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The Foundations of
Emergenics
“We mean as we
behave as we believe as we are.”
Abstract:
The essence and science of
self-organizing theory + emergence + developmental theory have provided
the alchemy of universal consilience and practice into a coherent cross-paradigmatic
approach
representing the partnership of biopscyhosocialeconomic metasystems.
Stemming from likes of Clare W. Graves and the subsequent paradigm of
Spiral Dynamics® to James Watson and the proliferation of DNA, we now
have the language to bring about the consilience of art and science into
the ability to look at problem solving through an integral, yet emergent
lens to deal with emergent, non-linear complexity in leadership. Simply,
if you want to improve results, understand emergent development.
"Everything that can be counted
doesn't necessarily count; everything that counts can't necessarily be
counted."
Albert Einstein
Executive Summary
Background
Leaders are constantly faced
with difficult choices---nothing new. However, what is different are the
number of problems leaders are creating while attempting to solve complex
problems. Change is doubling at an exponential rate. It is clear that most
leaders are IN OVER THEIR HEADS. [Kegan, 1994] As a result, solving more problems
faster is actually a strategy that is creating more problems--faster--we
have seen the enemy and they are us. The
rate of increase in complexity is far beyond the average hierarchical
leader's capacity, capability and potential. This is not about intelligence, although in some ways
it is...it is about having the tools and perspective to create a brain
trust which solves more problems than it creates-using Emergenics--a
cross-paradigmatic approach to leadership in the complex economy.
Complexity science. A new
awareness of the ancient counterpart to order began over a century
ago with Poincare´ and several others, and has surged in recent
decades. In fact
there is a fascinating kind of order in which no director or
designer is in control but which emerges through the interaction of
many entities. Emergent order has been found in many natural
phenomena: bird-flocking behavior can be simulated on a computer
through three simple rules;
termites produce elegant nests through the operation of simple
behaviors triggered by chemical
traces; each snowflake is a
unique pattern arising from the interactions of water particles
during freezing.
The patterns that form are
not controlled by a directing intelligence; they are
self-organizing.
The new science of complexity spawned by these findings is
interdisciplinary, touching fields from mathematics to evolution to
economics to meteorology to telecommunications.
In the domain of emergent order, the goal “to predict (and thereby
control) the behavior of systems not yet studied (but similar to
those that have been studied) under conditions not yet extant and in
time periods not yet experienced”
is difficult if not impossible to achieve—but other goals are
achievable.
IBM SYSTEMS JOURNAL, VOL 42, NO 3, 2003
KURTZ AND SNOWDEN 463
Capacity, Capability &
Potential
REMEMBER: The key to high performance is encapsulated in
capacity,
capability and potential.
Simply, in this model, capacity
is the innate pre-wired ability + re-wired learned ability;
capability is the amount of knowledge, skills and ability
that are created in relation to that capacity and potential
is the amount remaining of unused capacity, which can be
optimized at increasingly higher levels as each layer of
capacity is stretched over time.
Caveat: capacity is pre-wired, not hard-wired, yet
for most people; pre-wired becomes hard-wired because they
don't "practice" with increasing levels of standing
motivation (motive energy or free energy available for
application as a result of strengths-based actions). As a result of NOT learning outside of the
"favored" learning system, capacity (inductive
bias) is not stretched by
increasing levels of capability...
...resulting in rewiring of
potential to levels greater than pre-wired components. If in
fact, pre-wired potential is ever reached at all. For most
people, it is never reached, therefore never rewired. It's
not a bad thing, it's just usually the case.
Each person has to decide whether they intend to push their
own potential to capacity in whatever domain, for whatever
reason. The first "rule"
if there is one in leadership is that people "choose" their
leadership style--consciously or unconsciously--or are
chosen by it. No one can
choose it for them...not a parent, a coach, a teacher, a
leader, or a manager. "People have the right to be who they
are," stated Clare W. Graves. There is honor in that.
Here’s an analogy.
Assume capacity is the glass.
Assume capability is the amount of water in the glass.
Assume potential is the amount of space left for water in
the glass.
Now, what we are trying to do in performance and development is to create as
much efficiency and effectiveness as possible with each
effort towards a sustainable future. Effort is the only thing that most people control.
With Effort comes perfect practice, the practice that is
representative of high levels of standing motivation.
W. Edwards Deming identified 5 essential factors of
performance:
• Innate Ability
• Individual Effort
• Performance Match/Training/Development
• Variation in the system
• Variation in the judgment in that system
The one factor under control by
the individual; Effort.
However, not just effort in a performance situation, effort over
time in many performance situations…in other words, practice; or
action learning with increasing levels of standing motivation
(free energy)
to create resilience across all domains, not just physical
effort, but integral effort using the relationship
between capacity, capability and potential to identify openings.
Exerpted from the Mind Architect System™ |
Conscious
spirit and unconscious matter
Both have existed since the dawn of time,
With maya [illusion] appearing to connect them,
Misrepresenting joy as outside us.
When all these three are seen as one, the Self
Reveals his universal form and serves
as an instrument of the divine will.
-Shvetashvatara Upanishad
In my first entry into Fast Company Magazine's Annual 2002 Fast 50, I spoke about
Generati, a paradigm, where in order
for me to win, you must win and as a result, the third win for the
collective is created.
"Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he
does not become a monster. And when you look into the abyss, the
abyss also looks into you." - Frederich Nietzsche
In my second entry into 2003 Fast 50, I brought your attention to the
Developmentalist--a person
who is as much concerned with their own development as the emerging need to "fix"
others as in the current paradigm of coaching.
In this my third entry 2004, I share with you the r/evolution of generati
through developmentalism as emergenics--the consilience of art and
complexity science
across paradigms to create better solutions through the employment of
metaemergent principles.
The key to this r/evolution is that 1); we're not prepared for what is the
unraveling of the developed world through globalization--the great
metaequalizer. 2), change is occurring so rapidly that prediction of anything
other than rapid change is alchemy. 3), leaders either will get with it,
or be run over by it...whatever it is. 4), the concepts of identifying
what the inherent issues are within change must be understood and
implemented through
emergence.
Clearly, this is not new, but it is relevant now. It is the new
normal...to solve more problems than one creates; to deal with multiple
constituencies in the next society; which are like oil and water.
"There is nothing so useless as doing
efficiently that which should not be done at all."
Peter Drucker
No one I know whose leadership is succeeding is underestimating the
confluence of globalization, the metaphase transition of the molecular
economy and the naiveté we have produced through single, narrow points of view.
One only need open their eyes to the threads unraveling in the ropes
supporting the net to get a real picture of why simplistic approaches to
complexity are literally extending our education beyond our individual intelligence.
To make it simple, we have to embrace emergence and use our ability to up
the downside in order to comprehend the escalation of complexity which will
undermine current paradigms...so much so, we recreate the middle class
standard of living in a way that is largely unpalatable for the consumtariat--the
new standard for the global society's middle class. Without healthy
consumers, healthy business is not possible or sustainable in any
fashion.
Yet, the caveat?
Very few get it.
"In order to understand a
system, you must first understand the system it fits into."
Howard
Odum
While, we can't ask for wholesale change, although we'll get it in the
end often through creative destruction [Schumpeter 1975]; we can ask for the few who do get it to go with it...to be empowered
by the many to conduct the business of the few. Yet, most realize that
some form of this delegation to operate society has an efficient side
and inefficient side with the coming and going of poor, narrow,
ego-based leadership.
NO, this is not your father's Oldsmobile either. The long-awaited equality
we all have found and died for is lost...the changes present only magnify
the current complexity--so much so; that keeping up, staying up and
getting ahead are now more difficult than we have previously imagined.
There is no turning back, but there is turning forward. clearly, what some
expect, for an evolution in consciousness will not occur. Because people
fail to realize that while our genome's, resultant brain and emergent
mind is plastic...it comes with its own limitations.
The sad, but true prevalence
of the humanist/blank slate movement has thrust us into the quandary of
hoping for the impossible dream, the wholesale evolution of
consciousness. While in terms of planetary time, it will occur, to see
it in our time is quite naive. However, that doesn't stop the nurturists
from pontificating about its arrival, no more than it prevents from the
naturists from creating the opposite function.
Somewhere in the middle lies
opportunity. In that space emergenics is available to those who can hold
themselves in the tension between the poles of nature and nurture. For
the record, I do believe we'll have a revolution in consciousness, but
it will be in transhuman form, not with the current genome.
In the meantime...
Niall Shanks points out in
God, The Devil, and Darwin, there is a third option:
…the recent study of nonequilibrium thermodynamics has revealed how
natural mechanisms, operating in accord with natural laws, can
result in the phenomenon of self-organization, whereby physical
systems organize themselves into complex, highly ordered states. In
addition to evolutionary mechanisms studied by biologists, there are
thus other natural sources of ordered complexity operating in the
universe. A person ignorant of such mechanisms might well conclude
that supernatural causes are in operation where there are in fact
none. (pp. 15-16)
Get this or lose:
Consider the agents, rules, tensions and conditionals--metasystematically--through
an emergenics-informed lens or give up your lead.
"In Europe there is a
mountain called Mount Blanc. On one side is France, on another face is
Italy on a third is Germany on yet another is Switzerland. At the base,
the mountain is wide, and there are numerous paths from each country
that lead upwards, but as one nears the peak, there is less and less
room and the paths converge until there is only one direction (up) and
one path to the peak. When all arrive there, they will stand on the same
square yard of ground."
Jeanne Claude
Racinet
Leadership @ The Beginning
While I believe
that Emergenics applies to all meaning-making, I’ll confine my discussion
here to the reason for being in a context of getting things done
and thus name it consilient problem solving. The metaphysical
case for Emergenics will be made over time, such as my hypothesis of the
soul as an emergent property of human being, but suffice it say in this
discussion that
Emergenics is about leadership in complex times.
The essential
questions in the practice of leadership adapted from Clare W. Graves
and Spiral Dynamics,
1996 are:
What is at
Stake?
This meaning
question serves to create the tension required for agents operating
using simple rules based on a set of conditionals of if then and if and
only if consequences either depicted through declaration, conjunctive,
serial or parallel cognitive process [Jaques, 1998] stemming from the combinatorial effect of
form, process, matter and meaning [Capra, 2002].
This effect produces the emergent drama we have all come to
know as being, having, doing and becoming. Again, metaphysical issues
aside, let us begin by examining the forces interacting.
Control: an
essential player in leadership
This basic control
system dynamic allows scalable complexity through evolution as reported in
The Phenomenon of Science, 1977:
•
control of position = movement
•
control of movement =
irritability (simple reflex)
•
control of irritability =
(complex) reflex
•
control of reflex = associating
(conditional reflex)
•
control of associating = human
thinking (memory)
•
control of human thinking =
culture
A universally
practical question logically follows?
•
control of culture = ?
Seemingly, this is
where Emergenics is required because evolution has adroitly scaled us into
a form of complexity that no one can cope with in present form, and I say
that tongue in cheek as forms will emerge that do control
culture—unfortunately--however destructively.
The question to
substitute in the control path above is where does meaning come from?
Perhaps control of
human thinking could be further framed with meaning-making thus bringing
to the table the entire gamut of developmentalism.
An entire body of
knowledge basically maintained in education, psychology, medicine and
ethics is suddenly coming mainstream through the theories of Don Beck,
Robert Kegan, Ken Wilber, Kurt Fischer, Martin Seligman, Daniel Goleman,
Bill Torbert, Richard Boyatzis, Michael LeDoux, Dalai Lama
and Michael Commons stemming from work done by Graves, Piaget, Perry,
Kohlberg, McClelland, and others in the wisdom traditions of
eastern and western spirituality.
Like Neo in
The Matrix, we make meaning from a number of simultaneous
metasystems. Each of these metasystems has formed frameworks
(dissipative structures which organize from from equilibrium, but are
stable) from
emergence of simple control systems through self-organizing systems like
in the diagram that follows.
Confusing cause and effect
In other words, we
see what is a simple control system; evolving/devolving through an
energetic phase transition with emergent properties unlike those of
the individual parts.
These more
complex properties confuse us as to cause and effect.
This is critical
to understand if we don’t want to be victims of our own complexity. If we
understand complexity as the emergence of properties dislocated
from the individual parts, we can begin to progress by working from the
bottom-up rather than trying to deconstruct or reduce from the top down--ONLY.
I need to throw in
a theory of downward causation here from F. Heylighen:
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Read the
following excerpted quote carefully.
“Reductionism can be defined as
the belief that the behavior of a whole or system is completely
determined by the behavior of the parts, elements or subsystems. In
other words, if you know the laws governing the behavior of the
parts, you should be able to deduce the laws governing the behavior
of the whole.
Systems theory has always taken
an anti-reductionist stance, noting that the whole is more than
the sum of the parts. In other words, the whole has "emergent
properties" which cannot be reduced to properties of the parts.
…the whole is to some degree
constrained by the parts (upward causation), but at the same time
the parts are to some degree constrained by the whole (downward
causation).
The same principle applies to
less rigid, mechanistic systems such as living organisms. You cannot
have organisms whose internal functioning flouts the rules of
physics and chemistry. However, the laws of physics are completely
insufficient to determine which shapes or organizations will evolve
in the living world. Once a particular biological organization has
emerged, it will strongly constrain the behavior of its components.”
F.
Heylighen
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/DOWNCAUS.html |
"We are what we repeatedly
do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit."
Aristotle
Downward Causation and
MetaEmergence
This concept in
self-organizing metasystems or SOMS; depicted in the summary visually are
key to guide Emergenics as a problem-solving system. Guarding
against being pulled into the gravitational field of causality in any
direction is the secret to evaluating multiple streams of emergence
leading to multiple streams of emergence, or metaemergence.
The reason that
this concept is so difficult to grasp and conceptualize is because it is
complex in nature and requires the ability to understand and process, as
well as make meaning in parallel streams. Michael Commons refers to this
form of mental processing in his developmental theory as
metasystematic.
Emergenics is a
cross-paradigmatic conceptualization, which will make it seemingly
difficult for most practitioners to grasp.
Emergenics is in
fact, the interactions among the culture or cloud of metasystematic phase transitions
into crossparadigmatic function. (term made popular by Russian Scientist
Valentin Turchin, PhD
).
Why?
Because, life
conditions have presented us with a cloud or swirl of metaemergence; as a form of consilience.
It is no longer
enough to understand systems theory.
We must understand
metasystems theory in order to deal with the art and science of
metaemergent phase transitions. The metaphysics of this hypothesis are
enough to keep the spiritual thinkers busy for generations, the cross
paradigmatic implications into a theory of no thing (nothing)
are even more daunting.
Without digressing
into theories that explain everything and nothing, let me digress by
giving you the simple rules of metaemergence.
Leadership Climate and Emergenics
"Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming, we lose
the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all, is a form of
planning."
Gloria Steinem
Author and Journalist
In order to bring
this back to life for social consideration, I’ve mapped the 6 factors of
organizational climate identified in Leadership That Gets Results,
2002 to a fundamental approach to aliveness through form, process, matter
and meaning.
In the snapshot
above, I’ve also labeled the
diagram respective of an integral approach as identified by Wilber as
individual interior/exterior and collective interior/exterior as a holonic
approach to consider any fractal and all fractals as holographic in
nature. What I mean by this is the core issue of holography; in each part
contains the information of the whole, such as DNA.
As we consider the
multiple streams that emerge into multiple streams that emerge in
metaemergence, we have to be careful not to oversimplify what is actually
occurring.
In my experience
people who fail to understand the complex emergent dynamics of these
systems focus on surface manifestations and are fooled into form,
process, matter and meaning that is insufficient to cope with the
underlying agents, rules, tension and conditions produce metagents,
metarules, metatension and metaconditionals which could not exist without
the emergent properties of subsystems.
Merely taking a
systemic approach to problem solving is flawed as the emergent
manifestations of the combinatorial effects of those systems are creating
metasystematic effects, far more complex than what appears through
surface manifestations.
A Caveat
Most problem
solving systems address the surface manifestations of these metaemergent
properties through a narrow lens. Emergenics is designed to be used in
problem solving where surface manifestation is only a portion of
the information used to identify the underlying dynamics, or emergenics of
the problem.
Consilience
When we examine
the overriding territory of Emergenics we have to begin to consider a
number of domains of effect: Personal, Business, Network and
Professional. These domains of effect provide us with lenses with
which to view surface manifestations as well as the combinatorial effects
of the agents, rules, tensions and conditionals.
Piaget explicated the figurative and operative functions
less in terms of
domains and more in terms of process: Figurative aspects
involve unreflective states
of knowing that are simply taken to be real, as in
perceiving, mental imaging, and
imitating. Operative aspects involve the dynamic
transformation of what is given and
the construction and coordination of knowledge, as in
actions and the internalized
coordination of actions. For example, in mathematics—which
Feldman identifies as
an example of purely operative knowing—numbers would be
given as figurative to
the pre-operational child, while arithmetic operations such
as adding, subtracting,
and multiplying would be operative. Figurative aspects of
cognition focus on a given
set of entities apprehended in the world, while operative
aspects apprehend the world
by coordinating these entities (which often results in the
disclosing of new entities).The dialectic between the
figurative and operative knowledge is described in
Piaget’s (2000) explication of reflective abstraction, a
process that derives knowledge
not from entities, but from the coordination of entities.
The construction of more
encompassing and powerful cognitive abilities requires the
interplay of figurative and
operative engagements with the world, resulting in the
hierarchical emergence of new
knowledge via reflective abstraction.
Figurative and operative also contrast content and form,
a distinction Piaget
maintained in his descriptions of the stages, which are
defined primarily in terms of
actions or operations (as logical structures).
http://lectica.info/images/Commentary.pdf
1We employ this term to indicate the process of
abstraction Piaget refers to as ‘‘an uninterrupted
alternation of projections-reflections-projections, and or
contents-forms-re-elaborated contents new forms, and so
forth, in ever-broadening domains, without end’’ (Piaget,
2000, pp. 305–306). |
These
combinatorial emergent properties/systems are in fact components of their
own agents, rules, tensions and conditionals as fractals of the
holographic system…each contributing their own effects—a system of systems
is a simple way to think about these affects.
"No pressure, no diamonds."
Mary Case
Starting @ Square 1
Yet first, let’s
review how we got here:
Let’s begin simply:
Add meaning and
a reflective consciousness?
In order to bring
this directly into application and out of theory, I’ve developed several
tools that leaders can use to promote higher quality, bottom-up emergent
opportunity. In order to help the practitioner identify whether the
assumptions and beliefs that under gird their issues are fully considered,
I use a metasystem to guide the emergence of agents, rules, tensions and
conditionals.
When I’m
explaining the system to people with no familiarity with these concepts I
use what I originally called a bingo card. Remember when you played bingo
as a child or see it played now—blackout bingo—you place a bean on each
square of a matrix. Once you have all the squares covered, you holler,
“bingo!”
In much the same
way in problem solving, until you have almost all the squares accounted
for you do not have the problem identified. In order to produce higher
quality decisions—the reason for Emergenics—we must properly identify all
the constituents, including the effects, consequences and the leading
indicators of resilience, or tensions.
In the following
diagram I provide a diagram that metaphorically is closely aligned with
Rubik’s Cube than it is a bingo, yet it provides the bingo card for
those who can conceptualize one face of the cube at a time—a systemic
approach. Instead of using Wilber’s taxonomy of integral I adjust the
integral business approach which includes the taxonomy of business—the
Balanced Scorecard thesis from Kaplan and Norton, 1996 and avoiding
establishing the linear dynamics, but use non-linear dynamics according
to an equilibrium, versus stage in a line system used by Wilber.
Piaget’s claimed his stages were a heuristic device
rather than a central component of his theory. Piaget
clearly placed at the center of his theory the process of
equilibration, which he saw as the ‘‘central problem of
intellectual development’’ (Piaget, 1985), and reflective
abstraction,1 a component of equilibration in
which a person reflects and builds on earlier structures to
create new,
qualitatively distinct, structures (Piaget, 1970a, 2000) at
the center of his theoretical model.
...Reflective abstraction is the process by which a
person reprocesses the knowledge produced through the
coordinations in an existing (or less complex) structure by
using it within the coordinations of a new (or more complex)
structure (Piaget, 1970b). The output of one structure
becomes the input for the subsequent
structure,‘‘reflecting’’ upon the former. This deceptively
simple idea not only conceptualizes the relations between
structures in a nested hierarchy of increasingly powerful
intellectual capabilities, but also reveals the generative
process behind the
construction of unprecedented structures (i.e., emergence).
Piaget held that the development of knowledge takes the
‘‘form of an uninterrupted sequence of reflective
abstractions’’ and thus a developmental sequence (Piaget,
1972). He understood this concept as central in the process
of cognitive development that generates the structures of
intelligence (Campbell, 2001).
http://lectica.info/images/Commentary.pdf |
"When
a man begins to understand himself he begins to live.
When he begins to live he begins to understand his fellow men."
*Norvin McGranahan
The Integral Lens
In the snapshot
above, I've drawn the matrix as static. However it is not, it is
dynamic and in motion, therefore the "boxes" are moving in relation to
self-organization, conscious organization and unconscious organization
in response to "factors." Each view, represents a state-space,
where a snapshot can be taken of the current map of the territory. This
map then can be used--in some ways--like the frame of a movie to
understand in detail the particular "phase" that is available through
the lens.
Once you introduce
the dimensions of the cube, you then approach the level of metasystematic
complexity of most social and organizational problems, if one could
imagine an infinite number of Rubik’s cubes, or a running movie, whose composite face was
represented in the macro through each of the squares above? Because of
what Piaget called reflective abstraction and equilibrium
In the following
excerpt from Requisite Organization, 1998. The late Elliott Jaques
illustrated the geometric representation of cognitive organization from
John Isaac and Roland Gibson as I have done below. [In many ways this
illustrates the relationships that occur through what Piaget called
equilbration, or the process of reflective abstraction, which is the
generative process behind emergence of new complex structures from less
complex structures.]
Here is this
valuable excerpt from the appendix of his book:
* GEOMETRIC REPRESENTATION OF
COGNITIVE CATEGORIES
Level 1
is simply a single-dimensional straight line which relates (R) the person
(subject S1) to the object (O1) on which he/she is
operating. The relationship between person and object is continuous; the
person modifies the object, and the changing object modifies what the
person sees.
Level 2
is represented on the 2-dimensional plane by an angle, in which the person
(S2) works on the object in a level-one way (1R2
) while at the same time observing (R2) what is going on;
i.e., has become reflective diagnostic.
Level 3
is still 2-dimensional represented by the next step up in geometric plane
figures – the triangle. The person (S3) can now deal with a
sequence of reflective relationships with the object, represented by the
angle(s) now contained in the triangle – the envisioning of such sequence
constituting a plan.
Level 4
now shifts from 2-dimensional plane figures to a 3-dimensional solid – the
tetrahedron (you are looking down upon a pyramid). In this figure, the
person (S4) now relates (R4) two triangles to each
other- each triangle is a process, and the R4 constitutes
parallel processing by means of paired comparison of interacting processes
– the two triangles.
Level 5
is the most difficult to picture. It is a polyhedron made up of a large
number of tetrahedra (pyramids) with the person at the center and the
bases of the pyramids on the surface of the polyhedron. Change any
tetrahedron and you change its base – and that leads to a readjustment of
the whole surface of the polyhedron – vividly representing the level – 5
tasks of sensing the 2nd – and 3 rd – order consequences of any
changes or decision.
There is no level six, but imagine, as
I’ve stated above that you could envision an infinite number of squares in
squares as in metaemergence and you’re beginning to get the idea of why
leaders today don’t have the brain power to deal with the problems they
are creating!
The reason I
included this geometric representation is to further draw your attention
to the complexity involved in trying to model the complexity occurring in
metaemergence. The reason we may wish to be careful when viewing surface
manifestations of emerging complexity is to avoid oversimplifying the
solution from a narrow perspective and actually creating more problems
than we solve; which is occurring now as we speak.
It may be better
to do nothing as the sages advise in the eastern spiritual traditions, if
doing something is causing so many problems? I believe this is due to
the mismatch between environmental demands and the capability in the
structure in use resulting in low resilience. If low resilience is
the case, then what occurs in my view, are event-based attempts at
resolving tensions in the demand environment with inferior structural
components. In other words, if the coping complexity (or intelligence
let's say) is insufficiently matched to process complexity, then we end
up with a partial solution which may even be more dangerous than doing
nothing at all.
With a partial
solution, we actually free up energy to create emergent conditions which
may lead to unintended consequences, again which may be the result of
and target of partial solutions, breaking off (in a visual analogy)
parts of the problem and tossing it in a variety of state-spaces which
may be vulnerable to the now-partial problem.
In a macro
sense, imagine an asteroid coming at the earth as one piece. A partial
solution is to split the asteroid into smaller pieces, yet in doing so
we create multiple threats. While the state space of the original
asteroid is now split into two smaller ones, we now have created what
may be a bigger problem. Asteroids hitting at two places on the earth
may be enough to collaboratively create an emergent phase transition
that overwhelms a greater area.
In a micro point
of view, a person drills a well to irrigate their farmland. This
solution becomes a partial solution because the effects of thousands of
farmers collectively drilling wells, may cause the overall resource to
be exhausted. In this partial solution, when broken off from the
collective seems viable, but the larger system effects create a much
more dangerous problem that affects all people. By addressing the
problem in too narrow of a perspective, the problem we solve actually
creates a much larger unsolvable problem.
In the following
summary of Foundation of Emergenics, I would like to provide the reader
with a compass derived from a number of consilient models. Again, to aid
in the conceptualization of metaemergence we have to view a systems of
systems approach of a systems approach or a cross-paradigmatic set of
perspectives that provide insights into the complexity of the issues
presented to us in modern day leadership.
The compass
analogy offers a multi-dimensional approach to considering multiple
domains of effects through an integral lens or set of perspectives using
as attractors; a variety of resilience indicators, value systems and an
emergent set of consequences: Power, Accountability, Authority and
Responsibility. It is difficult to depict a multi-dimensional
metasystematic emergence in only two dimensions, however I think you’ll
see that it provides us with a set of rather oversimplified guidelines
with which to consider as we move in the direction of the most leverage
leadership issues.
In the diagram
above, imagine that all systems are on a spinner if you will and that
there is a constant flux of attractors and of course consequence
tensions occurring as each system emerges holistically into and out of the
others. (TIU stands for “theory in use”, or walk rather than “espoused
theory”, or talk.)
That which has form emerges
from that which has no form; that which has no form emerges from that
which has form. Therefore the path of supreme spirituality cannot be
sought in being and cannot be fathomed in nonbeing; it cannot be lost
through movement and cannot be gained through stillness.
-Ming-Chiao, "Five Houses of Zen"
Learn the program of
resilience behind the compass
here.
In Summary
In the diagram
below, I make a leap of faith that you can follow the introduction of yet
another tool with which to identify and manage the tensions in this
integral business space. While simple, the diagram shows visually the
agents, rules, tensions and conditionals existing in and among the various
components of the interlocking systems creating metaemergence.
In summarizing
Emergenics, I’ve identified the consilience of some essential studies as
an organizational closed, yet energetically open system.
In the
diagram above I’ve linked four –etics; two of which I named.
The first is
Bemetics, the study of behavior as a set of self-reinforcing scripts
that form conscious and unconscious repeatable patterns that can be
observed and consequently replicated as behavior.
The second is
Denetics which applies to the identifiable constructs, or denes, that
are used by developmentalists to score data based on scoring
systems developed by systems represented by Kegan’s Subject/Object
Interviewing System, The Sentence Completion Test (SCT) used by Loevinger
and adapted for leadership profiling by Susanne Cook-Greuter; as well as
the capability scoring matrix used by Jaques to categorize mental
processing in leaders and the Hierarchical Scoring Manual by Commons, et
al.
All of these
methods depend on identified and cataloged specific characteristics
from spoken or written interviews, sentence completion or observation.
The categorizable characteristics I’ve named denes in order to
bring about a lexicon to integrate the aspects of the theories alluded to
above and to give shape to those that follow.
In order to
create actionable data, we have to provide a teachable point of view.
The use of denes provides us with nomenclature in which to
cross-categorize the characteristics identified between and among these
developmental classification systems.
Memetics
is a study of memes. Memes are those elements of culture that many refer
to as norms, but they are much more than just present in organization and
in society. They literally live as a result of their symbiotic
relationship with humans, much like a virus, while not alive, using the
living organism to replicate. In all of these categorizations, each of
these “etics” is a self-organizing emergent phenomena or noumena as
replicated through phenomena.
Genetics
becomes the final, yet primal building block of the Emergenics
Foundation. When we integrate these four metasystems into a metaemergent
framework, we can begin to create meaningful perturbations instead of
narrow interventions in living systems.
The Simple Version of the EMERGENIC
CLOUD
In closing,
I feel like I’ve done nothing more than tease the reader.
However, my intent
is to provide an quick overview of the field of Emergenics and some of the
constituent components as I’ve named them to identify the metaemergence of
complexity.
I’ve tried to show
how life becomes complex and that as a result a degree of caution is
necessary when approaching complex issues, even though it all points to
form, process, matter and meaning through agents, simple rules, tensions
and a fluctuating set of conditionals.
Leadership in
business and organizations in a complex universal age of globalization is
something to be considered as art and science. Yet, there are many
helpful tools available to the leader of the next society, of which
Emergenics may be a helpful, cross-paradigmatic opportunity.
I’ll leave you
with some tips I’ve adapted from Emergence, 2002.
•
The more connections…the better
•
Being Stupid is not so bad after
all
•
Random experience is encouraged
•
Noticing patterns in the signs
•
Ubuntu: pay attention to your
neighbors
•
Bottom-up…not top down
leadership has opportunity!
And a simple set
of rules to guide your reasoning in Emergenics:
- Neighbor
interaction
- Pattern
recognition
- Feedback
- Indirect
control
To end, here are a
set of admonitions by Lewis Thomas, 1973:
Most of all, we need to preserve the
absolute unpredictability and total improbability of our connected minds…
…Joined together, the great mass of
human minds around the earth seems to behave like a coherent, living
system.
…The trouble is that the flow of
information is mostly one-way.
We are all obsessed by the need to feed
information in, as fast as we can, but we lack sensing mechanisms for
getting anything much back.
…I will confess that I have no more
sense of what goes on in the mind of mankind than I have for the mind of
an ant. Come to think of it, this might be a good place to start.
Register
for the 2004 12 Week Learning Program
Emergenics
Starts June 1, 2004 at 11:15 AM ET
Ends August 24, 2004
Meets every week for 1 hour during summer of 2004.
This summer learning program will literally blow your socks off.
A consilience of developmental theory, spiral dynamics integral,
emergence and quantum theory designed to show you how to utilize
cross-paradigmatic reasoning to solve difficult problems in a complex
leadership environment.
Info & Registration
For More
Information: Contact Mike R. Jay, Developmentalist
here
More Information on related
topics:
Integral
Operating Systems here
What is Integral
here
Business
Coaching here
Spiral Coaching
here
Developmentalist
here
Creating the
Resilient Spiral here
7 Rules of
Engagement here
Blog Index:
here
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Resilience in view of an Emergenic System
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