A SHORT GUIDE TO CONSENSUS BUILDING, the Public Disputes Program, Harvard
This article on consensus offers a brief look at some aspects of consensus decision making, definitions of the difference between consensus, facilitation, and mediation, and a look at whats wrong with Robert’s rules of order. -ed
A SHORT GUIDE TO CONSENSUS BUILDING
by The Public Diputes Program. Part of the Inter-university
Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School
An Alternative to Robert's Rules of Order for Groups, Organizations and Ad Hoc Assemblies that Want to Operate By Consensus
Let's compare what this Short Guide has to say with what Robert's Rules of Order requires. Assume that a few dozen people have gotten together, on their own, at a community center because they are upset with a new policy or program recently announced by their local officials. After several impassioned speeches, someone suggests that the group appoint a moderator to "keep order" and ensure that the conversation proceeds effectively. Someone else wants to know how the group will decide what to recommend after they are done debating. "Will they vote?" this person wants to know. At this point, everyone turns to Joe, who has had experience as a moderator. Joe moves to the front of the room and explains that he will follow Robert's Rules of Order. From that moment on, the conversation takes on a very formal tone. Instead of just saying what's on their mind, everyone is forced to frame suggestions in the cumbersome form of "motions." These have to be "seconded." Efforts to "move the question" are proceeded by an explanation from Joe about what is and isn't an acceptable way of doing this. Proposals to "table" various items are considered, even though everyone hasn't had a chance to speak. Ultimately, all-or-nothing votes are the only way the group seems able to make a decision.
As the hour passes, fewer and fewer of those in attendance feel capable of expressing their views. They don't know the rules, and they are intimidated. Every once in a while, someone makes an effort to re-state the problem or make a suggestion, but they are shouted down. ("You're not following Robert's Rules!") No one takes responsibility for ensuring that the concerns of everyone in the room are met, especially the needs of those individuals who are least able to present their views effectively. After an hour or so, many people have left. A final proposal is approved by a vote of 55 percent to 45 percent of those remaining.
If the group had followed the procedures spelled out in this Short Guide to Consensus Building, the meeting would have been run differently and the result would probably have been a lot more to everyone's liking. The person at the front of the room would have been a trained facilitator -- a person with mediation skills -- not a moderator with specialized knowledge about how motions should be made or votes should be taken. His or her job would have been to get agreement at the outset on how the group wanted to proceed. Then, the facilitator or mediator would have focused on producing an agreement that could meet the underlying concerns of everyone in the room. No motions, no arcane rituals, no vote at the end. Instead, the facilitator would have pushed the group to brainstorm (e.g. " Can anyone propose a way of proceeding that meets all the interests we have heard expressed thus far?" ) After as thorough consideration of options as time permitted, the facilitator would ask: "Is there anyone who can't live with the last version of what has been proposed?" "If so, what improvement or modification can you suggest that will make it more acceptable to you, while continuing to meet the interests of everyone else with a stake in the issue?"
What's Wrong With Robert's Rules?
Robert's Rules of Order was first published in 1870. It was based on the rules and practices of Congress, and presumed that parliamentary procedures (and majority rule) offered the most appropriate model for any and all groups. The author presumed that the Rules of Order would "assist an assembly in accomplishing the work for which it was designed" by "restraining the individual" so that the interests of the group could be met. [Cite] In the more than 125 years since Robert's Rules was first published, many other approaches to group work and organizational activity have emerged. The goal of this Guide and the full Handbook is to codify the "best possible advice" to groups and organizations that prefer to operate with broad support, by consensus, rather than simply by majority rule. When we say consensus, we do not mean unanimity (although seeking unanimity is often a good idea). We believe that something greater than a bare majority achieved through voting is almost always more desirable than majority rule. Moreover, the formalism of parliamentary procedure is particularly unsatisfying and often counterproductive, getting in the way of common sense solutions. It relies on insider knowledge of the rules of the game. It does not tap the full range of facilitative skills of group leaders. And, it typically leaves many stakeholders (often something just short of a majority) angry and disappointed, with little or nothing to show for their efforts.
Even with these weaknesses, many social groups and organizations, especially in community settings, adhere to Robert's Rules (by referencing them in their by-laws or articles of incorporation) because they have no other option. The Short Guide to Consensus Building (and the Handbook on which it is based) offers an alternative that builds on several decades of experience with effective consensus building techniques and strategies. No longer must groups and organizations settle for Robert's Rules of Order or parliamentary procedure when they would be better off with an alternative that puts the emphasis on cooperation and consensus.
Definitions
In order to explain what has been learned about consensus building over the past several decades, certain terms are important. Indeed, they are central to the presentation in this Short Guide. They are not part of everyday language and, thus, require some explanation. The key terms we will define are consensus, facilitation, mediation, recording, convening, conflict assessment, single text procedure, creating and claiming value, maximizing joint gains, and circles of stakeholder involvement. These definitions have been developed over the past two decades. There is still not complete agreement among dispute resolution professionals about how they should be defined; so, where important disagreements remain, we will point them out.
Here are the most important definitions:
Consensus (which does not mean unanimity)
Consensus means overwhelming agreement. And, it is important that consensus be the product of a good-faith effort to meet the interests of all stakeholders. The key indicator of whether or not a consensus has been reached is that everyone agrees they can live with the final proposal; that is, after every effort has been made to meet any outstanding interests. Thus, consensus requires that someone frame a proposal after listening carefully to everyone's interests. Interests, by the way, are not the same as positions or demands. Demands and positions are what people say they must have, but interests are the underlying needs or reasons that explain why they take the positions that they do. Most consensus building efforts set out to achieve unanimity. Along the way, however, it often becomes clear that there are holdouts -- people who believe that their interests will be better served by remaining outside the emerging agreement. Should the rest of the group throw in the towel? No, this would invite blackmail (i.e. outrageous demands that have nothing to do with the issues under discussion). Most dispute resolution professionals believe that groups or assemblies should seek unanimity, but settle for overwhelming agreement that goes as far as possible toward meeting the interests of all stakeholders. It is absolutely crucial that this definition of success be clear at the outset.
Facilitation (a way of helping groups work together in meetings)
Facilitation is a management skill. When people are face-to-face, they need to talk and to listen. When there are several people involved, especially if they don't know each other or they disagree sharply, getting the talking, listening, deciding sequence right is hard. Often, it is helpful to have someone who has no stake in the outcome assist in managing the conversation. Of course, a skilled group member can, with the concurrence of the participants, play this role, too. As the parties try to collect information, formulate proposals, defend their views, and take account of what others are saying, a facilitator reminds them of the ground rules they have adopted and, much like a referee, intervenes when someone violates the ground rules. The facilitator is supposed to be nonpartisan or neutral.
There is some disagreement in various professional circles about the extent to which an effective facilitator needs to be someone from outside the group. Certainly in a corporate context, work teams have traditionally relied on the person "in charge" to play a facilitative role. The concept of facilitative leadership is growing in popularity. Even work teams in the private sector, however, are turning more and more to skilled outsiders to provide facilitation services. In the final analysis, there is reason to believe that a stakeholder might use facilitative authority to advance his or her own interests at the expense of the others.
Mediation (a way of helping parties deal with strong disagreement)
While facilitators do most of their work "at the table" when the parties are face-to-face, mediators are often called upon to work with the parties before, during, and after their face-to-face meetings. While all mediators are skilled facilitators; not all facilitators have been trained to mediate. The classic image of the mediator comes from the labor relations field when the outside "neutral" shuttles back-and-forth between labor and management, each of which has retreated to a separate room as the strike deadline looms. These days, mediators work in an extraordinarily wide range of conflict situations. Mediation is both a role and a group management skill. A group leader may have mediation skills and may be able to broker agreement by putting those skills to use. But, again, when the search for innovative solutions rests in the hands of one of the parties, it is often hard for the others to believe that the leader/mediator isn't trying to advance his or her own interests at their expense.
The big debate in professional circles is whether any mediator really can (or should) be neutral. The referee in a sporting match must be nonpartisan; he or she can't secretly be working for one team. The referee tries to uphold the rules of the game to which everyone has agreed. This is what is commonly meant by neutrality -- nonpartisanship. However, some people have argued that a mediator should not be indifferent to blatant unfairness. They believe that the mediator should not turn a blind eye to potentially unfair or unimplementable agreements, even if the "rules of the game" have not been violated. Yet, if a mediator intervenes on behalf of a party that may be about to "give away the store," why should the others accept that mediator's help? The answer probably depends on the level of confidence the parties have in the mediator and the terms of the mediator's contract with the group.
Before the parties in a consensus building process come together, mediators (or facilitators) can play an important part in helping to identify the right participants, assist them in setting an agenda and clarifying the ground rules by which they will operate, and even in "selling" recalcitrant parties on the value to them of participating. Once the process has begun, mediators (and facilitators) try to assist the parties in their efforts to generate a creative resolution of differences. During these discussions or negotiations, a mediator may accompany a representative back to a meeting with his or her constituents to explain what has been happening. The mediator might serve as a spokesperson for the process if the media are following the story. A mediator might (with the parties' concurrence) push them to accept an accord (because they need someone to blame for forcing them to back-off the unreasonable demands they made at the outset). Finally, the mediator may be called upon to monitor implementation of an agreement and re-assemble the parties to review progress or deal with perceived violations or a failure to live up to commitments.
"Facilitation" and "mediation" are often used interchangeably. We think the key distinction is that facilitators work mostly with parties once they are "at the table" while mediators do that as well as handle the pre-negotiation and post-negotiation tasks described above. Some professionals have both sets of skills, many do not. Neither form of consensus build assistance requires stakeholders to give up their authority or their power to decide what is best for them.
Consensus – Simple Steps Handout
A Checklist for the Consensus Process
Edited by Randy Schutt
This one page checklist outlines the various aspects of the consensus process and offers a list of tasks and responsibilities for the various roles in the process along with a listing of various tools for facilitation. –Lted
Get pdf here Consensus-Simple-Steps-Handout
Consensus Summary, Seeds of Change
Short Guide to Consensus Decision Making
Seeds of Change
This 8-page booklet is a very readable summary (with lots of charts and graphics) describing the consensus process. This, and its longer version below, would be helpful basic reading for any group. -Lted
Get pdf here Consensus Brief Summary- Seeds of Change
Consensus Briefing, Seeds of Change
Consensus Decision Making
Seeds of Change
This 24-page booklet goes more into depth about the background tools and practice of consensus decision making. It is a very helpful study for anyone in a position leading a group through consensus decisions. It offers sound experienced advice for consensus leaders along with troubleshooting tips.–LTed
Get pdf here Consensus Briefing- Seeds of Change
On Conflict and Consensus, by LT Butler and Amy Rothstein
On Conflict and Consensus: A handbook on Formal Consensus decision-making
CT Lawrence Butler and Amy Rothstein
This little booklet (63pp) is the one definitive guide to Consensus decision-making. It has chapters on conflict, decision-making, roles, evaluation, techniques, and a good intro chapter on the advantages of consensus. -LTed
See the document here On Conflict and Consensus
Learning in Organizations – theory and practice
In recent years there has been a lot of talk of ‘organizational learning’. Here we explore the theory and practice of such learning via pages in the encyclopaedia of informal education. We examine some key theorists and themes, and ask whether organizations can learn?
contents: introduction · learning · learning in organizations –experiential learning – single- and double-loop learning –informal learning – distributed cognition – communities of practice · can organizations learn? · further reading and references
linked pages: learning · experiential learning · chris argyris: single- and double-loop learning · informal learning ·communities of practice
We have structured this page around three basic questions:
- What is learning?
- What is organizational learning?
- Is it individuals that learn in organizations, or can organizations learn themselves?
From this exploration we suggest that there are particular qualities associated with learning in organizations. The page links into discussions on different pages of the encyclopaedia of informal education.
Learning
For all the talk of learning amongst policymakers and practitioners, there is a surprising lack of attention to what it entails. In Britain and Northern Ireland, for example, theories of learning do not figure strongly in professional education programmes for teachers and those within different arenas of informal education. It is almost as if it is something is unproblematic and that can be taken for granted. Get the instructional regime right, the message seems to be, and learning (as measured by tests and assessment regimes) will follow. This lack of attention to the nature of learning inevitably leads to an impoverishment of education. In a similar fashion, when we come to examine the literature of human resource development and more generally that of organizational and management change, the idea that ‘learning’ may in some way be problematic is only rarely approached in a sustained way.
In order to start thinking about learning we need to make the simple distinction between learning as a product and as a process. The latter takes us into the arena of competing learning theories – ideas about how we might gain understandings. The former takes us to learning as either a change in behaviour or a change in our mental state. To explore these areas go to:
learning. What is learning? Is it a process or a product? How might it be approached?
Four different orientations to theorizing learning:
the behaviourist orientation. The behaviourist movement in psychology has looked to the use of experimental procedures to study behaviour in relation to the environment.
the cognitive orientation. Where behaviourists looked to the environment, those drawing on Gestalt turned to the individual’s mental processes. In other words, they were concerned with cognition – the act or process of knowing.
the humanist orientation. In this orientation the basic concern is for human growth. We look to the work of Maslow and Rogers as expressions of this approach.
the social/situational orientation. It is not so much that learners acquire structures or models to understand the world, but they participate in frameworks that that have structure. Learning involves participation in a community of practice.
Learning in organizations
As Mark Easterby-Smith and Luis Araujo (1999: 1) have commented the idea of organizational learning has been present in the management literature for decades, but it has only become widely recognized since around 1990.
Two developments have been highly significant in the growth of the field. First it has attracted the attention of scholars from disparate disciplines who had hitherto shown little interest in learning processes. A consequence of this is that the field has become conceptually fragmented, and representatives of different disciplines now vie over who has the correct model of organizational learning…. The second development is that many consultants and companies have caught onto the commercial significance of organizational learning… Much of the effort of these theorists has been devoted to identifying templates, or ideal forms, which real organizations could attempt to emulate. (Easterby-Smith and Araujo 1999: 1-2)
The central template or ideal form in the 1990s and into the twenty first century was the notion of the learning organization. A helpful way of making sense of writing on organizational learning is to ask whether writers fall into one of two basic camps. The dividing line between them is the extent to which the writers emphasize organizational learning as a technical or a social process. Here we can again turn to Easterby-Smith and Araujo (1999: 3-5):
The technical view assumes that organizational learning is about the effective processing, interpretation of, and response to, information both inside and outside the organization. This information may be quantitative or qualitative, but is generally explicit and in the public domain…. Thesocial perspective on organization learning focuses on the way people make sense of their experiences at work. These experiences may derive from explicit sources such as financial information, or they may be derived from tacit sources, such as the ‘feel’ that s skilled craftsperson has, or the intuition possessed by a skilled strategist. From this view, learning is something that can emerge from social interactions, normally in the natural work setting. In the case of explicit information it involves a joint process of making sense of data… The more tacit and ‘embodied’ forms of learning involve situated practices, observation and emulation of skilled practitioners and socialization into a community of practice.
A classic expression of the technical view can be found in the work of Argyris and Schön on single- and double-loop learning (1978, 1996). Lave and Wenger (1991) and Wenger (1998) provide a fascinating example of the social perspective in action in their studies of apprenticeship and communities of practice. Interestingly Donald Schön (1983; 1987) also provides some insights into the use of ‘tacit’ sources in his exploration of reflective practice. Those operating within the social perspective may view organizational learning as a social construction, as a political process, and/or as a cultural artifact (Easterby-Smith and Araujo 1999: 5-7).
Here we will explore the notions of single- and double-loop learning and community of practice. We will also look at the notions of experiential learning and informal learning.
Experiential learning. Christine Prange (1999: 27) in her review of organizational learning theory, notes that when we review the processes of organizational learning ‘we encounter “learning from experience” as a genuine component of almost all approaches’. We review Kolb’s (1984) famous formulation, go back to John Dewey’s (1933) exploration of thinking and reflection, and Kurt Lewin’s use of the notions of feedback and action learning; and take note of David Boud and associates useful contribution on the nature of reflection.
Single- and double-loop learning and organizational learning. This model of learning goes back to some work that Argyris and Schön did in 1974, but it found its strongest expression and grounding in organizational dynamics in 1978. Single-loop learning with it’s emphasis on the detection and correction of errors within a given set of governing variables is linked to incremental change in organizations. Double-loop learning involves interrogating the governing variables themselves and often involves radical changes such as the wholesale revision of systems, alterations in strategy and so on. We examine the notion of theories of action, single and double-loop learning, and the organizational orientations and practices linked to each.
Informal learning. All of a sudden a number of researchers and policy pundits have rediscovered ‘informal learning’. But is there really such a thing? We examine the current debates and conceptualizations and what some of the implications may be for those interested in developing the educative qualities of organizational life.
Communities of practice. This notion has been popularized by Lave and Wenger (1991) and Wenger (1998). We explore the idea that organizations may be a constellation of communities of practice.
Can organizations learn?
Prange (1999: 27) comments that one of the greatest myths of organizational learning is the ‘who question’, that is, ‘the way in which learning might be considered organizational’. There are those who argue that it is individuals, not organizations, who learn. In other words, learning refers to the processes of thinking and remembering that take place within an individual’s brain.
Traditionally, the study of cognitive processes, cognitive development, and the cultivation of educationally desirable skills and competencies has treated everything cognitive as being possessed and residing in the heads of individuals; social, cultural, and technological factors have been relegated to the role of backdrops or external sources of stimulation (Salomon 1993: xii)
This notion relates to a particular view of selfhood. In this way of coming to understand our selves the body plays a crucial role. The skin becomes a boundary – everything that happens outside the wall it forms becomes the other – the world outside; what is inside is me – the world inside. In this three relatively simple and apparently ‘natural’ ideas rule (Sampson (1993: 34):
the boundary of the individual is coincident with the boundary of the body;
the body is a container that houses the individual;
the individual is best understood as a self-contained entity.
However, when we come to examine human behaviour in its everyday context, when we look at ‘real-life problem-solving situations, a rather different set of cognitive processes appear:
People appear to think in conjunction or partnership with others and with the help of culturally provided tools and implements. Cognitions, it would seem, are not content-free tools that are brought to bear on this or that problem; rather, they emerge in a situation tackled by teams of people and tools available to them… What characterizes such daily events of thinking is that the social and artifactual surrounds, alleged to be ‘outside’ the individual’s heads, not only are sources of stimulation and guidance but are actually vehicles of thought. Moreover, the arrangements, functions, and structures of these surrounds change in the process to become genuineparts of the learning that results from the cognitive partnership with them. In other words, it is not just the ‘person-solo’ who learns, but the ‘person-plus’, the whole system of interrelated factors. (Salomon 1993: xiii)
This is not a new idea – for example, John Dewey recognized the significant of the environment in being and learning. It links into a dialogical understanding of selfhood and the work of people like George Herbert Mead (Cole and Engeström 1993 provide a useful historical overview of the development of thinking around distributed cognition).
We can see how individual and organizational learning may connect in the work of Chris Argyris and Donald Schön (1978; 1996). They suggest that each member of an organization constructs his or her own representation or image of the theory-in-use of the whole (1978: 16). The picture is always incomplete – and people, thus, are continually working to add pieces and to get a view of the whole. They need to know their place in the organization.
Hence, our inquiry into organizational learning must concern itself not with static entities called organizations, but with an active process of organizing which is, at root, a cognitive enterprise. Individual members are continually engaged in attempting to know the organization, and to know themselves in the context of the organization. At the same time, their continuing efforts to know and to test their knowledge represent the object of their inquiry. Organizing is reflexive inquiry….
[Members] require external references. There must be public representations of organizational theory-in-use to which individuals can refer. This is the function of organizational maps. These are the shared descriptions of the organization which individuals jointly construct and use to guide their own inquiry….
Organizational theory-in-use, continually constructed through individual inquiry, is encoded in private images and in public maps. These are the media of organizational learning. (Argyris and Schön 1978: 16-17)
With this set of moves we can see how Chris Argyris and Donald Schön connect up the individual world of the worker and practitioner with the world of organization.
Those interested in distributed cognition take this further. It can be argued that there are stronger and weaker versions of distributed cognition. The strong,or more radical, version would take the position that cognition in general needs to be reappraised and approached as principally distributed (see, for example, Cole and Engeström 1993; Pea 1993). The ‘proper unit of psychological analysis should be joint (often, but not necessarily) socially mediated activity in a cultural context’ (Salomon 1993: xv). A weaker, or less radical, version would hold that ‘solo’ and distributed cognitions are separate from one another, but should be taken in ‘an interdependent dynamic interaction’ (ibid.: xvi). Both ideas are often difficult to grasp as the notion of individual cognition is very deeply ingrained in much that is written about the area. As Salomon and Perkins (1998) put it, ‘we do not ordinarily consider possession of an artefact knowledge, yet possession of a database constitutes a kind of organizational knowing. Patterns of division of labour within an organization are kinds of know-how that have no easy individual analog’.
In their review of individual and social aspects of learning, Salomon and Perkins comment:
If organizations can learn, this does not mean that they learn very well. A strong theme in the literature on organizational learning is the weakness of the learning system involved. The learning of the collective suffers from a startling range of limitations… Some of these are equally characteristic of solo and collective learning entities. For instance, rare high-stakes events—marriage decisions in an individual or major shifts of direction in a business—are difficult learning targets because they do not occur often to disambiguate the lessons of experience, and because by the time they occur again circumstances may have changed substantially.
Other problems of learning are exacerbated by the specifically organizational character of the learning. For example, different individuals and units within an organization may hold somewhat different criteria of success. Also, advocates of a policy are likely to interpret any difficulties with it as reflecting an insufficiently vigorous pursuit of the policy, while opponents interpret the same data as signifying a bad policy. Feedback about the results of organizational actions may be distorted or suppressed as people rush to protect their turf or to maintain a positive climate….
In summary, organizations, like individuals, can learn. Many of the fundamental phenomena of learning are the same for organizations… However, organizational learning also has distinctive characteristics with reference to what is learned, how it is learned, and the adjustments called for to enhance learning. These derive from the fact that any organization by definition is a collective, with individuals and larger units in different roles that involve different perspectives and values, passing information through their own filters, and with noisy and loss-prone information channels connecting them.
As a result, it seems likely that organizational as against individual learning has a number of characteristic features. It will tend to be:
Situated and concerned with communities of practice.
More ‘informal’ and involve far less ‘teaching’ than in the individual case
Relatively unregulated.Contradictory. ‘The social entity can often be divided against itself, with different tacit beliefs and concealed agendas harboured by different subgroups or individuals’ (Salomon and Perkins 1998).
Further reading and references
Argyris, C. and Schön, D. (1996) Organisational learning II: Theory, method and practice, Reading, Mass: Addison Wesley. Expands and updates the ideas and concepts of the authors’ groundbreaking first book. Offers fresh innovations, strategies, and concise explanations of long-held theories.
Easterby-Smith, M., Burgoyne, J. and Araujo, L. (eds.) (1999)Organizational Learning and the Learning Organization, London: Sage. 247 + viii pages. A collection with a good overview and some very helpful individual papers. The opening section provides reviews and critiques, the second, a series of evaluations of practice.
Tennant, M. (1997) Psychology and Adult Learning 2e, London: Routledge. 182 + xii pages. While not written directly into the organizational learning field, this book does provide a dood discussion of the relevance of psychological theory to adult education. Includes material on humanistic psychology and the self-directed learner; the psychoanalytical approach; adult development; cognitive developmental psychology; learning styles; behaviourism; group dynamics; critical awareness. There is helpful material on experiential learning and situated learning plus updates on the literature.
Wenger, E. (1998) Communities of Practice. Learning, meaning and identity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 318+xv pages. A fascinating expression of a social theory of learning that examines the integral role that communities play in our lives. Organizations are approached as constellations of communties of practice. Includes chapters on community, learning, boundary, locality, identity, participation, belonging, organizations and education.
References
Argyris, C., & Schön, D. (1978) Organisational learning: A theory of action perspective, Reading, Mass: Addison Wesley.
Argyris, C. and Schön, D. (1996) Organisational learning II: Theory, method and practice, Reading, Mass: Addison Wesley.
Cole, M., & Engeström, Y. (1993) ‘A cultural-historical approach to distributed cognition’ in G. Salomon (ed.)Distributed cognitions: Psychological and educational considerations (pp. 1-46). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991) Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Malhotra, Y. (1996) ’Organizational Learning and Learning Organizations: An Overview’http://www.brint.com/papers/orglrng.htm
Pea, R. D. (1993) ‘Practices of distributed intelligence and designs for education’ in G. Salomon (ed.). Distributed cognitions: Psychological and educational considerations (pp. 47-87). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Prange, C. (1999) ‘Organizational learning – desperately seeking theory?’ in M. Easterby-Smith, L. Araujo and J. Burgoyne (eds.) Organizational Learning and the Learning Organization, London: Sage.
Salomon, G. (1993) ‘No distribution without individual’s cognition: A dynamic interactional view’ in G. Salomon (ed.)Distributed cognitions—Psychological and educational considerations (pp. 111-138). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Salomon, G. and Perkins, D. N. (1998) ‘Individual and social aspects of learning’, Review of Research in Education 23.
Sampson, E. E. (1993) Celebrating the Other. A dialogic account of human nature, Hemel Hempstead: Harvester/Wheatsheaf.
Senge, P. (1990) The Fifth Discipline. The art and practice of the learning organization, London: Random House.
Links
A brief introduction to distributed cognition – useful piece by Yvonne Rogers.
Acknowledgment: Picture: National Archives and Records Administration. WPA Adult Education (New Deal). Believed to be in the public domain (sourced from Wikimedia).
© Mark K. Smith 2001.
Sociocracy, a creative approach to organizational development
Sociocratic Principles & Methods
From SOCIONET, the website of the Association for Sociocracy JUNE 13, 2010
What is Sociocracy?
Sociocracy is a method of governing organizations that produces greater commitment, higher levels of creativity, distributed leadership, deeper harmony, and dramatically increased productivity. The principles and practices, based on the values of equivalence, effectiveness, and transparency, are designed to support both unity and respect for the individual.
Why Is It Different?
Sociocracy vests power in the “socius,” the companions, the people who regularly interact with one another and have a common aim. Decisions are made in consultation with each other, in consideration of the needs of each person in the context of the aims of the organization.
By contrast, democracy vests power in the “demos,” in the population, without respect to their understanding of the issues or of each other. In a democracy, the majority of the “demos” can ignore the minority of the “demos” when they make decisions. This inevitably produces factions and conflict rather than harmony. It encourages people to build alliances, trade favors, and think politically rather than achieving the aims of the organization.
An autocracy vests power in one person or set of persons, an “auto” that can ignore the rest of the organization and make decisions without consultation. This discourages the development of leadership and creative ideas in the organization. This can also produce bad decisions because other members of the organization are afraid to share negative information. While some associations are democratic, most are autocratic with power vested in a board of directors. Employees and members alike can be ignored. Non-profits, like businesses, are almost exclusively autocratic.
In a sociocratic organization, whether it is a business, an association, or a community, power is vested in all members of the organization. Each person has the power and responsibility to make the decisions that govern their own participation in the organization.
The Three (or Four) Basic Principles
Observing the basic principles is important because they ensure that the organization doesn’t slip back into autocratic or disorganized decision-making. There are many more practices and methods that are essential to implementing the basic principles but these requirements guide the adaptation of those methods to specific circumstances. The three basic principles are essential.
Consent
The principle of consent governs policy decision-making. Consent means a member has no argued and paramount objections to a proposed policy. “Argued” means reasoned or explained. “Paramount” means all important. An objection is not a veto; it is a valid reason why a particular decision will prevent a member of the group from doing their job or otherwise supporting its aims.
Objections are solicited because they provide positive information. The reasoning behind them allows the group to improve the proposal so all members of the group can work toward the aim more effectively.
Policies are decisions that limit or permit future operational decisions and actions. They include budgets, strategic plans, allocation of resources, including money and people, and the basis for leadership by the Operational Leader. Policies govern the day-to-day activities of the working group.
An extension of consent, and sometimes presented as a fourth principle, is that people are elected to roles and responsibilities by consent. The members of the working group nominate and discuss the task description and nominees availability and positive ability to fulfill the task, and then consent to the assignment. The nominee must also consent. This process ensures that the team selects the person that the group believes is the best for the task and that they will support on the task. The task description and the discussion ensures that the person elected understands the group’s expectations.
Circles
A sociocratic organization is governed by “circles,” semi-autonomous policy decision-making groups that correspond to working groups, whether they are departments, teams, or local neighborhood associations. Each circle has its own aim and steers its own work by performing all the functions of leading, doing, and measuring on its own operations. Together the three steering functions establish a feedback loop, making the circle self-correcting, or self-regulating.
In circle meetings, each person is equivalent and has the power to consent or object to proposed actions that affect their responsibility in the organization.
On a daily basis, activities are directed by a leader without discussion or reevaluation of decisions. This produces efficiency and forward movement. If there is disagreement, the leader makes the decision in the moment. the issue is discussed in the next circle meeting, and a policy is established to govern such decisions in the future.
Double Links
To ensure that feedback travels up and down and across the organization, circles are arranged in a hierarchy of overlapping circles. The overlapping is formed by the circle’s operational leader and one or more elected representatives who are full members of both circles. This overlap is called a “double link.”
The double-link is unique to sociocracy and forms a feedback loop that allows the system to self-correct. The operational leader is elected by the higher circle to communicate the decisions and needs of the larger organization to the circle. The circle then elects one or more of its members to communicate the decisions and needs of the circle to the higher circle. While each link participates fully in all aspect of circle discussions, they are responsible for communicating specific information.
Other Methods and Practices
There are many other methods and practices that support the governance of the sociocratic organization, but the beauty is the simplicity of the basic principles. As long as the principles are maintained and the values—equivalence, effectiveness, and transparency—guide the application of methods and practices, they will produce organizations that are harmonious and productive. The sociocratic vision.
From Socionet.org on the internet.
Theory U: two views on the work of Otto Scharmer
An introduction to Theory U and Presencing from the book Partnerships of Hope by Chris Schaefer
Because of its strong future orientation, similar to that of Appreciative Inquiry, I would next mention Klaus Otto Scharmer’s Theory U . Scharmer encourages us to “learn from a future that has not yet happened and from continually discovering our part in bringing that future to pass .” He describes a sevenfold process from looking at patterns of the past to seeing the present with new eyes, to sensing the school’s environment and needs and then to connecting to the source, to the being of the organization as well as to our own higher intentions . From here it becomes a question of crystallizing, prototyping and creating the needed future . These steps are described briefly in the diagram below and can be worked on over a number of meetings and retreats by all or some of the institution’s members .
TheU-Process involves a deepening of commitment and intention on the part of all participants to serve the school and the future
through developing an open mind and an open heart and listening and attending to what is wanted . It is both a social process and a spiritual practice to suspend all preconceptions and personal interests to serve the whole .13
Theory U: Presencing the future, co-creating a new reality
An introduction to the work of Otto Scharmer by Luigi Morelli
“…all of us around the world participate in two different social types of connection, two different bodies of the social field. One of them is governed by the mechanics of anti emergence and destruction. The other is governed by the dynamics of emergence and collective creativity; it’s the emerging new social body that is about to be born.” Otto Scharmer
In September of 2008 I took the global Presencing Classroom, three-month weekly online class with Otto Scharmer. Since then I have taken with great interest to his books and practices. Here is a concise guide into Theory U for the layman.
Going down the U
Theory U is an unusual and highly unique approach to organizational development, offering equal doses of theory and practice. Theory U’s procedures for shifting the social field are basically the same whether at the individual (micro), the group (meso), the organizational (macro), or the social and global systems (mundo). The shift can be observed forming in small groups and networks of people, through new ways of thinking, conversing, and moving into action.
At the four levels mentioned above, we find four corresponding universal metaprocesses:
- thinking
- languaging (conversation/communication)
- structuring (organizing)
- coordinating (forming collective global action)
In the new kind of learning that Theory U explores, we are challenged to learn from a future that is emerging and to continually discover our part in bringing that future to pass. This is especially important in an organizational environment going through constant and highly unpredictable change, as is often the case in the new millennium.
Going down the U is a progressive descent involving more and more individual and group capacities, going from the Open Mind (recognizing more of reality) Open Heart (realizing the part we all play in collective dynamics) and open will (ability to let go of pre-established ideas, outcomes and ‘solutions’ in order to accept the emerging will of the whole organization/community/corporation)
For a concise view of the whole see Otto Scharmer’s PDF.
The nature of presencing
The key element that carries organizational change beyond problem-solving or re-engineering is the key element at the bottom of the U. Presencing implies a complete shift in the orientation to our personal and collective will. The future has intentionality, and presencing can also be said to be pre-sensing and bringing into presence the highest future potential. Presencing is the moment of stillness between letting go and “letting come” (allowing room for a future that cannot be foretold).
Presencing can be done individually. Theory U does it collectively, at the level of the organization. Still, every individual has his/her own very unique experience of it. Below are some examples from the book Presence: Exploring Profound Change in People, Organizations and Society.
“When I am part of a social field that crosses the threshold at the bottom of the U, it feels as if I am participating in the birth of a new world. It’s a profound, quieting experience in that I feel as if I’ve been touched by eternal beauty. There is a deep opening of my higher Self.” Betty Sue Flowers.
“Moving through the bottom of the U is becoming aware of the incredible beauty of life itself, of becoming re-enchanted with the world… When the sort of commitment you are talking about happens, you feel as if you’re fulfilling your destiny, but you also feel as if you’re freer than you’ve ever been in your life. It’s a huge paradox.” Joseph Jaworski
“For me, the core of presencing is waking up together—waking up to who we really are by linking with and acting from our highest future Self—and by using the Self as a vehicle for bringing forth new worlds.” Otto Scharmer.
See more In Otto Scharmer’s blog article Heart and head (future and past) : presencing and absencing.
Organizations as Living Organisms by Magda Lissau
By Magda Lissau, from her book, OCTAVE: Essays on Waldorf Education
Published by AWSNA
Introduction: Developing a Seven-Fold View
In this essay I would like to develop a view of Waldorf schools and other organizations that honor the reality of human individuals as beings of body, soul, and spirit. I must make it clear that I am not a management or organizational expert. Rather, I have life-long experience working in the Camphill movement and in a number of Waldorf schools throughout the world. So my viewpoint is that of a person dealing with developing and adult human beings.
I am hoping that the picture I develop in this paper will, ideally, be taken up and worked with by all persons intimately involved in a school or other organization—the people in managerial and administrative positions, faculty, and recipients of services, such as parents in a school and clients or customers in a business organization. The picture of a healthy, and therefore living, organism needs to be seen in the context of a specific place, time, and structure. Several rounds of conversations may be needed before a specific picture emerges with respect to the matrix of the ideal I will describe. Consequently, it may take further rounds of conversation to outline an appropriate approach to reshape the organization so that it becomes healthy or can maintain its present good health.
It is habit among those involved with anthroposophical institutions to speak in human terms about organizations such as Waldorf schools and other institutions inspired by Rudolf Steiner’s philosophy. Comparisons are often made between human and organizational phases of growth and development. These are all well and good comparisons, but communities of men and women working together may develop over much longer periods of time than a human life span. Moreover, the interaction matrix of an organization is much more complex than a single human life. Think of a city, a nation!
Therefore, I would like to propose a different model for looking at the living time profile of an organism or organization. I do so not because I believe previous models are wrong or because I think that applying human phases of development to organizations is erroneous, but because I believe that an organization that is meant to be living must be measured against and spoken about in terms of the forces of life.
The forces of life are manifest in greatest purity in the world of plants. Each plant manifests in some form or other the following aspects: its rootedness in the ground; the intake and flow of liquid and subsequent transformation; an air exchange with its surroundings; a reaction to warmth; a reaction to light; a manifestation of geometrical, mathematical principles (also inherent in sound and music); and finally, the crowning profile of a living organism, life itself. Air, Water, Fire, and Earth are the traditionally acknowledged life-sustaining elements. Three others need to be added: Light, Form, and Life. These are the seven principles which I suggest may lead one to a clearer understanding of the health and well- being of a human organization. I shall describe these elements from the viewpoint of a tree and also from the viewpoint of a group of individuals working together. I shall conclude with some comments on gatherings, meetings, and organs of a living organism.
The Seven-Fold Picture in Its Living Manifestation
When looking at a tree, one can divide its form into roots, trunk, and crown and assign to each its function; that is one way of understanding. If, however, we follow the seven life principles in their activity in sustaining the tree in its totality, then we arrive at a different picture. If we track the activity of individuals in different areas of an organization by using the first picture and determine that one person works at the root of the organizational tree, another at the level of the trunk, and a third at the crown, then we fix each person’s level of involvement. This is done routinely in various organizational charts that separate out, prioritize and describe the functions of different people or groups involved in an enterprise. Organizational charts include various interconnections and overlaps of positions and departments. Applied to a Waldorf school these might include the faculty, administration, board, parents, committees, and so forth.
Problems in a school often arise, however, because people feel themselves chained to or restricted by others to a particular area by their job description. In reality human beings participate—consciously and unconsciously—in all areas of an enterprise and are likewise affected by all areas. The opportunity of freeing individuals from their narrow functional confines so that they may become more active participants in the growth and nurture of their organizational “tree” is my goal in presenting the following picture of sevenfold life activity.
The Solid, Earth Element
The earth provides a firm basis for a tree’s roots, enabling the tree to grow at a particular place at a particular time. A tree’s roots, together with the firm ground, represent the physical plant
or the buildings and grounds of a school or other institution. An organization should have a deep taproot—a main building—and smaller service roots and rootlets, which help it to penetrate deeply into the community. In a school, an off-site kindergarten or a performing arts venue, for instance, can serve as such additional roots.
The earth element in an organization is the extent to which a school is literally grounded and has its own place in the physical world, a permanent location, in other words, whether an organization has really sunk its roots into the physical world. It also shows whether the tree—the mission or impulse of the organization—has rooted itself in suitable soil. The specific qualities of the ground may also significantly influence the way an “organizational tree” is able to connect with the physical world and itself in a particular location. Sand, clay, granite, limestone—all influence the roots of a tree quite differently.
The characteristic signature of the earth element is a square or crystalline form; its spatial dimensions tend to be compressed and concentrated, and its time signature is a slow and carefully stepped growth pattern. It is hardy, however, and once established, will likely last for years.
The Liquid, Water Element
The liquid element enables the life giving forces and substances to permeate a tree in order to sustain and foster growth. As it courses through all parts of a tree, the liquid element itself is changed, eventually transformed into vapor and released into the atmosphere. As it rises and falls in the sap and evaporates through the leaves to join the atmosphere, the water element is a symbol and picture of the flow of money and its transformation through the organization. The money stream that surges or trickles through the
organizational tree provides a picture of money circulation, its availability, its procurement and source, and finally, the areas it stimulates when rejoining the general atmosphere.
The different sources of water, such as groundwater or an aquifer, or its absence can be seen as a variety of money sources, as the general monetary constitution of the community at large. A water-rich, year-round river close to the school may be a reliable and continuous cash supply, while a seasonal stream may create a great struggle for survival.
The characteristic water signature is a half-moon shape, which indicates both a tendency to spread out and fill all available space and a strong cyclical quality in its time dimension of growth and development, thus uniting regular and seasonal activity. A school or other organization may be, for instance, like a tree that needs water but lives in a desert, or a tree that is established in a region with an ample aquifer but is prevented from reaching it by deep layers of rock. These are but two possibilities that need close scrutiny by those who are part of the organization. In the first instance there may be ample money in the community, but the mode of access has yet to be found.
The Gaseous, Airy Element
The air surrounding a tree is altered by the tree’s metabolism in hourly, daily, monthly, and yearly cycles. The air element represents the atmosphere of the community
surrounding the school tree. Both water and air elements are connected to the leaves of the tree. The quality of the air and subsequently the condition of the leaves show how positively or negatively the larger community acts towards the school. The airy element is intimately connected to the light. With the help of light, trees take in carbon dioxide during the day, and they give off oxygen at night. This life-giving element of oxygen enlivens the whole community.
The quality of air affects the growth of a tree. Smog-filled air, for example, may be poisonous to trees, while clean air fosters healthy growth and development. Ocean air is different from mountain air, desert air, or air rich with tropical forest humidity. Moreover, there are innumerable types of air currents, depending on the typical weather patterns of a region: regular refreshing breezes, tropical storms, polar winds, hurricanes or monsoons, and localized wind patterns in great variety. The characteristic signature of the air element is its tendency to form triangular, arrowhead shapes. In its great expansiveness, it fills all available space. It is also fickle and capriciously changeable, volatile and irregular in its tempo of development. One of the vital points for the health of the school tree is whether the surrounding atmosphere is filled with light and clean air or is continually murky and polluted.
The Warmth Element
Warmth works in diverse ways on different levels of life and organization. It fills the atmosphere with its expanding quality to bring flowers and seeds into existence so that the future of a tree may be ensured. A school tree needs the warmth of the good will of the whole school community as well as that of the greater community in which it exists. Likewise, it needs the internally active warmth element within so that children, teachers, and parents may bring their good will to bear to create seeds for the future. The warmth element is pervasive and needs to permeate all areas of the organism, for it carries the human element of will into all the other functions.
Questions regarding the working of the warmth element are crucial to the well-being of the organism: when and how it is created; who is able to create it; who benefits from it; and, most importantly, if it is possible to have too much warmth. The focus and direction of the warmth of the will is a vital consideration for the healthy functioning of an organism such as a Waldorf school. Are there frequent periods of intense warmth, when a great deal is accomplished, interspersed with benign rest periods? Or is there a continuous blast of a furnace, stoked by certain individuals, which threatens to burn up and destroy most individuals’ impulses and never allows for rest and recuperation? Is there perennial cold, which makes every smallest initiative a painful process of exertion?
The essential signature of the warmth element is its capacity to permeate everything and unite all objects formed by the other elements—even all humanity—in a great sphere of warmth. The form and spatial dimension of warmth is spherical. As regards temporal development patterns, warmth always thrusts forward in expansion unless stopped by cooler elements.
The capacity to lay the foundation for the future is bound up with the specific working of the warmth element around and within the organizational tree. Warmth works to manifest the fruits of the past and the seeds for the future. It is probably the most difficult element to control, focus, and harness, since it springs spontaneously from the hearts of human beings inspired by their mission and work, and thus has a far wider range into the surrounding community than the other elements.
The Element of Light
The light element permeates atmospheric warmth and air insofar as they are not suffused by water in the form of clouds, mist, or fog. The light element penetrates liquids depending on their nature; clear water allows light to permeate completely, although it bends the beams of light. Light bounces off the surfaces of opaque, solid matter. But if the material is transparent or translucent, it allows light to pass through, though usually with some refraction.
What does the light element of an organization represent, and what is the source of this light? Since ancient times light has been equated with wisdom and knowledge. The light element in an organization such as a Waldorf school has its source in the pedagogical knowledge and insights of the faculty. The pedagogical research of individual faculty members, over and above the work of the whole faculty, contributes to this source. The receptivity of the “solid substances” and “denser elements” in a community determines whether the light of wisdom and knowledge is able to shine out and become a beacon to its community or whether the light is kept under a bushel basket and hidden from public view.
Let us clarify the relationship of light to the physical elements. A source of light needs continuous renewal and regeneration. The striving for knowledge and insight, the search for deepening and ever-honing one’s thinking capacities—whether one’s immediate task is as an individual or as part of a group, as a parent, teacher, or board member—feeds the light. To keep the source pure and shining is no easy task, for light may be perverted to become splintered or dehumanized. If this happens, and insights are applied egotistically for personal advantage, then beams of light become thorns to pierce the hearts and souls of others. Intellectual arrogance has a most detrimental effect on one’s colleagues or coworkers. Then light may harden into wounding intellectualism, which is a consequence of the selfish use of wisdom and knowledge.
Communication is necessary so that light can literally enlighten interactions with others and not impose barriers. When light becomes too physical—too strong or too great a sensitivity—a plant will actually produce thorns. Those individuals in an organization who are quite sensitive to the quality of the light that streams out will know if management is impervious and closes itself off or if a school’s faculty insist that they “know better.”
Light should permeate the warmth of good will and direct its actions meaningfully. Light should also be able to shine out into the airy atmosphere of the greater community. There it may meet many obstacles and obstructions in the form of murky or polluted atmosphere. Water and liquid—representing the money stream of an organization—may be transparent and permeable by the light of insight and wisdom, but if it carries too much silt and other impurities, they may block out the light. Even in clear water the direction of light gets refracted.
Solid matter—unless translucent or transparent—does not allow light to enter, but reflects it on its surface. Human beings need to transform matter through the arts to make it light-permeable. One example is lazured wall surfaces, which allow the inhabitants of a room to feel able to penetrate the solidity of the walls. Likewise, architectural forms determine how the light of insight and wisdom may shine within a building and likewise ray out of the building into the community.
A non-material element such as light considerably modifies the effects of the denser elements. Through the element of light, the wisdom of Waldorf pedagogy is made visible. This source of wisdom is nurtured and strengthened by the working of the faculty to deepen their knowledge and continue their research into the essence of what is human.
The Element of Sound and Number Relationships
This element is even more elusive than light. It stands in polarity to the watery/fluid element, and some of its effects are quite mysterious. The inner music of an organization or school demonstrates the working together of colleagues, coworkers, and administration. The pattern of communal working for the greater good and the shared vision literally resound in the symphony of an organism’s inner music. Its harmony, or disharmony, is heard and perceived by the greater community and provides a potent tool for judging the organization’s health and well-being. Sound reverberates and echoes in the physical elements and sets them in motion. The internal working of the faculty of a school or of the management of a company is heard by all who are connected to the institution, not with physical ears, but with the ears of the soul and mind. Is there a rousing song or a repetitious, boring, tune? Is there a tune at all or only confusing noise? Is there complete silence or an enthralling harmony, an orchestra or a chorus? It is Elvis Presley or the Rolling Stones, reggae or rap, Bach or Mozart?
The signature tune of a school or organization is one of its vital components, but one most often ignored. It can be transformed. An instrument may be tuned, an orchestra may learn to play together in the same key and measure, and individualistic loners or prima donnas may in time learn to make music in harmony with others.
The character of a school’s music will greatly determine its ability to attract money. A great and rousing symphony will be heard far and wide in the greater community and attract attention and approval. A pure but harmonious tune will be heard, like a songbird’s mellifluous tune transcending the roar of traffic, but it may only reach the immediate neighborhood. Disharmony will annoy those who hear it and will cause the flow of money to diminish to a trickle.
Just as the water element has a strongly periodic and seasonal flow and ebb, so does the inner music. Sound and liquids are inherently related. Different tunes are appropriate for different seasons. Different forms of income are also appropriate for different seasons, for different objectives.
Just as it is important to determine the character of an organization’s music, so it is also essential to determine the character of its audience. Playing Mozart at a rock concert may not bring about much listening or enthusiasm. The music of the environment, of the audience, is as important as that of the internal social relationship.
Who creates this internal music? Primarily the individuals involved and responsible for the organization’s mission, management, and operation. If these individuals recognize each other’s humanity, especially acknowledging each other as spiritual beings striving to manifest their best and most honest work and to overcome personal prejudices and difficulties for the benefit of the whole, then harmony and music will arise. Steiner has given many indications about how to develop one’s inner, spiritual capacities, not only for oneself, but also for the benefit of the social organism. If these indications are truly worked with on a regular basis, and—in the case of a school—if they live in the souls of the faculty, board, and parents, then a school’s inner music is enhanced, and members of the community will begin to be in tune with each other.
The Element of Life
A living organism is viable when all the essential elements of life are ordered and integrated to form a self-sustaining, healthy organism. The life of an organization such as a school depends on the spiritual striving of its members. If teachers take their commitment to anthroposophy and Waldorf education seriously enough and work on their inner development, or if they are members of a college of teachers, or of the School of Spiritual Science and its Pedagogical Section, then they infuse life and the potential of organic order into their respective schools. Correspondingly, the spiritual striving of the directors and managers of a company whose goals extend beyond economic success to serve social ideals will also act as a spiritual core of their organization.
In the larger community there are also those individuals who are striving spiritually, who support the impulse and initiative of an organization with spiritual goals much like a Waldorf school’s by recognizing that their service is to the true image of the human being. Then their contributions will strengthen the existence of their school, organization or business and help its impulse to be rooted in fertile ground.
We have come full circle. It is apparent that there is a reciprocal relationship between the ideal and spiritual initiatives and the practical rootedness in physical manifestation—namely in the physical plant, housing, building, or property which the organization owns or hopes to own. The stronger the spiritual impulse and commitment, the better the opportunities for physical expression.
Concluding Remarks: the Element of Time
When dealing with a living organism such as a plant, we should also consider its life and organs in the context of its time signature. Growth occurs in spurts, not in constant graduated increases, and is characterized by expansive as well as contractive processes. Just as one may see in a plant nodes of contraction at crucial points, such as the location from which expansion into leaves and blossoms begins, one may also recognize such nodes in an organization. These organizational nodes represent a concentration of energies created through the work of individuals to serve the organism as a whole and to help it develop harmoniously and productively.
Before expansion is possible, a phase of contractive, concentrated, and focused deliberate planning and imagining activity has to occur. A seed is the ultimate contractive form: it contains the potential for the entire future plant or organism. As the proverb says, “Out of small acorns mighty oaks do grow.” It is important to be clear about what is needed for a precious seed of intention to grow into reality and what physical, soul, and spiritual conditions are fostered by the attention of the individuals involved in the process.
The organs in an organization such as a school are the groups that meet regularly, occasionally, sporadically, or just once for a specific purpose. If we honor the time signature of a living organism, we shall be careful not to endow groups with perpetuity, for then no development can take place. We shall also not fix individuals even semi-permanently as carriers of such group activity, for this would counteract development, which needs to be open-ended, and also deprive individuals of their own freedom to develop themselves.
Moreover, we should be wary of viewing the time signature of organizations in terms of human life phases because we could create a pattern that does not correspond to the life principle of organizations. For example, while Steiner pointed repeatedly to the law of seven-year cycles in human lives, he also pointed to a thirty-three-year cycle of social and historical life, and to a much larger three-hundred-fifty-year cycle of paradigm shifts in historical development. The thirty-three-year cycle, for instance, is repeated three times in a century, with a phase of impulse and intention which then becomes manifest in society if the impulse was forceful enough. I am inclined to regard the life cycles of organizations as much longer than those of individual men and women.
Let us consider an organization that wants to be alive by manifesting the seven elements described above and that has a healthy succession of expansion and contraction in the formation of its organs. Such an organization would not fix individuals into any set positions because individuals need to be free to be active in one of the organs of the organization for a time but not forever.
It is important for each organ of the organization to have a clear purpose and mandate. Further, the smallest possible number of persons is usually the most efficient group or committee. Rotation of duties, too, is a good idea, so that everyone is actively engaged and the load is evenly distributed. Time limits for meetings need to be kept. If the group is a special-purpose group, it should be dissolved after its purpose is achieved. If it is a permanent group with a clear purpose, the application of Waldorf classroom dynamics—such as changes of tempo and activity within the meeting time—will help ensure that members remain fresh and focused on the tasks.
Above all, it is important to consider the reciprocity of the seven life elements and how they can enhance each other. They can also interfere and hinder healthy development of an organization if no attention is paid to their inherent character and their relationship to time. In this essay I have attempted to describe a process involving the seven life-sustaining forces and how they pertain to the health of a school or other organization. Holding this living picture in mind can help us to visualize an organization’s particular challenges and strengths allowing it to become a more healthy
organism.
_____________________________
For a pdf of the full book, OCTAVE, visit the Online Waldorf Library.
“Organizations as Living Organisms: Developing a Seven-fold View” first appeared in the Research Bulletin, Vol. VII, No. 2, Spring, 2002.
ENDNOTES
1. Paraphrased from Rudolf Steiner, The First Scientific Course about
Light, GA 320, Lecture of January 3, 1920.
2. Gardner, Howard. Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences, 1983, as cited by Robert J. Sternberg in his Metaphors of Mind, Cambridge University Press, 2003.
3. Steiner, Rudolf. Warmth Course, Lecture of March 5, 1920, Spring
Valley, NY: Mercury Press, 1988.
4. Steiner describes the human being as having twelve senses. The
Riddle of Humanity, London: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1990.
5. Steiner, Rudolf. Materialism and the Task of Anthroposophy, GA 204, Lecture of April 23, 1921, New York: Anthroposophic Press, 1987.
6. Steiner, Rudolf. How to Know Higher Worlds, Anthroposophic Press,
1994, and An Outline of Esoteric Science, New York: Anthroposophic
Press, 1997.
7. Steiner, Rudolf. Anthroposophy and Science: Observation,
Experiment, and Mathematics, Spring Valley, NY: Mercury Press, 1991.
8. Ibid.
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