Michelle Holliday (@michellehollida)
Dylan also says: “Tell Daddy he should sing a song in his head while he’s swimming.”

always.

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find/follow Michelle, founder and brand strategist, here:

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via michelle’s fb share of her (2023) post – rethinking self org – [https://michelleholliday.com/rethinking-self-organization/]:

Is there more to the craze over “self-organization” in teams than meets the eye? I think there is. As always, living systems show us the way to more wisdom, more of what’s needed. I’d love to know your thoughts, too.

from linked piece:

What I’m discovering is that for many companies, “self-organization” means primarily “I organize myself,” and secondarily “we as a team organize ourselves.” This is understood to be better than someone else organizing us

This is absolutely valid. But this is not what I’m talking about. Or – it’s only part of what I’m talking about. 

There is something of a third way that isn’t a boss controlling everything and also isn’t (only) individuals or teams independently making decisions. In living systems, it’s the system that is self-organizing. Whether it’s your body, a rainforest, or a colony of bees, any living system exhibits self-regulating, self-governing patterns at the level of the whole system. The parts aren’t independent. On the contrary: they’re so profoundly interdependent that they are able to sense and respond to small changes in the system or in context in order to serve the emerging needs of the whole. Here, self-organization is about mutual dependency and coordination in attunement with the ever-unfolding potential of the whole system. This is the difference between being a collection of single-celled organisms and being a single multi-celled organism, with emergent characteristics and capabilities that aren’t found at the level of the parts. 

i don’t think in a legit free living system.. we respond so much to what’s around us as to what’s in us..

in undisturbed ecosystems ..the average individual, species, or population, left to its own devices, behaves in ways that serve and stabilize the whole..’ –Dana Meadows

i think there’s a huge/deeper diff there.. and we keep missing it.. afraid to let go that much

In our living organizations, then, the goal should not be autonomy; it should be that we have such a high level of cohesion that our *self-initiated individual actions are informed in real time by what the system needs. The better we’re attuned to what the system needs, the more we can each individually **make decisions and take action with trust, speed, ease, creativity and inspiration. This is a more complete way of understanding autonomy, beyond just having the right to make a decision alone. What is needed is independence of individual action within and because of profound interdependence at the collective level. Instead of “I organize myself,” or “we organize ourselves,” it may be more accurate to say that the system organizes us. We are participating in the system’s self-realization, as well as our own.

*don’t think legit free people work that way..

**this is a huge red flag to me that not going deep/other enough.. we need curiosity over decision making to get back/to a legit undisturbed ecosystem

as i write in the age of thrivability: “This means that our most appropriate and important role is *not to tightly control the activities of our human systems, but to cultivate the necessary fertile conditions for life to self-organize and self-integrate within them – **creating space for people to sense what is needed, to respond wisely and effectively, and to learn and evolve both themselves and the system.. Beyond management and leadership, this is stewarding life.”

*huge.. agree.. hari rat park law et al

**disagree hugely.. response ness is killing us.. keeping us from the us the system needs in order to dance

This may seem obvious, and it may be the actual intention behind Agile and other self-managing approaches. But what I’m seeing is that *if we don’t make this system-level dynamic explicit, the self-organization trend **risks generating silos, lack of coordination, ***poor decisions, and ****burnout as people pursue speed and autonomy for its own sake and in isolation of necessary information and relationships. *****The more complex the context, the higher this risk

*not sure you can make it explicit.. unjustifiable strategy.. bateson safety law.. rumi words law.. et al

The great promise of embracing a more complete understanding of self-organization is that it enables us to craft the organization as a dynamic learning ecology. In writing about Frédéric Laloux’s book, Reinventing Organizations, strategy and foresight practitioner Matt Finch nicely sums up such a process and practice:

“Such transformations could begin with candid discussions around the basics, establishing a culture of mutual respect and responsibility where there is:

• a shared understanding of what is healthy for the organisation and the community it serves,
• sufficient information sharing and transparency to delegate decision-making and accountability, and
• a forum for conversation where each voice can be heard and actions can be determined responsibly.”

to me.. this is all still not seeing organism as fractal.. all the red flags

The even greater promise of a more complete understanding of self-organization is that our organizations become practice grounds for a more thrivable world. Society doesn’t need more people acting independently as much as it needs people who are attuned to the wellbeing and potential of the whole – the whole community, the whole of life – and who align and coordinate their individual contributions around that. 

need to org around legit needs.. not individual contributions et al..

brown belonging law: the opposite of belonging.. is fitting in.. true belonging doesn’t require you to change who you are.. it requires you to be who you are.. and that’s vulnerable.. –Brené Brown et al

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