained
by team learning rather than individual learning are vital to the
emergence of metanoia. For example, how can novel thoughts emerge in a
baby without the loving care of its parents?

Perhaps not as good for you as for me since many lack the experiences, is
the following example. Succulent plants grow in the harsh environment of
deserts. To be tough they have to keep their gene pool as rich as
possible. Most species accomplish this by relying on cross-polination to
prevent self-polination (inbreeding). Should one specimen grow to far away
from the rest so that their pollen cannot reach it, it will flower
(orthonoia) year after, but it will never set seed (metanoia).

I now strongly suspect that the emergence of metanoia in team learning
depends on a definite mentor in that team. This mentor has to be someone
who, through own experiences, can recognise and encourage the emergence of
metanoia among fellow team members. The leader of the organisation has to
identify such mentors and make them available for team learning.

Is it possible to have metanoia without the three remaining disciplines of
a LO, namely "Personal Mastery", "Mental Models" and "Systems Thinking"? I
do not think so. For example, in Systems Thinking we have to know what
conditions are favourable for any emergence. The implicit condition is
that every emergence happen far away from equilibrium at the so-called
"edge of chaos". Thus we have to know what entities cause this chaos so as
not to deny them. They are entropic force-flux pairs -- intensive tensions
and their complementary extensive flows. They are generated by a rugged
entropy (fitness) landscape.

The explicit condition is just as important. It may be formulated in terms
of the 11 essences of a LO (see appendix to the Fifth Discipline) or the
7Es (seven essentialities of creativity). The latter are liveness,
sureness, wholeness, fruitfulness, spareness, otherness and openness. For
example, consider wholeness. In a fragmented organisation of which its
members do not know the function of fellow members, the resulting lack of
wholeness inhibits the emergence of metanoia and thus its function as a
LO. The whole fails to be more than the sum of its parts. An OO without
suffucient wholeness can never emerge into a LO, what to say of it
maturing as a LO.

How do these metanoia emerge? I love these "how" questions because they
concern the second loop of double loop learning. I do not think that
metanoia emerge when things are complacedly at equilibrium. That is the
terrain of orthonoia -- business as usual. Metanoia rather thrive on the
unexpected or unusual. Metanoia reach beyond the fear for chaos to explore
a better future. Leaders who fear the "rocking the ship" may very well
prevent the emergence of an OO into a LO. However, this "rocking the ship"
has to be in a spirit of awakening rather than putting the organisation
into oblivion forever.

Metanoia always emerge as the result of collective (organisational)
learning. In other words, it takes more than one individual for metanoia
to emerge. The "inbreeding" of an individual's own thoughts is deadly to
having metanoia. Individuals first have to share their thoughts. Then they
have to accommodate each other's thoughts by modifying their own thoughts
rather than the thoughts of the others. This modification, as I have
contemplated in myself, can happen in three ways -- addition, elimination
and substitution. However, for these modifications to happen, I have to be
aware exactly what in any of my thoughts is reactive to exactly what in
another member's thought. These reactive parts of my thoughts are two of
a kind -- either they differ dialectically from the reactive parts of
other member's thoughts or they correspond closely. When they differ, I
must be careful not to deny their thoughts. When they correspond, I must
be careful not to sanctify my thoughts by their's. Because of this duality
in reactivity, it is always a temptation for me to rely too much on logic.

The tacit dimension of thinking is a vexing problem in sharing thoughts so
that metanoia can emerge. Knowing what another person thinks requires that
person to articulate his/her thoughts. But the tacit dimension entails
that many of that person's thoughts have not been articulated before. The
probing of that person's tacit thoughts requires great respect and
compassion. The great danger is trying to articulate self the tacit
thoughts of another person and then, upon agreement, to assume that this
person articulated them self also. Yet nothing can replace the authentic
articulation of tacit thinking.

The above is definitely not a prescription how fellow learners must think.
It is merely a reflection on my own thinking. The WHAT of my thinking is
one thing, but the HOW is quite another thing. It requires intense
concentration to switch regularly between the WHAT and the HOW without
getting lost. Often I lose track of my thinking, especially when involved
in a spoken dialogue. Furthermore, to think of both happens seldomly with
me, but when it happens, I get the "goose flesh". My mind is either not
trained for such parallel thinking or is not capable of doing it.

What factors are detrimental to the emergence of metanoia as well as the
LO having them? I will try to list the factors in order of importance
according to my own experiences. I will try not to be judgmental, but I
must observe the negative with the positive to give a fair account.

First of all, a lack of unconditional love. Long ago Maturana identified
the propensity for love as that which distinguishes humankind "Homo
sapiens" from all other living species. He called those of humankind aware
to such love as "Homo sapiens amans". The third name points to the driving
force behind human evolution -- the spark of the divine. It is not a
physical character any more as with other living species, but something
spiritually essential to the human condition. We may suffer wars, but
eventually peace supersedes. We may suffer crime, but eventually justness
abides. This is so because love takes us to the higher order which
metanoia are concerned with.

Secondly, an adherence to the letter rather than the spirit. I may
formulate it somewhat differently as an infatuation with existing
information while neglecting personal knowledge -- dogma overriding common
intuition -- commands ruling over requests -- history dictating the
future. Information records the past rather than predicting an unknown
future. But knowledge has a tacit dimension to it, namely the recognition
of what was not before. Knowledge grows comsistently because of authentic
learning, but information explodes because of making points.

Thirdly, a fear of what is unknown and a reluctance to explore it keenly.
Here we should have sincere compassion since the road of bifurcations is
risky and scarcely populated. Our societies developed to embrace bench
marks, fashions and the common. They are reluctant to admit outsiders who
may cause upheavals. They use class rather than overall context as a
directive for identity. It is all the consequence of not trying to
accommodate people with thoughts different to one's own. Their thoughts
may not be metanoia, but our own metanoia depend on them to emerge.

Fourthly, a greed for material wealth rather than the desire for spiritual
richdom. Material wealth like enough food, clothing, shelter, transport
and other accessories are important not to inhibit spiritual development.
But they cannot replace spiritual qualities like integrity, honour,
friendship and trustworthyness. When the body rules over the mind, the
human loses the quality of acting humane. The human becomes worse than an
animal, a thinking humanoid devoid of compassion for other humans, nature
and the devine. The risk of losing spiritual qualties is far greater than
the risk of losing physical qualities.

I can think of other factors, but the above ought to reflect my state of
mind. They have two things in common. Firstly, letting destructive
creativity replace constructive creativity -- impairing the 7Es so as to
rule with offense as a just means for defense. Secondly, an ignorance to
the vital importance of emergent phenomena at large. Why? I really do not
know, but I suspect that it is caused by an excessive occupation with
information.

One thing which I have observed in my rare encounters with LOs is that
their metanoia are far to often perceived as dangerous to members of
society at large which cannot recognise such metanoia. But fearing the
unkown should not prevent a LO to let its metanoia emerge in whatever
society it operates. Would it not be paradise if metanoia abounded so much
that everyone seeks for more of it. But to have such an abundace of
metanoia requires vast emergences of OOs into LOs.

Artur da Silva once called metanoia the founding discipline of a LO. I
think that he meant by it that an OO (Ordinary Organisation) without
metanoia cannot function as a LO. According to the search results with
Google thousands of OOs refer to themselves as LOs. But also according to
Google, very few of them know that metanoia distinguish them from OOs. I
leave it up to you fellow learners to make out what goes with what.

But after all which I have written above, i yearn for a learning dialogue
on your viewpoints. Please tell us your own experiences and insights.
Without them the emergence of metanoia on our list will get impaired.

Thank you again Artur for your "Our Founding Discipline LO20405". I have
been involved recently in the emergence of four tiny LOs. The last couple
of months the emergence of metanoia in them reminded me of your
contribution and how important it is.

With care and best wishes

-- 

At de Lange <amdelange@postino.up.ac.za> Snailmail: A M de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre Faculty of Science - University of Pretoria Pretoria 0001 - Rep of South Africa

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