Christine said – “Are we "working too hard" when we try to work differently ?Do you believe that Zappos would have end up anyway with same performance without the hard work of implementing Holacracy ? Anyway, we will never know...”
I have no problem working differently, in fact at the moment I don’t think we are working differently enough. As I see it, the names change, the processes change, but the fundamental presuppositions remain unchanged. Whether the issue is implementing Holarchy or a Dictatorship, the premise is that organization is something we do and we control. Doubtless Holarchy is more humane than a Dictatorship, but I think they both come from the same place, the same fundamental premise – that organization (my organization, your organization) is our creature. We design it, we create it, we control it. Real difference comes with a change in premises, I think. Speaking just for myself, I find this to be a self organizing world, beginning, middle, and end. Even those organizations we think we organized end of being self organizing the moment we push the start button. So really working differently, and I think much smarter, efficiently, effectively, with greater joy and less effort, would start from that basic point: All the world is self organizing. We don’t create it, we don’t control it, but we can live in it productively. We can learn to enhance our ability for such living, and we can assist others to do the same. And how might that work? The first step is to watch and appreciate what is happening all by itself before we even think about doing anything. And Open Space can be our guide. As we see all the time in Open Space, organization starts when passion and responsibility intersect around an issue or opportunity. If it is exciting, people will come, and the next thing you know you have a group of “two or more gathered together to do something” – which would be my definition of organization. The process and structure is totally emergent with no help needed. Happens all by itself. And as we have learned, intervention is not only not necessary, it actually mucks up the emergent process. It may happen that this nascent organization will die (When it’s over it’s over) or it may continue and grow (Whoever comes is the right people. Whatever happens is the only thing that could have.) Given a little time it could become the next Intel, Microsoft, Facebook...! Obviously the distance between a small nexus of passion and responsibility and a giant corporation is considerable – but even the giants started as “two or more gathered together” and I don’t think the rules change along the way. It is all fractal, and just as an OS for 10 works just like one for 2000 so also in the world at large (larger), I think. And what can we do along the journey? First, appreciate what’s happening. Second, keep the space open. Third, offer our passion and responsibility wherever we care to – which can provide new energy for growth, new inspiration, new ideas. That is just for “openers” and for more I refer you to Part II of “Wave Rider,” “The Wave Rider’s Guide to the Future.” I don’t pretend that is the whole story, but it could be a useful place to start – and you can write the rest. J And then to your comment: “My feeling is also that people tend to prefer when they understand how things work (otherwise they get anxious), and in this regard self-organization may make things uneasy. Who can tell how it works ?” Christine, you are 100% CORRECT! Which creates a major problem for all 7 ½ billion of us on Planet Earth which resides in a tiny corner of a second rate solar system, lost in a relatively minor galaxy...one of billions and billions. It also seems that something like 96% of everything is unknown and unknowable (Dark Energy and Dark matter) – and the remaining 4% (what we can theoretically see) is more than a little foggy when it comes to our capacity for understanding. The fact that all of it, so far as we can understand, J is self organizing is icing on the cake called “Uneasy”. But we may have found a way out...just fabricate a version of reality we can understand and control. That should do it. Harrison Harrison Owen 7808 River Falls Dr. Potomac, MD 20854 USA 189 Beaucaire Ave. (summer) Camden, Maine 04843 Phone 301-365-2093 (summer) 207-763-3261 www.openspaceworld.com www.ho-image.com (Personal Website) To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of OSLIST Go to: <http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org> http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of christine koehler Sent: Wednesday, March 05, 2014 3:48 PM To: World wide Open Space Technology email list Subject: Re: [OSList] Open Space and Holacracy Harrison, Maybe I am beginning to get it. Maybe not. You say self-organization is already there, no matter what we do or dont do. ok. Maybe the question is not about self-organisation but about high performance : Hsieh, Gore, Semler's visions only say something about how they see high performance flow from/in/thru the system. Might be an attempt to control it, by naming it Holacracy, or even self organization ? However, from what they say, their way of controling it might end up with higher levels of performance than "command and control"systems. Using Open Space creates conditions for high performance. But then, should we just stop doing deciding and trying things because no matter what we do the system will self-organize ? Are we "working too hard" when we try to work differently ?Do you believe that Zappos would have end up anyway with same performance withoug the hard work of implementing Holacracy ? Anyway, we will never know... My feeling is also that people tend to prefer when they understand how things work (otherwise they get anxious), and in this regard self-organization may make things uneasy. Who can tell how it works ? If you take decision making for instance, and if I take Wosonos as an example, sometimes the decision making process for the location on the next one is so obvious to everybody who go through it that everything seems easy and clear. But sometimes , and for reasons that are quite unclear to me, it seems that the some people are not happy and the decision maling process is questioned. Of course this is true with any decision making process, maybe it's just that some processes are easier to describe. Our brain needs to be able to simplify complex processes in order to be comfortable with it. Right now I am experiencing something interesting : for a management seminar, a few groups emerged from what I could call a very simplistic "law of 2 feet" decision making process. ie there was offered opportunity for 5 groups to emerge, and so it went. (why 5 ? well, that was completely arbitrary. probably because timing was short and that there were only very short time to get feedbacks fro the groupn as feedback was required) . After the seminar where people are asked to work further on those topics. Management decided not to let leaders of those groups use the law of 2 feets but members could. (I agree this is a strange rule). What is happening is that they are questioning the decision making process : how do we know those topics are the most important ones ? is this group the best to work on such particular topic ? How can I feel legitimate in being the leader of this group as it is not my dayjob ? etc.. Would you say that they are working too hard ? That the system will take care of itself and anyway self-organize, no matter what we do ? Christine On Tue, Mar 4, 2014 at 11:27 PM, Harrison Owen <[email protected]> wrote: Christine ... “I find very interesting this tension between personal vision (think about Gore for instance or Semler and Semco) and self-organization. looks very complex and human to me ;) but still wondering how self-organization fits within this kind of frame.” It is really easy. Self Organization is already there, but the poor folks at Zappo think they did it! Surprise – what they really did was complicate something that could have happened very easily by itself. Ah! But we humans have to feel we are in control. Even when we say we aren’t and don’t care to be. The Trojan Horse rides again. Zappo’d as it were. ho Harrison Owen 7808 River Falls Dr. Potomac, MD 20854 USA 189 Beaucaire Ave. (summer) Camden, Maine 04843 Phone 301-365-2093 (summer) 207-763-3261 www.openspaceworld.com <http://www.openspaceworld.com%20> www.ho-image.com <http://www.ho-image.com%20> (Personal Website) To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of OSLIST Go to:http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of christine koehler Sent: Tuesday, March 04, 2014 2:35 PM To: World wide Open Space Technology email list Subject: Re: [OSList] Open Space and Holacracy This reminds me of a very short conversation I had with a participant of the Practice of Peace seminar last January. He had left Zappos not so long ago. We exchanged a few words about the ambiguity of Tony Hsieh mandating Zappos to become holacratic, because it was his own personal vision. I find very interesting this tension between personal vision (think about Gore for instance or Semler and Semco) and self-organization. looks very complex and human to me ;) but stlll wondering how self-organization fits within this kind of frame. Christine On Tue, Mar 4, 2014 at 8:03 PM, Harrison Owen <[email protected]> wrote: Christine, Zappo Holarchs “rolled out” according to the following... Sounds like sort of a mandate to me. ho http://qz.com/161210/zappos-is-going-holacratic-no-job-titles-no-managers-no-hierarchy Harrison Owen 7808 River Falls Dr. Potomac, MD 20854 USA 189 Beaucaire Ave. (summer) Camden, Maine 04843 Phone 301-365-2093 (summer) 207-763-3261 www.openspaceworld.com <http://www.openspaceworld.com%20> www.ho-image.com <http://www.ho-image.com%20> (Personal Website) To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of OSLIST Go to:http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Christine Whitney Sanchez Sent: Tuesday, March 04, 2014 12:46 PM To: World wide Open Space Technology email list Subject: Re: [OSList] Open Space and Holacracy Great post, Daniel. Our company worked with Tony Hseigh’s Downtown Las Vegas Project last year and found the whole thing to be very self-organizing. I’m surprised that Zappos is imposing any kind of mandate - where did you discover this? Namasté, Christine Christine Whitney Sanchez, Partner Innovation Partners International Phoenix, AZ, USA +1.480.759.0262 <tel:%2B1.480.759.0262> www.innovationpartners.com On Mar 4, 2014, at 10:22 AM, Dan Mezick <[email protected]> wrote: An invitation arouses curiousity, but a mandate dries up the bones... Ancient Proverb The Mandate of Holacracy at Zappos: http://newtechusa.net/agile/the-mandate-of-holacracy-at-zappos/ Sent from my iPhone On Mar 4, 2014, at 11:36 AM, "Harrison Owen" <[email protected]> wrote: Wikipedia (as usual) has everything you wanted to know... go to -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holacracy I can certainly imagine Open Space playing a role in Holacracies, and in fact the "governance" in a Open Space could certainly be described as "Holacratic" -- which is to say "ruling power" is totally distributed amongst the participants. But there is a real difference. Holacracy in Open Space is totally an emergent phenomenon. Nobody designed it, nobody implements it -- it just shows up all by itself. Holacracy in places like Zappos is a designed phenomenon. Doubtless it works pretty well, but it does seem to me that they may be working a little too hard, creating something that can and does happen all by itself. I think. Harrison Harrison Owen 7808 River Falls Dr. Potomac, MD 20854 USA 189 Beaucaire Ave. (summer) Camden, Maine 04843 Phone 301-365-2093 (summer) 207-763-3261 www.openspaceworld.com <http://www.openspaceworld.com/> www.ho-image.com <http://www.ho-image.com/> (Personal Website) To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of OSLIST Go to:http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Kári Gunnarsson Sent: Tuesday, March 04, 2014 11:20 AM To: World wide Open Space Technology email list Subject: Re: [OSList] Open Space and Holacracy I heard that Holacracy is somehow based upon the principles of Open Space and uses Open space for its implementation. On 4 March 2014 08:53, Rob van der Eyden <[email protected]> wrote: Hello Kári, Interesting question. How do you see the link between Open space and Holacracy? Kind regards, Rob van der Eyden -----Oorspronkelijk bericht----- Van: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] Namens Kári Gunnarsson Verzonden: maandag 3 maart 2014 21:52 Aan: Open Space Forum Onderwerp: [OSList] Open Space and Holacracy There have been much talk about the relationship of the organizational chart and how Open Space operates. Recent compareson to me has been to link the new self-organizing authority and decision-making system called Holacracy see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holacracy I wonder if there are stories on the use of Open space to transform more traditional system to one of Open Space based Holacracy? I would be happy to learn some of your experiences in this regard. -- Kári Gunnarsson [email protected] gsm: +354 8645189 <tel:%2B354%208645189> _______________________________________________ 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 -- Kári Gunnarsson [email protected] gsm: +354 8645189 <tel:%2B354%208645189> _______________________________________________ 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 _______________________________________________ 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 _______________________________________________ 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 _______________________________________________ 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 -- Christine Koehler, créatrice d'espace de Dialogue et de Coopération <http://uploads.wisestamp.com/59a7171fcb010f7c1cffbbe7e93ad57d/1320761435.png> Executive Coach, Médiateur www.christine-koehler.fr <http://www.christine-koehler.fr/> Tel : 06 13 28 71 38 <tel:06%2013%2028%2071%2038> Fax : 09 <tel:09%C2%A0%2072%C2%A0%2032%2036%C2%A0%2065> 72 32 36 65 _______________________________________________ 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 -- Christine Koehler, créatrice d'espace de Dialogue et de Coopération <http://uploads.wisestamp.com/59a7171fcb010f7c1cffbbe7e93ad57d/1320761435.png> Executive Coach, Médiateur www.christine-koehler.fr <http://www.christine-koehler.fr/> Tel : 06 13 28 71 38 Fax : 09 72 32 36 65
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