Replying to LO27559 --
Dear Organlearners,
Don Dwiggins <d.l.dwiggins@computer.org> writes:
>This raises a topic that I'd like to see more discussion
>on. It's one thing for an individual to undergo a
>creative collapse and emerge renewed, refreshed,
>reborn, ... But what about an "organizational
>bifurcation", when often members are at different
>stages of the bifurcation, and maybe going in different
>directions? What holds an organization together
>during a creative collapse, when the normal ties,
>constraints, common assumptions, etc., may
>themselves be part of the collapse?
>
>If there are readers who have witnessed or lived
>though such an organizational event, I'd be interested
>to hear ideas on what it was that helped the "center
>to hold".
Greetings dear Don,
You have touched a very important issue. At first I wanted to change the
topic, but as I my thinking went on, I realised how much the present topic
has a bearing on this issue of "organisational bifurcation".
You are right -- to obtain sinchronisity among individuals in an
"organisational bifurcation" is about as difficult as landing the first
men on the moon. It requires total commitment, deep passion, painstaked
research, brilliant innovation and superior planning. It also requires the
organisation's executive leader to be willing and capable to spearhead
such a bifurcation. These requirements are seldom reached. So what else is
possible?
We here in South Africa had apartheid="aparthood" from 1948 to 1992.
Apartheid had a serious impact on the impairing of wholeness of most
people and organisations in our country. Even those religious
organisations which gave the green light to apartheid were effected. The
Christian denomination to which I belong was one of them. Thus our churces
became gradually more complacent, materialistic and beaurocratic.
But since the middle eighties many believers in local churches became
aware how far their local churches have diverged from road set out in the
Bible. They began with attempts to reform and rejuvenate their churces,
but 99,9% of such attempts failed dismally. The reasons were two fold. The
majority of church members lacked free energy (spontaneity) and commitment
to God's ROL (Rule Of Law) to work towards such an "organisational
bifurcation".
Since 1992 many of those majority of church members began to wake up to
the call so that "organisational bifurcations" were tried once again.
However, again 99% of such attempts failed dismally despite many more
church members having the free energy and commitment . The reason was now
different. They expected or assumed that the sinchronisity among church
members in the "organisational bifurcation" would easily be accomplished.
Then in the middle nineties a few churches struck the spiritual gold.
Rather than trying to involve the entire church, those having the free
energy and commitment began to organise themselves into Small Communities
Of Practice (SCOPs) with between 6 and 10 members. Members of a SCOP began
to care for each other by reaching out with deeds of love. They met once a
week, studied scripture, prayed to and praised the Lord, helped each other
with material and especially spiritual progress. They focussed on the
quality of all actions within a SCOP rather than increasing the number of
its members. Most importantly, the leaders of each SCOP met once a month
to school themselves further in leadership.
When a SCOP grew to about 12 to 14, another member would begin to attend
the leadership meetings so as to become schooled in leadership. Eventually
the SCOP would divide into two SCOPs each with its own leader. Two local
churces which have succeeded in transforming themselves, began initially
with some 10% of the their church members involved in SCOPs. Each took
about 3 years to get more than 80% of their church members involved in
SCOPS. At about the 60% mark the whole local church began to transform
rapidly, often by way of bifurcations. They are now functioning as Living
Churches (LOs) in the true sense of Scripture.
Other local churces tried to copy their success, but did not have the same
success or even failed. The reasons were that they neglected one or more
of spontaneity, commitment, quality of actions and leadership.
Don, I have been particularly impressed how the organisation into SCOPs
solved the problem of synchronicity. In both these local churches the
SCOPS functioned exactly like biological cells. They would take in only
members willing to commit themselves to God's ROL and to give rather than
to take. They would divide into two cells once the cell has become to
large to maintain uts internal consitency and coherency. Thus the
"organisational bifurcation" needed was distributed over these cells and
took some 3 years to become largely completed.
With care and best wishes,
--At de Lange <amdelange@gold.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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