Thank you Carmela! In this form Harrison's great message found a way throuhg my filters as well.
Be well! Arno 2015-03-08 3:52 GMT+02:00 Carmela Ariza via OSList < [email protected]>: > Dear Harrison > > Beautifully written, thanks Harrison! And to your piece, I say... > > MAKING ROOM FOR THE UNKNOWABLE > by: Carmela Ariza, 9:50AM, Manila, 8 March 2015 > > Oh emergence, where art thou? > Why did we dig so deep > To entrench cynicism > Within the very structures > That we thought would liberate us > > Where can we find thee, emergence > When struggling to find you > In our hellholes is precisely antithetical > To your very nature > E-Merge-hence! > > You are the energy > From forces that merge > And although we try our level best > To allow you to emerge > Our structures are mere traps > > Help us to listen intently to the flow of life > Enable us to create open spaces where our energies > Merge into one beautiful harmony of surprises and miracles > Befriending the "unknown" > And in our very hearts, make room for the "unknowable" > > > > > True happiness is a state of mind. > Happiness is not a consequence of things that happen. > Do not pursue happiness - practice it. > Sing, even if you do not sound good. > Smile, even when things go wrong. > Create happiness, and happy you will be. > > ------------------------------ > *From:* Harrison via OSList <[email protected]> > *To:* 'World wide Open Space Technology email list' < > [email protected]> > *Sent:* Sunday, 8 March 2015, 4:52 > *Subject:* [OSList] Emergence: Enemy or Opportunity? (A Parable of Sorts) > > Emergence is a nice, warm cuddly word. Makes you think of springtime > flowers making their random appearance, little babies entering the world – > everything just sort of popping up when and as it chooses. I can understand > why this cuddly word has replaced the harsher “Self Organization” in the > vocabulary of many people, but it is the same stuff by another name. > Emergence is simply what life does – it just pops up randomly and never > follows a plan, or certainly not any plan we might have made. The shift > from “self organization” to “emergence” is, I suspect, a lightly veiled > effort to sugar coat the reality that Emergence (self organization) is the > manager/executive’s worst nightmare. And if you are going to have a > nightmare, best it be a warm and cuddly one. > > Face it. Emergence is the last thing that any competent manager wants in > their organization. The Enemy. It is unpredictable, uncontrollable, and > quite unknowable. Without prediction, control, and knowledge, where would > any self respecting manager be? The uncomfortable answer: Out of a job. > > The response has been the elimination of Emergence at all costs. The first > line of defense is carefully designed organizational systems, crafted to > prevent variability and deviance. Each working unit is precisely defined so > as to integrate with all others in a seamless manner. To insure effective > operation, these systems are encased in layers of control – not just one > but controllers controlling the controllers, and so on *ad infinitum*. > Rounding out the picture, we have multiple training programs, skillfully > constructed to insure total compliance with system demands. > > The effort to date has been massive and in many ways, quite productive. > Unfortunately there appear to be certain unintended consequences. For > example, as organizations operate within narrower degrees of variance, > innovation, creativity, agility, and flexibility almost disappear. New > Leadership (one might say emergent) is noticeably absent – after all who > could tolerate such Emergence? Communication is reduced to small restricted > areas and allowed to follow narrowly defined channels. This sounds good, > but it renders the often praised, but rarely seen Cross > Disciplinary/Departmental cooperation virtually non-existent. Lastly, > individuals employed by such systems are perhaps less than content. Even > though they spend a majority of their waking hours so engaged they appear > to devote major energy to thoughts of escape. They long for the weekend, > Thank God for Friday, would rather be fishing, and often compare their > situation to being in jail. I even heard some say that they felt like rats > in a cage. > > These unintended consequences are apparently taken to be a small and > inescapable price for the productivity we have achieved. In addition, an > appropriate fix is readily available. Indeed we have a whole profession > devoted to the effort: Consultants. These wise purveyors of Leadership > Development, Communication Skills, Creativity Enhancement, Employee > Motivation, Conflict Resolution, Meeting Facilitation, Change Management – > all packaged in suitable interventions, programs, and “tools,” are ready to > assist. For a fee of course. > > Taken as a whole, it would seem that we have all bases covered. Productive > systems function without distraction from pesky Emergence, and such > unintended consequences as there may be are well handled by the > professionals. Could it get any better than this? Probably not unless... > > ...unless it were to turn out that our organizations were actually part of > life. Life, of course is incredibly complicated with many unknowns, but it > does seem that we have learned a few things. For example, living creatures > really don’t do very well when locked in a box. They may survive, but in > very reduced terms. Life always seems better with some basic fundamentals, > such as fresh air to breath, space to move about in, interesting and > diverse experiences and challenges, mountains to climb, and unknown hills > to peer over. Always strange, always new, always a challenge, and never > quite what we might expect. You could say Life is emergent. > > This list certainly not inclusive, and hardly scientific, but given such > basics, life does seem to work itself out. Most interestingly – Given the > basics, living creatures naturally display amazing creativity, agile > adaptation to new opportunities and changing environments, and are > constantly in communication with their fellows and other creatures. Along > the way, they create complex and elegant structures, manage such conflicts > as they have in ways that create minimal damage and maximum gain, and they > have been doing all this for a long, long time. However, deprived of such > fundamentals, life turns nasty real quick. For example, if you take a dozen > perfectly respectable, amiable, well behaved rats and squeeze them into a > small box – they will quickly kill each other. > > An odd thought does arise. It would seem that most everything we do in the > name of organizational effectiveness is antithetical to what Life requires. > Should our organizations be part of life it would then follow that such > ills as we experience (loss of agility, creativity, leadership, etc) are > actually self inflicted wounds. Doubtless our various attempts to aid the > wounded through our multiple programs, interventions and tools, are > commendable, but truthfully we are only dealing with problems we have > created. It might make a lot more sense to just stop shooting ourselves in > the foot (and elsewhere). > > For a next step, we might just open up some space for life to breath. > Won’t solve everything, but it could be a good place to start. And we might > just find that the Enemy (Emergence) is our friend... > > Harrison > > > > Winter Address > 7808 River Falls Drive > Potomac, MD 20854 > 301-365-2093 > > Summer Address > 189 Beaucaire Ave. > Camden, ME 04843 > 207-763-3261 > > Websites > www.openspaceworld.com > www.ho-image.com > OSLIST To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives > of OSLIST Go to: > http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org > > > _______________________________________________ > OSList mailing list > To post send emails to [email protected] > To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] > To subscribe or manage your subscription click below: > http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org > Past archives can be viewed here: > http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] > > > > _______________________________________________ > OSList mailing list > To post send emails to [email protected] > To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] > To subscribe or manage your subscription click below: > http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org > Past archives can be viewed here: > http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] > >
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