New Language for new systems

Organization evolution

 

Organisation Images and Metaphors

The last 2 centuries the most used image for organisation was the Machine. Our organisational language is loaded with terminology alluding to this image.

Alternative images best inform and define our evolutionary journey:

  1. Flux and Transformation: an organisation is an ever-changing system indivisible from its environment
  2. Organism: an organisation is a collective response to its environment and, to survive, must adapt as the environment changes

If we understand a DHO is a living part of an ecosystem in a permanent flow and transformation, to concepts become important:

Autopoiesis: (from Greek αὐτo- (auto-) 'self', and ποίησις (poiesis) 'creation, production') refers to a system capable of reproducing and maintaining itself by creating its own parts and eventually further components. 

Exopoiesis: "In exopoiesis, an organism functions not for its own benefit, but rather for the benefit of something related to it, to which it is therefore of instrumental value.Tabbi, Joseph (2002) Cognitive Fictions.

A DHO Journey is a journey into decentralisation requiring new language, new thinking, new concepts, new images, new metaphors and new stories.

Also Frederic Laloux's Reinventing Organizations used Integral Theory approach to classify organisations, from which a Teal organisation seams to be relevant bases for a DHO.

More in https://reinventingorganizationswiki.com/theory/organizational-structure/

 

Self-Managing_Structures.jpgSelf-Managing_Structures nested teams.jpg

 

Both the Web of interconnected individuals or the Nested Holonic circles are  good graphical bases for the DHO organisation archetypes.

While the above are good bases for the Organisation DHO archetype they come short for the remaining archetypes.

fractal-map-of-belonging-edited.jpg

Richard D. Barlett Micro-solidarity exploration reveals some natural patterns of humans coming together. These ideas are relevant for any Type of DHO.

 

Symmatesy Living Systems Learn

 

Symmatesy Living Systems Learn

 Symmatesy results from the understanding of a livings system as a interdependent learning relation.

Symmathesy Greek prefix Syn/ Sym (together) + Mathesi, (to learn) =Learning together (Pronounced: sym- math-a-see)

Symmathesy (Noun): An entity composed by contextual mutual learning through interaction. This process of interaction and mutual learning takes place in living entities at larger or smaller scales of symmathesy.

Symmathesy (Verb): to interact within multiple variables to produce a mutual learning context.

Symmatesy concept allows us to establish a very relevant continuum for live and living systems.

The question of what is the system learning is there for revealing of its vitality.  A DHO as a Learning hedge if made explicit its implementation gains strength.

 

 

New Visual Language

 

New Visual Language

 

Manuel Lima systematises the graphical aspects of this new language in the next figure.

System Language by Manuel Lima

The above images are helpful for DHO adventurers reflections and mapping off their organisations.

What image better describes your DHO possibility?

 

 

Human Collectives Skeletons, Scaffolds & Membranes

Human Collectives Skeletons, Scaffolds & Membranes

How to evolve the idea of structure of an organisation and why is it needed?  

We humans need some sense of structure. Structures frequently bring emotional, relational stability. If every thing is fluid we might receive it as chaotic and unsafe.

In organisational context structures alude to various dynamics:

What informs the above, in the present world, is a mechanistic way of thinking. So we lay out a different, natural or ecological way of thinking proposition.

Scaffolding

Scaffolding elements are critical for healthy growth and support. In a Movement of Movements one can think of Scaffolding elements one entity can provide to the other. 

If your goal is to build a village, or a community or an organisation, what are the support structures needed for such endeavour?

Exemple and types of Scaffolding structures:

 

These are some examples of human scaffolds:

Viewing some of these systems as Scaffolds structures can help us reframe the question of what are they building pre-structures for? Are such Scaffolds pre-structures of development or do they create dependency and interference in the being.

What Scaffolding is needed to be in-place to support your journey?

 

Structure as Skeleton 

Esqueletos de animais 295180 Vetor no VecteezyDraw Ladybugs | Drawings, Elephant drawing, Tree drawing

 

 

 

 

 

In Nature, skeletons allow beings to grow, move, develop. Give support to the substance of the being.

An endoskeleton (From Greek ἔνδον, éndon = "within", "inner" + σκελετός, skeletos = "skeleton") is an internal support structure of an animal, composed of mineralized tissue.

An exoskeleton (from Greek έξω, éxō "outer" and σκελετός, skeletós "skeleton"[1]) is the external skeleton that supports and protects an animal's body, in contrast to the internal skeleton (endoskeleton) of, for example, a human. In usage, some of the larger kinds of exoskeletons are known as "shells". Examples of animals with exoskeletons include insects such as grasshoppers and cockroaches, and crustaceans such as crabs and lobsters, as well as the shells of certain sponges and the various groups of shelled molluscs, including those of snailsclamstusk shellschitons and nautilus. Some animals, such as the tortoise, have both an endoskeleton and an exoskeleton.

 

What being are you relating to and what skeleton will the being need? 

 

Membrane

 

Plasma membrane and cytoplasm (article) | Khan Academy

A membrane is a fundamental element of living beings. It defines the frontier of the being (in and out). It characterises how that being relates to its environment, what the being interchanges permanently. 

Membrane is one of the most critical elements of our collective settlements, one that needs reshaping, redefinition and new embodied thinking. It is intimately connected to our sense of belonging. 

Reflecting on some examples:

Yet, all of the above elements are not complete or accurate definitions of belonging. In fact they all are problematic in defining "belonging".

The invite is therefor to consider "belonging" as a central aspect Membrane definition.

Membrane and Belonging have a clear tangible implications when we approach complex humana settlements such as a Village, a City or a Bioregion

Please consider the following reflective meditation suggestions to expand your Membrane and Belonging understanding.