Blueprint for Personal and Professional Growth (BPPG)
paper instructions:
Reflection: Blueprint for Personal and Professional Growth (BPPG)
One reoccurring theme in the study of systems thinking is the importance of creating a learning environment. In an organization that is dynamic and recognizes the
value of changing to address new realities, individuals are free to share ideas and information without fear of reprisal or being met with indifference. Being able to
develop such a learning environment is an important part of a manager’s role within an organization, as it is the manager that leads by example and in large part sets
the standards and develops the means for sharing information.
Before beginning this BPPG, review the reading from the Dervitsiotis article in this week’s Resources. Dervitsiotis discusses the role of the manager in
facilitating (p. 936):
• The empowerment of one’s subordinates
• The empowerment of peers, over whom a leader has no explicit authority
• The empowerment of superiors
• The empowerment of one’s self through self-reflection
In a couple paragraphs for each of the four areas, outline a plan as to how you as a manager would facilitate this empowerment. Critically reflect on what you
could realistically accomplish in each area. In particular, focus on the self-reflection piece. How can you ensure that you are maintaining the proper perspective on
managing changes in the system and your role in the process?
Also, expound on the three most important things that you have learned about systems thinking “things that were particularly interesting to you” and describe how
these will be of value to you in your future managerial duties.
Do NOT include an introduction or conclusion, only discuss the sections above. Provide 3 APA references.
Creating Conditions to Nour ish
Sustainable Organizationa l Exce llence
KOSTAS N. DERVITSIOTIS
University of Piraeus, Athens, Greece
A BSTRACT Developing human organizations for sustainable excellence requires important
adjustments in the way we understand their nature and study their behaviour. The very concept of
sustainability requires a view of a human organization as a living entity, in sharp contrast to that
of a ‘machine-like’ creation designed to achieve specific goals. This reflects a critical shift in the
mindset of leaders and managers from that of a ‘commander’ giving orders or a ‘mechanic’
fixing problems, to one of a ‘gardener’ preparing the soil for trees or flowers to grow. In such a
living systems framework, today’s dominant ‘command-and-control’ approach, typical for human
organizations viewed as ‘complex machines’, must give way to one of development and continual
adaptation. Once we adopt a living systems mindset for human organizations, the achievement of
sustainable excellence is nourished by creating the following conditions:
(1) The acceptance of alternating stability and novelty as inevitable in the way nature unfolds like a
dance between order and chaos (lack of order), leading to new systems capable of superior
adaptation and performance. Living systems thrive only when pushed away from their
comfort zone, the area in which they must reconfigure themselves.
(2) The need to learn to cope with several paradoxes, i.e. seemingly incompatible conditions, or
directions of movement. Human organizations in a business ecology setting need to both
cooperate and compete, to rely on stable predictable methods in some periods and on novel
ways in other periods of rapid change.
(3) The need to employ both traditional and emergent leadership. The first is needed to articulate
and focus on a compelling vision providing a clear sense of direction and a strong motivation
to act, the second is needed to stimulate innovation through enriching and strengthening both
the nodes and the links of the complex web of human informal networks.
(4) The development of a new language to communicate effectively new concepts and methods, when
previous ways to describe reality prove inadequate. We need new terms, new images and new
metaphors to convey the richness and complexity of human organizations as living systems,
such as those of self-organization, emergence, and others, much like the new language
(browsers, firewalls, etc) needed for using computers or the Internet.
K EY WORDS : Organizations as living systems, operation in stable vs. turbulent periods, coping
with paradoxes, emergent leadership interventions, power of language for transformation
Total Quality Management
Vol. 16, No. 8 – 9, 925 – 943, October – November 2005
Correspondence Address: Kostas N. Dervitsiotis, University of Piraeus, 35 Vas. Mela Street, 15562 Holargos,
Athens, Greece. Email: knderv@ath.forthnet.gr
1478-3363 Print =1478-3371 Online= 05= 08 – 90925 – 19 #2005 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080= 14783360500163078
Intro duction
The prevailing image of an organization as a pyramid with a hierarchy of ‘thinkers at the
top’ and ‘doers at the bottom’ is gradually being replaced by that of a vibrant live network.
Here the nodes represent people as human system agents at all levels and the links con-necting them become active human relationships. In the short run, these links
facilitate
effective communication and coordination to achieve high performance, while in the
long run they encourage creativity and innovation. The primacy attached to individual
parts, in the machine-like mindset, gives way to the vitality and quality of network
relationships, as it is the nature of such relationships which determines an organization’s
key competencies and its capacity to adapt and develop the resilience needed for fitness to
emerging new conditions (Dervitsiotis, 2003).
Life in nature is a dynamic process of alternating periods of relative stability and
change. This drives the evolution of all living species, taking on new forms to adapt to
their new environments or vanish. People in organizations resist change, as a rule,
when it is imposed from the top or externally. However, change is welcome and
becomes the way for renewal when it is meaningful and those affected are involved in
shaping it. When they are actively involved in shaping change, managers and workers
as system agents willingly create new structures and behaviours, to adapt to a continually
changing business landscape, while they maintain their identity.
A Frame work for Understa nding Living Syste ms
To develop sustainable excellence in human organizations, we need to understand more
fully those features that define a living system at various levels of complexity. A living
system is always made up of several components connected to form a network of relation-ships. The pattern of organization in which these elements are linked can be
viewed from
three different perspectives related to their form, their processes and their matter, as shown
on the base corners of Figure 1 (Capra, 2002).
From the perspective of form , a living system is defined by the form of its structure and
is described as a self-generating network . As such, it can reconfigure its internal relation-ships among its component parts and when necessary even replace some of
them to adapt,
while still retaining its basic identity. From the perspective of process , a living system is a
cognitive system , utilizing the flow of information through the links of its network and
developing a consciousness of its condition. This helps it adapt its pattern of organization
to improve its fitness with its environment. Finally, from the perspective of matter, a living
system is described by the tangible physical structures (its ‘flesh and bones’) that embody
its specific pattern of organization. All three perspectives apply to living systems, which
range in complexity from a single cell to a large animal. However, as we move up the evol-utionary scale, at the level of an individual human being or a human
organization, a fourth
perspective is needed, which deals with meaning. The ability of humans to develop a
capacity to think, self-reflect and communicate through language, has enabled our
species to form relationships with others and to organize into family units, communities
and nations. This process of linking with others humans creates both a social context
and a meaning for their existence.
Having developed the ability to hold images of material objects and events as part of our
experience has created (1) the conditions necessary for self-awareness and (2) a sense of
926 K. N. Dervitsiotis
identity based on the interactions one has with others. Language has become the funda-mental skill to communicate with others about our inner world of concepts,
symbols
and beliefs, which provide the essential ingredient of meaning to our existence .Itis
this power of meaning which motivates us and drives human action both at the individual
and at the social level of organizational life.
Acceptin g the Reality of Alter nating Peri ods of Stabi lity and Rapid Change
In real life we observe that fairly long periods of stability alternate with those of rapid and
sometimes abrupt, unpredictable change (see Figure 2). For activities during periods of
relative stability, which like weather patterns may last for quite some time, the machine
metaphor for management is very useful. A routine surgical operation or a car assembly
operation are good examples. In fact, most of the time we behave like tomorrow is
going to be pretty much the same as today.
In periods of stability, which allow us a limited degree of predictability, management
needs to develop and implement flexible strategic plans and detailed operational plans.
These must be driven by a clear vision, tempered by the need to be focused on the situation
Figure 1. Perspectives for understanding human living systems
Figure 2. Complementary management approaches for different environmental conditions
Creating Conditions to Nourish Sustainable Organizational Excellence 927
and hold specifications for action flexible. Those responsible to process one of today’s
orders in the production department, or perform heart surgery in a hospital’s operating
room, cannot waste time pondering what the future might hold. These situations
demand machine-like performance, with considerable precision in both the planning
and execution stages.
However, as the planning horizon stretches into the future and the scope of interest
expands to cover broader social, political and economic aspects of the environment, lea-dership has to shift its focus to strategic goals, rather than on current
performance, defined
by standards of quality, efficiency or other. In such conditions it is better to have a good-enough vision guided by strategic intent and to provide a set of minimum
specifications on
‘how to do things’, rather than trying to plan comprehensively and in detail. This is in
sharp contrast with the thinking suggested by the ‘organization as a machine’ mindset
which reinforces a tendency to over-specify both in the design of needed new structures
and in planning new activities.
In periods of rapid change the machine metaphor misrepresents the unique identity of
each person in the organization and the complex effects of their mutual interactions as
parts of a network. When conditions change fast, the assumption that individuals and
work teams can be controlled through precise job descriptions does not hold in practice .
As parts of an organization, humans – unlike machine parts – have a will and a mental
model, which guides action, of their own. Furthermore, the same person often participates
in more than one organization at the same time, i.e. a social club, or a group in their com-munity, with different roles or expectations in each. In such periods of
rapid change the
organization as a living entity metaphor serves us best.
As a living system, a human organization evolves over time as a continually adaptive
system. It is only with this mental ‘lens’ that we can make sense and appreciate the
strong interactions and the emotional energy that a new meaning may release in individ-uals or teams in the workplace. Traditional leadership’s usual response to ‘hold
things
steady’ trying to maintain the same strategy in periods of rapid change can be disastrous.
Pascaleet al.(2001) argues that ‘a state of equilibrium is death’. Following a particular
change as an initial stimulus, the meaning participants usually attach to it bounces
around as it is circulated within an organization. It is also often magnified or distorted
within a complex web of social interactions. The result is to push the organization
closer to a fluid state and encourage a process of creativity and innovation that may
lead to the self-generation of a new more complex system with more adaptive structures
and flexible behaviour patterns.
Coping with a new and more complex environment, by developing a broader repertoire
of strategic responses is generally more effective. It can be accomplished through inter-ventions (see Figure 3) which affect the five key levers of transformation
(Dervitsiotis,
2003). These levers regulate (1) the quality of conversations taking place, (2) the
degree of diversity in knowledge and experience among its members, (3) the richness
of connectivity among members based on their perceived identity and loyalty, (4) the
level of stress needed to energize individuals to be more creative and (5) the degree of
autonomy and empowerment participants are provided with to develop and implement
innovative solutions to new problems.
The leadership challenge lies in assessing the ‘right’ mix of interventions on the above
transformation variables. During a crisis, leadership’s reliance on the ‘organization as a
machine’ or as the ‘military’ metaphor limits the flow of information on a need-to-know
928 K. N. Dervitsiotis
basis for increased control. This avoids diversity to exclude any out-of-the-box ideas for
survival or improvement. It also curtails employee autonomy and empowerment, again
for the sake of control. Such a response is like hitting the breaks when a vehicle begins skid-ding on ice, which instead of gaining control of the vehicle puts it in
an uncontrollable spin.
By contrast, in a living system worldview, an organization’s future is fundamentally
unpredictable and the desirable interventions for needed transformation in a crisis
cannot be determined analytically. Instead, leadership operating on an emergent mode
must rely primarily on intuition about the right direction to take. To do so effectively,
leaders must engage the entire organization in dialogue, bringing the whole system
in one room, before any new meaningful patterns of observed events and trends can be
seen by people with different perspectives and experience (Pascale et al ., 2001; Weisbord
& Janoff, 1995). Experimenting with different innovations on a small scale, participants
can see how each works out and through reflection select the most promising course of
action. Regardless of whether we manage a hospital, an advertising firm, or a factory,
being sensitive to the situation context and responding to it creatively removes much of
the worry of trying to predict when and where problems or opportunities will appear.
The only sustainable leadership strategy depends on enabling an organization to learn
better and faster and thus become more flexible and adaptable than others.
Telling Signs of a Tr ansition from a Stabl e to a Turbulent Pe riod
Sea captains and farmers are known for their increased sensitivity in detecting serious or
even abrupt changes in the weather, viewing them as natural events and taking precaution-ary measures to minimize danger. Most corporate captains and individuals are
less skilful
at anticipating forthcoming economic or social changes. For leaders and managers with a
profit-motivated behaviour, increasing the uncertainty about what may be happening and
how to respond to an emerging new reality often create much confusion and fear. It is in
such moments that one should challenge them through dialogue for the usefulness of the
machine metaphor they rely on. Currently available approaches to sense the onset of a
significant environmental change include (1) the identification of a strategic inflection
point and (2) the Stacey Matrix , based on the degrees of agreement and uncertainty
among participants.
Figure 3. Levers for five key variables that determine a living system’s capacity for transformation
and adaptation
Creating Conditions to Nourish Sustainable Organizational Excellence 929
Strategic Inflection Points
Intel’s Andy Grove in his book Only the Paranoid Survive argues that in an ongoing dra-matic change, due to some significant environmental disturbance, the overall
performance
of an organization crosses a turning point on its S-shaped overall performance curve
(Grove, 1999). A dramatic change is referred to as a ‘10 -Force’, suggestive that one
of Porter’s competitive structure factors has changed tenfold (Porter, 1985). In Figure 4
we see that beyond thatstrategic inflection point, an organization’s limited resources
can no longer be used as effectively as before.
Evidence of declining effectiveness may take the form of reduced market share,
lower financial performance, reduced productivity of key resources or other. As long as
there is still momentum from a previously successful strategy, further increases in the
level of performance are still possible. However, approaching the top of the S-curve
with a declining momentum, we reach a point beyond which the risk of collapse and
failure become real and significant. Only after a difficult period of transition (crossing
‘the valley of death’), during which the entire organization’s creativity is stimulated
through intense dialogue, may it be possible to initiate a process of self-organization for
survival. This process always requires that the organization is taken far from its
comfort zone. Through strong interactions of all its parts in unpredictable ways, it may
manage to emerge in a new form that may be viable for new conditions (Dervitsiotis,
2003; Pascale et al ., 2001).
Degree of Disagreement and Uncertainty
Ralph Stacey proposes a framework that enables leadership to map the status of the organ-ization in the face of ongoing changes (Stacey, 1996). This is based on
(1) The degree of disagreement among its system agents on how to cope with an environ-mental challenge and
(2) The degree of perceived uncertainty about the emerging environment.
The various combinations for three levels (low, medium and high) of the perceived
degree of agreement and uncertainty correspond to the situations depicted in Figure 5.
Figure 4. A strategic inflection point ‘I’ in the present performance curve S and the transformation
needed to jump to a new curve
930 K. N. Dervitsiotis
When the degree of agreement among members of the organization about how to proceed
is high and the uncertainty about the future is low, it is reasonable to assume that the organ-ization is going through a period of relative stability. Leadership can
then rely on policies
and practices suggested by traditional management thinking, best exemplified by estab-lished business excellence models (Deming, Baldrige, EQA, or Kanji) or that of
the
Balanced Business Score Card (Kanji, 2002).
For such conditions it is quite proper to maintain detailed specifications of policies and
procedures and try to eliminate sources of undesirable variation, using statistical process
control (SPC).
In the presence of high disagreement and high degree of uncertainty about the future, the
organization drifts out of control in a condition that provides no clear sense of direction (see
Figure 5). In this state it may survive only through successful self-organization, following
the emergence of a new more viable structure and behaviour mode, while still retaining its
identity. The remaining possibilities call for special leadership modes to lead the system
through safe passage to a new way of confronting the environmental challenges.
The Need to Learn and to Cope with Pa radoxes
Quite often in a changing environment an intriguing challenge for leaders is the need to
manage paradoxes. We define a paradox as a situation in which we perceive the coexis-tence of contradictions or opposing forces. Such a critical paradox for management
until recently was the simultaneous achievement of better quality and lower cost in pro-ducts and services. It was resolved successfully by the correct implementation
of TQM.
Charles Handy inThe Empty Raincoat discusses several contemporary paradoxes, a few
of which are briefly presented here (Handy, 1994).
Figure 5. Potential situations for adaptation based on degree of agreement among key stakeholders
and perceived uncertainty (adapted from Stacey, 1996).
Creating Conditions to Nourish Sustainable Organizational Excellence 931
Paradox of Organizations
Business firms exposed to intense competition are expected to be, and to do, different con-tradictory things at the same time, i.e. to think global in strategic terms
but to act local in
operational ones. As for their form, we want them to be stable and well-defined by
hierarchies of authority and at the same time to be easily converted to flexible adaptive
networks, in order to survive. Equally conflicting are the demands placed on workers.
We want workers to be autonomous and creative but at the same time we also like
them to be compliant enough to our company culture to function smoothly within
teams for efficient performance.
Paradox of Intelligence
We are often told that we live in the knowledge era. We acknowledge that an organi-zation’s collective intelligence is its most valuable asset, used to acquire and
apply knowl-edge and know-how. This kind of asset represents a new form of wealth, as suggested by
Microsoft’s market value being greater than that of General Motors. The transformation of
intelligence into wealth has created a paradox illustrated by several new properties. Unlike
the familiar tangible forms of wealth (buildings, machines, etc) intelligence behaves
differently. One may share it and still keep it, while it cannot be inherited or taxed. In
addition, the more we have of it the less we feel the need to use our cash to own our
own assets. Silicon Valley has shown that when conditions do not favour intelligence
as an asset, it is easy to lose it to others, as intelligence seems to be attracted to places
where other similar intelligence resides.
Paradox of Work
Even though we do not work only for money, as work is related to our identity, self-respect
and social needs, work is still the dominant basis for society’s ability to distribute income.
A big consequence of using money as the most important measure of success is that organ-izations want the most work from their employees for the least expenditure of
money,
while individuals want the most money in income for the least work (35-hour week,
etc.). Business firms respond to these conflicting pressures by exporting low value-adding jobs as fast as they can, moving many manufacturing organizations in the US
and Western Europe to low-wage countries such as China, Vietnam and others, creating
‘hollow corporations’ such as Nike. This trend is also observed recently in the service
sector, which in developed countries accounts for 60 – 80% of employment. Airlines
like British Airways, several hotel chains, medical healthcare and insurance organizations
increasingly subcontract their back-office operations to low-wage countries such as India
or even Kenya.
Paradox of the Individual
We receive conflicting signals from society regarding the role of each one of us as indi-viduals. Some call on us as individuals to be our true selves, to take
initiatives, to be crea-tive, and take a stand for the values we cherish. Others call on us to become engaged and
belong to a larger social entity and be good team players. Some cultures like Japan develop
932 K. N. Dervitsiotis
more easily the team spirit, as a fundamental social system value. In others, like the US, for
the sake of individual freedom social cohesiveness takes a lower priority. This paradox
dissolves, once we realize that we are part of larger living system, in which through
social interaction we must balance our need to maintain a clear identity and develop the
equally important spirit of belonging and team-membership needed for human organi-zations to thrive. This is done through meaningful exchanges with others based on
effective communication. As captured by Jung ‘…we need others to be truly ourselves’.
Evolut ion of Organiz ational Struct ures and Emerg ent Lead ership
In the initial stages of an organization’s life cycle it is easy to establish a good fit between
the formal and informal structures, with the informal having accepted the requirements of
the formal structures. As the external environment changes over time, the informal
‘shadow system’, which evolves more naturally as a part of the larger system, is
capable of maintaining more and stronger links among its human system agents compared
with those designed in the formal system. As such, the informal system develops a greater
capacity than the formal one to adapt faster to significant changes that are meaningful to its
members.
In a dynamic but stable and relatively predictable environment, traditional leadership
usually operates within the framework of the designed formal structures. As external
change accelerates in certain periods, crossing a strategic inflection point (Dervitsiotis,
2003), the successful strategies in previous periods can no longer be implemented
effectively with the formal structures, as there is no longer a good fit of the strategy or
business model with the emerging business landscape. Gradually, the evolving informal
structures begin to display deviations from the designed formal structures, which tend
to remain less responsive to environmental change. This is especially true when the
performance of the organization continues for some time to be successful. As the gap
between the two increases and the informal structures adapt more quickly, an increasing
friction and tension builds up between them which can become detrimental or even fatal to
the organization’s survival or long-term success (Sull, 2003).
Emergent leadership describes a behaviour that seeks continually to involve the infor-mal structures in creating the organizational responses most suitable to new
environmental
conditions. The outcome of emergent leadership interventions may not be knowable or
predictable. However, when they are successful, we have a process of remarkable emer-gence, i.e. a new organization capable of operating effectively in conditions
different
from those that affected the design of the original formal structures. Emergent leadership
does not rely primarily on criteria suitable for stable conditions, i.e. financial performance
(ROI, EVA, etc), market share trends or others, but on criteria such as business landscape
fitness and organizational resilience. These measure how well an organization can respond
and adapt to significant changes.
One of leadership’s most important responsibilities is the design of the organizational
architecture (Senge, 1990). This sets the framework for how management will carry out
its four fundamental tasks (Davidson, 1996):
(1) Designing the needed processes to create products and / or services for customers.
(2) Allocating needed activities to these processes and business functions.
Creating Conditions to Nourish Sustainable Organizational Excellence 933
(3) Coordinating such activities through effective conversations-for-action that satisfy
both external and internal customers.
(4) Managing change in the face of important changes in the environment.
Traditional leadership has been mainly concerned with the first two tasks, in a ‘roll-out-the-plan’ mode. Emergent leadership becomes more profoundly involved in the
design of
needed new formal structures (Task 1) called for to meet the challenges of the fourth task
of managing change (Task 4).
Ray Kurzweil argues that as a result of accelerating advances in technology, such as the
internet, which affect in turn other types of environmental changes (social, economic, geo-political, or other), there will be an exponential increase in the incidence
of dramatic
changes that call for paradigm shifts. These call for developing another type of business
model (Kurzweil, 2000), such as that of changing from a pyramid hierarchy to a more
flat network-like organizational architecture. The clear implication is that the time inter-vals between significant environmental changes calling for emergent
leadership will
tend to become shorter and shorter . Put another way, the frequency of truly significant
changes will increase faster and faster. Thus, developing an emergent leadership mode
becomes an imperative for those responsible to take a long-term view for the survival
of their organizations.
The development of emergent leadership requires replacing the dominant mechanical
metaphor for managing organizations with one of organizations as living entities. Only
then we can develop the necessary concepts, language, and methods to address the funda-mental challenge of their adaptation, in order to ensure their survival and
success. This
way of thinking about leadership calls for adopting a dual operating mode for stable
and turbulent environmental conditions that facilitates sustainable excellence. This
mode allows for incremental or even breakthrough improvements in climbing toward a
higher point on the mountain on which we are located in the present business landscape
while concurrently exploring new possibilities, i.e. new mountain peaks, as the onset of
dramatic environmental challenges, such as e-commerce change that landscape. It
makes little sense to invest valuable resources to climb further up a disappearing mountain
peak, following the eruption of a volcano.
Exposed to important changes in their environment, living systems are not always
changed. They are disturbed. The system itself chooses what it will notice and what it
will not. For those working in an organization as a human community of work practice,
with a shared pattern of behaviour and a common view of what is meaningful, there
might be certain changes that may go unnoticed, say a new competitor, while others that
might start as a rumour about new work rules that may affect retirement benefits, are
picked up and communicated to various internal groups. Before long the entire workforce
may be involved in deciding how this issue will impact their future and their performance.
A living entity is motivated to adapt to change without resistance only if a proposed
measure is perceived as necessary or desirable to preserve or expand itself. This relies
on a process of self-reference, which defines a living system’s identity. When a rumour
about a change in work rules cannot be reconciled with the way workers understand
their identity, the impact of the initial rumour reverberates in the organization through
the web of feedback loops in the informal structures. At some point the organization
can no longer absorb the implications of the perceived threat to the workers’ status and
the ensuing turbulence leads to a state of confusion, self-doubt and fear of losing their
934 K. N. Dervitsiotis
jobs. The organization can no longer maintain its present form and a search for change is
undertaken that may lead to new roles and job definitions that change the entire organiz-ation, as in the case of delayering the organizational pyramid, as a result of
adopting new
information and communication technology (see Figure 6).
For leadership to be able to effect change in periods of rapid change, it must develop
at both the individual and collective level a clear sense of identity, based on a sufficient
knowledge of self and one’s vision and aspirations. Thus, an effective leader must
continually develop with greater clarity the needed knowledge of self and extend this
opportunity to all others in the web of his / her organization. Only in this way does it
becomes possible to develop the needed sense of what is meaningful for leadership
and others and to aim to bring forward through effective conversations-for-action
those aspects of understanding one’s self that can be shared by all, paving the
ground for implementation of the changes proposed by any of the members of the
network. Some of the key differences between traditional and emergent leadership
modes are summarized in Table 1.
Table 1. Differences between traditional and emergent leadership modes
Attribute Traditional leadership Emergent leadership
Organization Mindset ‘Mechanical’ ‘Living entity’
Suitable conditions Periods of relative stability Periods of rapid change
Focus on Formal (designed) structures Informal (adaptive) structures
Primary Strategic plans Informal conversations
Processes Policies and procedures Rumours
Rules and standards Experimental trial-and-error
Methods used Rational, analytic
(‘Clockware’)
Intuitive, experimental
(‘Swarmware’)
Criteria Conventional Business-ecology-based
– Financial – Landscape fitness
– Market share – Resilience
Figure 6. Increasing divergence of the formal designed structures of a human organization and the
informal structures adapting faster to new conditions
Creating Conditions to Nourish Sustainable Organizational Excellence 935
Benefici al Lead ership Intervent ions on Exist ing Netw orks
An organization’s journey toward sustainable excellence can be made more likely to
succeed when leadership takes the initiative to intervene on its network to enable it to
become more adaptive.
Enriching Existing Network Nodes (System Agents)
An initial step by leaders at any level in developing a more adaptive organization is the
empowerment of the system agents that comprise the component parts of the organization
as a network. In a traditional pyramid representation of an organization’s hierarchy, this
involves the communication of information in the form of ‘conversations-for-action’
(Flores, 1997; Dervitsiotis, 2003). In Figure 7 we note that this kind of empowerment
may involve the following system agents (Hock, 2000):
(1) The empowerment of one’s subordinates.
(2) The empowerment of peers, over whom a leader has no explicit authority.
(3) The empowerment of superiors.
(4) The empowerment of one’s self through self-reflection.
Traditional leaders may see advantages toempowering subordinates over whom they
have formal authority, as a means of developing better coordination in the execution of
process operations. This is quite common in service organizations (hotels, airlines insur-ance companies, etc) in which the empowerment of front-line employees to
handle pro-blems on the spot often has a direct benefit from improvements in the quality of
service, resulting in increased customer loyalty. Emergent leaders, however, regard the
empowerment of subordinates as an important step in developing each employee as a
human being. In this sense, a subordinate becomes not just a more efficient cog in a big
machine, but a whole human being exercising judgement in the planning, control and
adaptation of his task to the requirements of new demands made evident through a
richer flow of information.
Figure 7. Approaches for enriching an organization’s system agents, as existing network nodes
936 K. N. Dervitsiotis
Empowering Peers
Empowering peers, i.e. the heads of other departments or others with equal rank in the
organization, in the proposed context is not a move to sell them on a new idea. Rather,
emergent leaders recognize their interdependence with all the other parts of the organi-zation more clearly and seek consciously to provide them with all the
information they
may request to enable them to understand issues correctly and achieve a better system inte-gration and coordination.
The task of empowering superiors may sound like a paradox. However, superiors who
share the same vision and goals require information that is sometimes denied them from
fear of impunity, or ‘shooting the messenger of bad news’ syndrome. This is absent in
learning organizations, a good reason they become more adaptive. Whenever there is a
genuine need to know, leaders at lower levels can serve their organization best by empow-ering their superiors who cannot resist a given reality, in much the same way
that parents
wake up in the middle of the night and run to attend to the needs of their crying baby
(Hock, 2000).
Finally, empowering one’s self through a process of self-reflection remains at the centre
of a leader’s concerns. All the initiatives aimed for a dramatic transformation, when the
organization finds itself in a state of confusion, uncertainty and fear can be made more
effective through self-organization leading to the emergence of something new (new
values, new structures, new behaviours, new strategies, etc). This depends on a process
of self-reference, which preserves a living system’s fundamental identity. In other
words, the creation of novelty for something capable of successful adaptation with new
conditions is possible only through the preservation of profound knowledge of one’s
own identity. This is defined by the shape of an identity boundary which determines
how much a system can be transformed and still remain viable, otherwise it is destroyed
in trying to self-organize into something that is not itself. The concept of self-reference is a
profound one, known to ancient Greek philosophers as ‘know thyself’. Without it in
members of a living system, we cannot expect the self-organization process to lead to
successful outcomes, as the new structures that may emerge may bear no resemblance
to what was left behind.
Enriching Existing Network Links
Developing stronger links and new links in the organization’s network requires the flow of
information in a different form than the traditional need-to-know basis (see Figure 8). In
times of rapid change, it is important to provide the infrastructure that offers the opportu-nity to suggest and consider a greater variety of potential solutions to
problems at all levels
(strategic, process, or operations). Making relevant information available to all critical
system agents and eliciting feedback with diversity of viewpoints and out-of-the-box
thinking requires communication flows in links that have a larger bandwidth. This type
of network, an organization can provide through both formal and informal means, i.e.
the familiar company newspaper or journal of events and recognition of high performers,
but also suggestion systems and informal settings for all to discuss issues that will improve
the prospects of sustaining excellence or remove confusion, uncertainty and fear.
A human network link always defines a relationship between two interacting human
agents. The quality of such a link is determined by the degree of trust and the ensuing
Creating Conditions to Nourish Sustainable Organizational Excellence 937
commitment it develops over time in repeated interactions. Greater trust is a prerequisite
for greater commitment. The new science of networks suggests that adding even a few
random links to an existing network increases its capabilities by creating ‘ small world ’
conditions that reduce the ‘degrees of separation’ between any two nodes, i.e. the
number of links required to reach any node from any other node. This increases the
speed of communication in the network and improves the overall coordination of an organ-ization’s subsystems. This is true in biological, economic, social, and
technical systems
(power grids, telephone networks, etc), as well as neural ones, such as among the
modules of the human brain (Buchanan, 2002).
Facilitating Leadership Interventions on External Relevant Networks
Quite often, in conversations-for-action between an organization and its customers and
suppliers, the communication necessary takes place only between persons (system
agents) assigned with specific authority for specific tasks. For example, in ordering raw
materials or parts for production, it is someone in our organization’s purchasing depart-ment that negotiates an order with another person in the sales department of
one of our
suppliers (see Figure 9).
Whenever the emergent leadership mode is invoked to increase adaptation to new con-ditions, it is preferable to create new links between organizations that activate
the relevant
direct feedback loops. A worker in our own factory who discovers a fitness problem of a
part for an assembly, might be given the authority and the means to communicate this to
the person making that specific part in the suppliers’ plant. Such direct external communi-cation, compared to informing one’s supervisor who is expected to follow
through with
other channels, facilitates finding root causes of problems faster and achieves a smoother
operation and coordination of the entire supply chain. Other stakeholders in an organiz-ation’s operation, such as a regulatory body for the environment, the community
school
system, or the suppliers of public goods (water, electricity, etc) may be connected directly
to the system, whenever issues of common interest to all parties are affected by their invol-vement, such as the quality of life in the community, safety rules,
security precautions, etc.
In all cases, the basic purpose of emergent leadership is to strive continually to improve
the quality of relationships among an organization’s members and to build the trust needed
to improve coordination and the genuine commitment to explore new possibilities. As a
result, when new conditions arise, emergent leadership facilitates self-organization and
the emergence of new system structures, which are capable of achieving sustainable excel-lence at the broadest possible level. Aiming to provide relevant information
on a regular
basis to all and organizing special meetings with the whole system in the same room,
Figure 8. Interventions to enrich and increase existing network nodes and links
938 K. N. Dervitsiotis
reinforces the feeling of belonging and the need for mutual support. This practice enhances
constructive interactions, assists in the formation of multiple viewpoints, illuminates
hidden interconnections and helps identify emerging trends and patterns which enhance
self-organization for a successful transformation in periods of crises (Pascale et al.,
2001; Weisbord & Janoff, 1995).
Conducting Experiments on the Margin
Emergent leadership, in addition to implementing an organization’s strategic plan may
also benefit from the use of multiple actions at the margin (or the fringes) of the major
initiatives pursued to realize desired goals. By the term ‘margins’ or ‘fringes’ of
primary activities, we refer to issues likely to appear when we operate far from most
people’s comfort zone. Traditional leadership is unlikely to rely on such experiments
because it is accustomed to viewing an organization as a ‘machine’ expected to roll-out
a detailed plan, based on specific assumptions for the future.
The appeal of multiple actions on the margins derives from management’s inability to
predict the future. This practice helps evaluate options that guard against anticipated
uncertainty. In periods of rapid change, involving major shifts as to what is regarded as
a proper way for the organization to conduct its business, experimenting through the par-allel implementation of small-scale multiple actions provides valuable
information from
the exploration of the effectiveness of different strategic options. Doing so is strongly sup-ported by evolutionary biology in the study of gene pools. It has been
shown that ‘ …
populations of organisms that are learning, i.e. those exploring their fitness possibilities
by changing their behavior by trial and error evolve faster than populations that are not
learning’. This approach is contrary to the common practice of trying to build a consensus
around a single option, comparable to ‘inbreeding in a gene pool’. This practice has often
acted as ‘horse’s blinders’ and led to failures from the strong tendency for ‘group think’
(Argyris & Schon, 1996).
In situations far from certainty and agreement, one of the best things to do is to conduct
several carefully selected small experiments. By looking at and evaluating the results later
Figure 9. Interventions to enrich extended network value through direct interactions of
organization’s system agents with customer, supplier and other stakeholder networks
Creating Conditions to Nourish Sustainable Organizational Excellence 939
on and by careful reflection, it becomes possible to gain valuable insights, which might
gradually shift the focus and resources toward the kinds of solutions that are usually
ignored but which seem to work best. This makes it more likely for the right strategic
direction to emerge and for further adaptive action to follow. An additional important
benefit of the practice of using multiple actions is for the organization to explore and
gain a better understanding of the broader system(s) in which it is embedded. Doing so,
it can increase the probability to perceive critical hidden interconnections currently out
of one’s radar of observation but can seriously affect overall performance. A good
example of this practice is the experiment in Vietnam of learning from the local people
what is the best way to ensure an adequate food supply, rather than having an international
agency draw up the plans and try to implement them (Pascale et al., 2001).
As we move from the internal structures and processes of the organization toward the
external larger systems in which it is embedded, i.e. its transactional environment (custo-mers, suppliers, etc) and its broader environment (social, political and
economic) the
problem of complexity increases rapidly. So does the difficulty of predicting the outcomes
of their interactions. The reason has to do with the rapidly increasing number of relevant
parts and their interactions in several complex networks, similar to the increase in com-plexity as we move from organs and cells to the level of the human body, the
family of
the individual and the community it belongs to. Rather than trying to understand increas-ingly more complex social systems that envelop ours, it is best to get a
initial handle on a
few, through multiple actions on the fringes.
Need for Emerg ent Leaders to Learn and Diffuse a New Lang uage
The language we use as members of a human organization is the most powerful tool we
have to think about these organizations and the problems they face, to study them and
to be able to understand them and ourselves as part of a larger system. The loss of such
an understanding is evident when visiting a foreign country whose language is
unknown to us, or in the presence of a conversation among specialists in a particular dis-cipline using a highly technical professional jargon (medical doctors,
lawyers, computer
experts, etc). In short, language becomes the key instrument for shaping our perception
of our own reality. This perception and understanding of a shared view of our existing
reality based on a language evolves over time to allow us to communicate and perform
needed tasks to satisfy our own human needs and those of others and to communicate
about ways to change those aspects that are not in harmony with our values or beliefs.
The demand for stability to preserve this perceived reality does not easily allow the influ-ence of anything threatening to such a view (Capra, 2002).
Historically, the accumulation of persistent problems to explain incompatibilities in our
view of current reality has motivated certain brilliant minds to challenge a prevailing
worldview. In every case, the essential step to make a breakthrough to a new way of think-ing and understanding has been the development of new distinctions in
language. This
involves a process of enriching the existing variety of labels so that we may communicate
with others that which is needed to create sharing an alternative way to interpret the exist-ing reality. Following that, previous incompatibilities in our perception
are removed and,
to the extent such distinctions in language or new labels become widely shared, we move
to a new understanding of the world around us. This is the essence of developing a new
paradigm or mindset to better understand our world.
940 K. N. Dervitsiotis
A single individual in science or business may develop a profound new insight about a
social, economic or life process. Without a new and clear distinction or a new label for it,
thus developing new language, it is not possible to create a shared view of its existence and
importance . Thus, while the process of discovery is an individual capability, it is only
through developing a new language, a social construct, that this insight can be shared
with others. Without a label, i.e. a word or a symbol, for a physical or mental entity (a
beautiful landscape, or a goal such as peace), it is not possible either to extend the bound-aries or to change the content of our perceived reality to accommodate
something new and
potentially powerful in opportunities that merit our attention (see Figures 10 and 11).
F.W. Taylor, in developing the ideas of ‘scientific management’ applied the ideas of
classical science of his time to the realm of human work. Relying on the analytical
mode of thinking he found it meaningful to break up tasks into small elements, eliminating
some and rearranging others in new groupings, to increase the efficiency of production
workers. Shortly after, Henry Ford, inspired by Taylor’s ideas, innovated the concept of
an assembly line and built his auto factories to produce cars much more efficiently and
at lower cost than his competitors, making a car affordable to a much larger market.
In adopting a living systems view of human organizations, we are aided by new
language, introduced in complexity science, which enables us to improve our understand-ing of living systems behaviour. In this way we can explore a much vaster space
of new
Figure 10. The impact of new language introduced to improve our perception of current reality
Figure 11. The impact of new language introduced by a living systems approach
Creating Conditions to Nourish Sustainable Organizational Excellence 941
opportunities, hidden by the machine mindset of organizations. Our language serving as a
mental map for understanding our world is a powerful tool and is indispensable in perceiv-ing, understanding and assessing the new territory of our continually
evolving reality.
Conc lusions
In our era of increasingly rapid technological, social and economic changes, the urgent
need in our organizations to develop innovative solutions that will contribute to sustain-able excellence can be met only with a major shift in the way we think of
these organ-izations. The machine-like metaphor that has dominated management thinking for over
two centuries has reached its limits and has led to theories and practices that hold back
the required adaptation to the conditions of current globalization, e-commerce and with
problems such as crime, security and economic inequities that affect the whole planet.
What is needed is a fresh way to view organizations and see how they are built and
behave. This new way is found in the human organization as a living entity worldview.
At its core is the idea that organizations have the capacity, through their informal struc-tures of human work communities of common practice, to sense environmental
changes
faster than the designed structures established to achieve the organization’s initial strategic
goals in previous periods under different conditions. As living systems, human organi-zations have the capacity to adapt in whatever ways preserve their sense of
identity,
provided they give meaning to the work lives of their members.
For human organizations to be responsive to the waves of new challenges in an
environment that is both complex and uncertain, and with the traditional leadership
mode established for organizations assumed to operate in a stable and predictable
world, emergent leadership is needed to bring out the collective intelligence of an
organization, develop its capacity to self-organize and adapt and provide its members
with the most powerful motivator of finding meaning in their roles and tasks, in
harmony with values shared with others both inside and in the community at large.
Emergent leadership can accomplish its mission by complementing traditional modes
of practice with intuitive ones that harness the potential of the informal organizational
structures, developing rich networks of internal and external relationships of high
quality that build trust among its members and other stakeholders, allowing for
experiments on the margin of an organization’s primary activities to assess the potential
of untried but promising innovative solutions and introducing the new language needed
to gain a more realistic grasp of new environmental conditions and the wealth of
opportunities they offer.
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Creating Conditions to Nourish Sustainable Organizational Excellence 943
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