Mnr AM de Lange asked:
> But what actually is it that we wish to articulate with the word "independence"?
Independence for me is freedom to choose. Independent individuals have
gone from being dependent "rankers", employees who are inter-changeable
units of economic production, to being branders- a brand with an inner
core of knowledge and an outer core of networking. Independent individuals
can overcome the fundamental flaws of formal, static organized business
organizations of dependence, force, bounded rationality and lack of
incentives.
> I know of a number of organisations which failed to become
> LOs because of this very "independence". The members were so convinced
> that they will lose their "independence" in the LO that they would not
> partcipate in forming one. They thought of "independence" as "free from
> depending on others".
They were right to behave in this way and avoid the fundamental flaws that
are a sub-optimal means to achieving positive ends of learning. They
avoided static organizations and may well have decided to harness the
fundamental forces of realization of voluntary exchange principle, falling
transaction costs and contestable markets to form voluntary, dynamic,
impermanent organizations such as collapsible corporations.
> Peter Senge considers "team learning" as one of the five disciplines
> needed to understand more about learning organisations. Of team work
> itself he writes that the teamworkers have to trust each other, complement
> each other's $strengths$ and compensate each other's $limitations$. This
> is almost the opposite of "free from depending on others".
Teams are fine if voluntary and dynamic, if static and formal they suffer
from busyness- negotiation and compromise to keep the group together.
Combining complementary capibilities is the reason for collapsible
corpoartions- independent individuals can decide for themselves whether
they want to accept voluntary interdependence and collaborate voluntarily
with other people in dynamic company forms. A collapsible corporation is a
dynamic voluntary team.
> But if we try to articulate with "independance" that which has now become
> known as "self-organisation", then it becomes a totally different issue.
> Each worker in a team remains a self-organising unit with $strengths$ and
> $limitations$. But they also join so that a team can emerge - the team as
> a hyper-self-organisation.
Independence facilitates the collapsible corporations.
> Is Senge insenstive to "independancy" a-la "self-organisation"? No. He
> points out that "self-mastery" is another of the five disciplines. Much of
> what he writes about self-mastery are now topics in self-organisation
> studies.
If self-mastery is continual truth seeking and knowledge gathering then it
is necessary for independent individuals to continually refresh their
knowledge to continue to be of use in and invited into collapsible
corporations.
> Simon, if I could change only word in your last sentence to make it
> "voluntary fellowship is the valuable outcome from self-mastering" I agree
> with you fully. This sentence means exactly the same as "spontaneous
> participation in a more complex self-organisation depends on the
> self-organisation of its lesser complex units." It certainly does not mean
> "spontaneous participation in a more complex self-organisation is
> independent of the self-organisation of its lesser complex units."
>
> For example, to use life as a metaphor. I am an organism - a
> "self-organising" system. My liver is an organ - a "self-organising"
> system. My liver is definitely not independant of the other organs in my
> body.
>
> And just to pester many of you: all self-organising systems are
> dissipative (produce entropy)!
Great- the dissapation process fits with impermanent collapsible
corporations! We should distinguish between means and ends. We all want
the same thing- enabled people achieving their fullest potential through
learning. But the form that learning organization takes should be whatever
is the optimal means to achieve the targeted end- this is increasingly not
traditional organizations because of the fundamental flaws, but
collapsible corporations because of the fundmamental forces.
Still I am glad there is much agreement between our perspectives- if a
gulf in terminology which I apologize to the list for.
regards sincerely
Simon Buckingham
Major content overhaul just live at http://www.unorg.com
Unorganization Asia Tour begins 16th Jan 98- Japan, Hong Kong,
Philippines....
--Simon Buckingham <go57@dial.pipex.com>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>