Dear Organlearners,
David Wilkinson <Davidwilk@aol.com> writes:
> Hello. In my world, people keep getting busier and busier. Fewer
> home-cooked meals at home, not only among my colleagues, but among friends
> and neighbors. Working harder and harder. It seems the work is never
> done. As organizations face crisis, the choice is to down-size by
> reducing staff. Often times, the downsizing is in human resources
> (people), not in functions.
David refers to the writing of Peter Block in an AQP newsletter and
ends with:
> Peter is on target for me. Many organizations have moved past cutting the
> fat.
>
> Thanks for reading. Reactions?
David, I will react from my viewpoint in which entropy, creativity and
learning are intimately connected.
First of all, let us not confuse the symptom (downsizing) with a
wrong cause. Here in Africa we have a deadly, rampant disease called
malaria. We also have common influenza. The symptoms of the two are
very much the same, so much so that even experienced doctors may
easily treat a patient with malaria for flue. Doing so usually
results in the death of the patient.
When we are ill with malaria or influenza, the corrective action of
our bodies to both is to raise its temperature. Thus fever becomes a
symptom of these diseases. Eventhough downsizing is a corrective
action, it is still a symptom. But of what is downsizing a symptom?
What will happen to the organisation when we treat them for a mere
flue and do not reckognise the real killer killer disease leading to
the downsizing?
Downsizing is a numerical attempt to increase the productivity of
organisations in general and the profits of commercial organisations
in particular. With less workers to maintain the same output, less
wages have to be paid. There also other kind of attempts to increase
the productivity of organisations. For example, innovation is an
emergent attempt while value addition is a complex attempt. Whatever
the kind of attempt, they all have one thing in common - to increase
producvity. Consequently, if we question what the right size of an
organistion should be, we should question why the productivity of an
organisation has to be increased?
Why should we increase the productivity of organisations? If this
question becomes a topic in the LO-list like "Employee Ranking
systems" or "Competition", we will again get a rainbow of answers.
But, as in the case of these two topics, in each answer it will be
claimed that the particular answer is founded upon a principle. Some
answer will claim that increased productivity is a capitalistic
priciple. Others will claim that it is an economical principle.
Others amswers will claim that it is an organisational principle.
Others will even claim that it is a cultural principle or an
ecological principal.
However, I do not expect any of those answers to claim that an
increase in productivity is not an articulation of a principle, but
that it is only another symptom of the killer disease. It is a
symptom like fever. I also do not expect any of those answers to
claim a deep connection between the words "increase in productivity"
and " increase in entropy". To suspect such claims, right or wrong,
requires a paradigm shift. In this new paradigm liveness, sureness,
wholeness, fruitfulness, spareness, otherness and openness will play
a qualifying role.
The killer disease has very much to do with the "edge of chaos" and
the "ordinate bifurcations" which happens there. The ordinate
bifurcation can be either a constructive emergence to a higher order
or a destructive immergence to a lower order. The emergence is
complexly contingent. The contingencies are liveness, sureness,
wholeness, fruitfulness, spareness, otherness and openness. If one or
more of them are impaired or immature with respect to the complexity
of the bifurcation, the constructive emergence will not happen.
Sooner or later the destructive immergence will happen. Why?
To reach the edge of chaos, the rate of entropy production must be
high (enough entropy has to increase fast enough). When entropy is
increased, it is first manifested as a dispersion/spreading of
energy. (The traditional interpretation is to say that the increase
in entropy leads to an increase in chaos.) In other words,
homogenised energy leaks away to the rest of the universe.
(Entropy leaks tohether with the energy because energy and entropy
are tags of each other.) But there is a resistance to this leakage of
energy. Thus, if entropy is increased fast enough, a local build up
of entropy will ensue. How?
Think of a container with a few holes in its bottom. If we pour water
slowly into it - the container will stay empty. But if we pour enough
water fast enough in it, the water level will rise until the water
flows over the rim of the container. The bifurcation point is reached
when the water level reaches the rim. Unfortunately, entropy is not
like water - it is more like a highly reactive liquid such as hot
sulfuric acid. Hot sulfuric acid plays an important constructive
role in the synthesis of many thousands of compounds in industries
and laboratories. But this very property also makes it potentially
an extremely destructive substance. It can destroy by ablative
corrosions or by forming explosive substances. Thus hot sulfuric acid
has to be handled with extreme care.
The same is true of entropy production at the edge of chaos. It has
to be handled with extreme care. If we are not able to harness it
into emergences, then we will surely experience its immergences. This
is indicated by the fact that both the words "emergence" and
"emergency" has the same root in Latin When we harness the entropy
into emergences, it is now manifested as energy concentrated into
more complex, new structures. But never forget that it can only
happen while the first manifestation also happens, namely leaking
(dissipating) energy to the rest of the universe.
(It is interesting that the word harness is derived from Latin. The
word teach comes from a Gothic word which sounded like "taecan" which
also meant to harness or to armour! Thus forgive me my somewhat
teaching stance in this contribution, but I want to help all of you
to harness entropy production.)
Should we persist in keeping the container of ordinate bifurcations
filled to the brim (continuously staying at the edge of chaos) to
reap emergence after emergence, this first manifestation of entropy
production (leaking of energy) becomes a horrendous pollution of
entropy. Wherever it goes, it increases destructions, usually in an
ablative manner. How?
Think of sulfur dioxide which is a precursor in the production of
sulhuric acid. Sulfur is a vital element in the chemistry of all
living species - about 20% when compared to nitrogen. Thus fossil
fuel is rich in sulfur. When we burn fossil fuel (in our cars or
electrical power stations), the sulfur is liberated as the gas sulfur
dioxide. It happens by the law of entropy production. This sulfur
dioxide is convected and diffused all over the globe, again by the
same law of entropy production. When it comes into contact with
moisture, it forms together with oxygen sulfuric acid, still by the
same law of entropy production. When that acid pricipates from the
atmosphere (again by the same law of entropy production), we
recognise it as acid rain. It easily destroys the functional metalic
structures as well as the beautiful marble statues in cities and
living things like trees as well as frogs in the countryside, again
by the same law of entropy production.
Our desire to reap emergence after emergence is like desiring a tree
from which we can pick fruit every day of the year. Nature has no
place for such a tree. It is like the dream of the eternal
revolutionary Lev Trotsky. He desired continuous socio-political
revolutions to bear cultural emergence after emergence. Even his
brainchild, the USSR, had no place for him. He became a fugitive
for life.
Cycles are everywhere, even in inanimate nature. Newtonian mechanics
explained planetary cycles in terms of gravitation. Quantum mechanics
explained atomic cycles in terms of electromagnetism. Cycles are
never linear. But we humans persist in our linear notions of
creativity.
To show what I mean, let us make a "gedanken" experiment.
Let us built a harmonic cycle into our global use of fossil fuel
(cars, power stations) of, say, a period of one month and an
amplitude 90% of our present consumption. In other words, every four
weaks there is a peak in consumption equal to the present consumption
and every two weeks in between there is a ebb down to 10% of our
present concumption. By doing this we will reduce our consumption
almost by half. But what is even more important, we will behaving
like humans did all the millenia before the industrial revolution The
only difference is that then they followed a one year cycle. But will
we ever allow such a "gedanken" experiment to become practice? No. Is
there any other reason than our linear way of doing things? No.
I have diagnosed our fever as the craving for a linear increase in
entropy production, almost like an addiction. But what is the killer
disease responsible for it?
We are narcistically infatuated with creativity, so much so that it
has become the cancer devouring us. We perceive creativity as that
property which only humans have and thus the property which separates
us from all other living species. We have used our creativity to set
up a vast system of apartheid between humans and nature. We see
ourselves as the only creators and not also as creatures of the
almighty Creator. We have used our creativity to extend the same vast
system of apartheid between humans and God. The former Apartheid of
South Africa is not a patch against this vast system of creative
apartheid. We even have made a carricature of our creativity in this
vast system by considering only that which happens at the edge of
chaos as worthy of creativity. Thus we define creativity as the novel
way of linking two widely different things together. We are shooting
ourselves in the feet - the suckling (digestion) of a baby is just as
important as its birth (emergence).
David, you have asked "What is the Right Size?" in connection to the
number of employees in an organisation. My answer is that we
"each has personally to transform oneself to the right size through
self-learning" (personal mastery). We will have to cut ourselves back
immensely in some aspects and have to grow immensely in other
aspects. After a couple of centuries since the Enlightenment, it is
now clear that we are not able to accomplish it by our present
awareness. Thus we will even have to transform our consciousness.
Consequently we are in dire need of an unprecedented paradigm shift.
Finally, what unprecedented paradigm shift do we need? If anybody
cocludes that I am proposing my own paradigm shift, FORGET IT. It is
so complex that few will understand it. Although its complexity helps
me to understand reality better, this complexity also disqualifies
it. We need a paradigm seemingly many orders less complex so that
almost every human can understand it - young and old, simple and
clever, normal and disabled. If I must propose any such a paradigm,
it will be:
LOVE REALITY (God, fellow humans, yourself and the rest of nature)
UNCONDITIONALLY
Thank you for hearing me out. My mind, heart and sould have spoken
together.
Best wishes
--At de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre for Education University of Pretoria Pretoria, South Africa email: amdelange@gold.up.ac.za
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>