Brian Robertson explains that in holacracy the “free will” of an organization is what governs, not the people in the organization. However the people in the organization will have perceive the organization’s will by “allowing this transpersonal space to arise often and easily for organizational steering.” (1)
The usual consent process in sociocracy allows for reasonable and paramount objections, but presumably the standard for such objections in holacracy is the “transpersonal,” or an altitute higher than rationality. And here we have the crux of the situation: Who decides what is the requisite transpersonal altitute to be able to determine the will of the organization and what is an acceptable objection?
This was discussed in an I-I forum and Peter Merry asked a similar question. (2) He wondered how holacracy would deal with a “closed” green objection to a yellow proposal, as they simply cannot see what is best for the organization, i.e., they don’t have the transpersonal signified to see its “will.” He concludes the following:
“at some point has to draw the line, or else you end up going round in circles. someone has to say – ‘we have heard you, got the essence of the objection, integrated it, and are now going to move on. if you cannot live with this, then you can choose to leave this group.’”
It seems we’ll inevitabley have someone(s) speaking for the “highest” altitude and intepreting others’ objections relative to their intepretation. And is the leader’s intepretations based on some outside evaluation of altitude? Or is it just an internal, circular process? Are such leaders elected to those positions or were they self-chosen? Can they be elected out or is election by consent not valid if those not consenting (objecting) are deemed of insufficent altitude to make such decisions? What if some outside source deemed the objecting parties to be of sufficient altitude? What if this whole notion of having a sufficient altitude to intepret correctly the will of the organization is itself just another manifestation of the hegemonic application of the myth of the given and speaking for God or the Ultimate Reality?
Oops, does that mean I’m green for asking the questions or raising the objections?
1. http://holacracy.org/?page=about_intro
2. http://multiplex.integralinstitute.org/Public/cs/forums/thread/12122.aspxÂÂ
You can see from Holons News that teal:
“sees that each of the previous stages reveals an important truth, and pulls them all together and integrates them without trying to change them to ‘be more like me’….â€Â
and turquose:
“is the first to begin to integrate Spirit as a living force in the world (manifested through any or all of the 3 Faces of God: “Iâ€Ââ€â€the “No self†or “witness†of Buddhism; “we/thouâ€Ââ€â€the “great other†of Christianity, Judaism, Hindusm, Islam, etc.; or “itâ€Ââ€â€the “Web of Life†seen in Taoism, Pantheism, etc.).” http://www.holons-news.com/altitudes.html
So you don’t have to be like me unless you want a vote on how we run the organization or how we interpret Spirit. Hmm, it’s fine as long as you know to what caste you belong and don’t rock the boat. Is it coincidence that the caste system arose in the “traditions” of a spiritual elite? Good job to those that are recontextualizing the caste system to fit our post postmodern organizational structures.
The weird thing is that I can see some point to this altitude thing, but not when it gets like this.
I’m sorry, but there is no will of the organization. I have not seen one convincing shred of evidence or one convincing argument to support the idea. All group decisions are made eventually by the consent of individuals. The reason they consent may not always be rational and it may be passive consent, but they do consent.
The ‘will’ of an organization is like the intelligent design argument, it’s fundamentally lazy. Consent in groups is achieved through complex processes of group dynamics. Assuming an organization has an independent ‘will’ is like saying God did it because we don’t yet understand the full mechanics.
According to your logic, Ray, there is no individual will, either. All individual decisions are made eventually by the interactions of individual neurons. The reason a particular neuron fires or doesn’t fire may not be rational and it may be a passive response, but it does or does not fire.
But neurons have no individual will, either, because all their individual decisions are eventually made by the interactions of their molecules. The reason a molecule interacts with another may not be rational and it may be a passive response, but it does or does not interact.
So I guess there is no such thing as an individual will.
Ray, were you lining up with Ken on the “dominant mode of discourse” idea? I haven’t contemplated it too much myself, but it seems reasonable to me that the dominant social discourse acts as the de-facto “will of a social holon.”
But I have to say that it didn’t sound as if you were asserting that group and individual decisions were completely accidental in nature either.
In my experience the majority of communication in (I suppose I’m talking about corporations) organizations are geared toward constantly maintaining mission critical operations. This can create the impression of laziness because the “strategic” discourse is generally limited to higher level (strategic) decision makers and is based on future projections, and the aggregation of a much broader range of data than most of the individuals in-company can easily monitor. Of course, everyone who takes the time to develop a sense of strategic awareness can add to the discourse- and there are definitely trends in that direction in corporate America today. At Costco for example, an employee suggestion that can be proven to have saved the company significant money may earn that employee 50 shares of regular stock- $2500+ in value.
The view that “All group decisions are made eventually by the consent of individuals” is an atomistic form of reductionism called methodological individualism and it is the polemical twin to the reductionist view that collective decisions are independent of individual agency (methodological collectivism).
Most ingral analyses run foul of the individual form of this reductionism. Wilber often falls into this individualist reductionism (perhaps due to his American cultural background), e.g. when he says stuff like “a social holon is a group of individual holons plus artifacts”. Such definitions are examples of pure individualist reductionism. This is also evident in the way he views the upper quadrants of holons.
A truly integral approach recognises that collective qualities cannot be reduced to some agggregate of individual qualities and that the actions of individuals cannot be subsumed within collective totatlities. Wilber would agree fully with this statement I’m sure and he definitely recognises the need for including both these perspectives but, unfortunately, he hasn’t been able to fully include this recognition in his theory building (e.g. his problematic definition of the relationships between quadrants and the individual-collective dimension.) He just hasn’t grasped that you can recognise the independent agency of the collective without also regarding it as a superorganism.
I find it very interesting that someone with Brian Robertson’s knowledge of, and experience with, developing organisations should have a powerful instinct for including both individual and collective agency in his discussion and practical application of integral theory. (It’s also no accident that one of the chief influences on Robertson’s organisational adaptation of integral theory comes from Europe via the sociocracy work of Boeke and Edenburg.)
The other issue here is the use of anthropomorphic and psychological terms such as “will”, “mind” which are often regarded as inappropriate for collectives. Alternatives such as agency, decision-making, governing, directive power, are more useful as they tend not to conjure up individualist connotations. Where individual descriptives are used, it’s probably advisable to stick in terms such as “collective” or “group” as qualifiers, e.g. collective consciousness, collective will, group think, group mind, etc.
In summary, analysing social phenomena solely in terms of individual agency or, alternatively, explaining individual action only in terms of collective structures (this is called the agency-structure and/or the micro-macro debate see Giddens, Luhman, Bernhard Giesen, Jeffrey Alexander) is decidely non-integral.
Mark: But does it take a “transpersonal space” of “spiritual awareness” to understand and steer organizational agency? And of course what do the parenthetical terms mean in this context? And what about those that control those definitions and make compliance with them conditional of organizational participation and advancement?
Just as State and Religion were separated (differentiated) for good cause, what about Business and Religion (Spirit)? Does integration mean mixing and matching indiscriminately (fusion)? I think these are important questions as we include Spirit into the discussion without giving it the sole defining role as arbiter of the whole shebang.
No, it doesn’t edward. As any cursory glance at history shows any “leader” can “steer organisational agency” for good or ill. Many of our most disreputable leaders have had a great instinct for and often identified with the collective spirit of the people. Any nonrational realm of human experience is the play stuff of such characters – be that from the pre or trans levels.
I use endnote for my referencing so it only took me a minute to knock up the following references. If you want to lok into this collective agency thing a bit more in the organisational studies field. Articles both for and against the case are included:
References
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That is part of my point, that collective agency is often steered by those with delusions of grandeur, especially when it’s of the “spiritual,” absolute reality variety. And when Ken talks so dogmatically of Spirit as interpreted by traditional vedanta and vajrayana I see visions of well-meaning, bald monks in robes with machine guns offering up Kool-Aid for my own highest good. Ok, so I hyperbolize just a tad. But this is also the reason (yes, good old rational reason) that Habermas and Derrida are so “postmetaphysical” and leery of those that speak for God, Spirit, the organization, collective agency, what have you. Yes, we need leaders to steer the collective, but they must be elected and not appointed, and they must be balanced in perspective and number, and not all of “one mind,” so to speak. In other words, representative democracy. Not too sure about holacracy yet, given the above considerations.
And then there’s business, which is not about freedom, equality and representation but about profit. So not sure how the above applies here. I’m guessing some of my concerns are discussed in your references.
Also at issue is the definition of “transpersonal.†Collective agency is certainly trans-individual, and in that sense is transpersonal. But is there something that is transpersonal for individuals that is not collective? That is, what is this beyond ego (individual) yet individual experience called mystical oneness? One with what? Emptiness? And what is emptiness but a collective and cultural agentic description of this vast experience beyond individual self? Is it even possible to have such an experience without first developing to an egoic self and then participating in a meditative program designed by cultural consciousness (albeit a micro-culture)? I think this is where Goddard, Washburn et al. are coming from with the notion of a transpersonal collective (un)conscious.
Correction: For Goddard the collective unconscious is only part of the equation in the transpersonal. This relates back to the subject-subject epistemology from the pre-trans blog. And it has to do with the relationship of individual to social holons, for as Mark points out they are not the same yet they are in inextricable relationship. I include again Goddard’s quote from the previous blog below.
“The model we have been mapping grounds bi-polar holonic structure (subjective/objective) in a binary relational and mutually perceptual model as the necessary condition for all manifestation. The bi-polarity of subject/object (mind/brain) is logically related to the dyad formed by at least two individual holons in mutual perception. But the mutual subject/object perceptual relationship of the binary pair of individual holons constitutes only one of two fundamental epistemological modes informing all manifestation. There is also a primal subject/subject mode, a direct resonance between subjectivities within a cohesive or agentic social form. The individual holonic dyad exists in two epistemological modes: the subject/object relation and the subject/subject relation. Subject/object perceptual interactivity is the basis of the agentic individual and communal social development: subject/subject connective resonance is the basis of the communal individual and the agentic form of society. (In the course of development from the primal human up to the modern the subject/subject way of knowing gives way to the subject/object epistemology, consequently, to individual agency and social communion as we shall trace below). “
The agency of the individual holon, when related to the communion of the social holon, produces the subject-object epistemology. Hence you have the type of dominant social discourse or social nexus-agency of Ken’s model. But when the communal aspect of the individual holon relates to the agentic aspect of the social holon you get the subject-subject epistemology, hence the collective unconsious. And the development and balance of BOTH are required to move into what Goddard is calling the transpersonal. So the collective unconscious of itself is not THE transpersonal.
And the pivot point around which the polarity revolves is THE (rational) EGO! There is no pre OR trans without the ego! It behooves us to explore just what this ego is as mediator between pre and trans, heaven and earth, inner and outer, individual and social, emptiness and form. Hmm, it’s starting to sound like…could it be???? The ego is not the problem but the solution? No!!!!!!!! Narcisissm I say! Heresy! 1st tier! Ewww!
Hi Folks,
I really appreciate this discussion, though I’m afraid I can’t contribute much, at least not in this forum; I am first and foremost a practitioner, and it’s difficult for me to help with dialogs like these. Most of my writing is not so much an attempt to offer a theoretical contribution as it is an attempt to communicate our experiences, as well as the best interpretations we’ve found for them so far. I do get quite a bit out of following dialogs like these though, and I appreciate the opportunity to read all of your contributions!
I do have a few clarifications about something said in the original post here. The author stated: “The usual consent process in sociocracy allows for reasonable and paramount objections, but presumably the standard for such objections in holacracy is the “transpersonal,†or an altitute higher than rationality.” This is a mistaken impression about Holacracy – I’m sorry my writing isn’t clearer here. When I say Holacracy is about organizing from a “transpersonal space”, I’m not referring to altitude at all, I’m referring to a state – a state where we’re not caught up in (“stuck in”) our ego or anything else that is arising for us. It’s a state I’ve seen folks find and use regardless of where they are along their developmental journey. That’s the goal anyway, but it has only a little to do with the threshold for decision-making; to really understand how the threshold works in Holacracy (or Sociocracy), it’s got to be taken in the context of Dynamic Steering (which changes the definition and aim of “decision-making” quite dramatically from what we normally think of in our modern culture). That’s also critical for answering the question of who judges whether an objection is allowed; the question itself usually comes from assumptions that no longer hold with Dynamic Steering in place (the short answer is that the person offering the objection judges, but that answer is likely to generate more misunderstanding than clarification; the opportunity for clarification lies in digging into the question itself and clarifying why the need to even ask it has been transcended due to other aspects of Holacracy, notably Dynamic Steering). I know I haven’t provided much clarity here, just more questions; I’ll post a reply to the original post referenced above by Peter Merry shortly, which I hope will clarify quite a bit more.
Also, regarding the “organizational will” I mentioned, it may be worth noting that this is an attempt to communicate the feeling/interpretation of a direct experience several of us often have, and which seems to be fairly reliably generated through the practice of Holacracy. Again it relates to Dynamic Steering – it seems to be a key to seeing/expressing this “organizational will”, and “will” is not at all the right word, just the closest I have at present. I have many other thoughts here, but I’ll have to hold them for another format. I did write a little bit about this in an interview document I wrote, currently available on the Resources page of http://www.holacracy.org (look for the oldest document available – that’s the one).
Again, I’ll post more in response to Peter Merry on the I-I forums shortly.
Thanks again,
- Brian
Guys — I hope I’m not intruding. My whole take on these things isn’t coming out of any book, it’s coming purely out of experience. In my personal experience, equality is totally consistent with hierarchy (I’m mostly inspired by Aurobindo here). Higher Light respects lower Light and lower Light trusts higher Light. *At the soul-level*, there is total equality (per Aurobindo’s notion of the Psychic Being as a dynamic, evolving spark of the Divine).
Meaning what? Meaning all we have to do is develop the psychic and live in it. Everything will fall into place automatically. Higher Light will automatically take the lead (without having to announce to the world that it’s taking the lead). Nothing needs to be said or done. Everything will be painless and harmonious and blissful.
I love Aurobindo’s notion of soul-level equality. This is not superficial, mental-level ideological egalitarianism. It’s a Reality we have to become aware of. Soon, someone else will develop even more than the present “leader” so no one person can remain the “leader” forever. There is no point in getting stuck on who is higher or lower. The hierarchies are also shifting and in flux from moment to moment. All our idols will be smashed one by one as we walk the Path.
Hi all,
Mark interprets my comments to support the individualist position. (apart from that he uses some standard rhetorical devices, like calling something reductionist, hmmm, perhaps we could skip the pejorative labelling?) Anyway, in my view the sense of self/ego is the conscioius sense of self. There are sub-conscious and unconscious processes at work and the intersubjective space (cultural norms, etc) are important. People often conform to organizational rules and conservatism and habituation can make change difficult.
But this is quite different to saying that an organization has a ‘will’, ie, agency.
Where is this agency located? Is it self-aware? Can it reflect, learn and adapt? What mechanisms does it self-employ to learn and adapt? Or do the individuals in conscious charge do the learning and adapting?
Ned: “Everything will be painless and harmonious and blissful.”
Wanna buy the Golden Gate Bridge? I will sell it to you cheap.
Ray: “Where is this agency located? Is it self-aware? Can it reflect, learn and adapt? What mechanisms does it self-employ to learn and adapt? Or do the individuals in conscious charge do the learning and adapting?”
Ray, I think the issue here is why people behave in the way that they do. For example, in the past ten years, there has been an explosive increase in the use of the internet. Why? Is it because millions of individuals have made a conscious decision that they need or want to be online? In some cases, perhaps, but in many, I would say the majority, of cases, people use the internet because of desires which they largely are unconscious of. They get swept up in the craze, so to speak. As a result, the particular ways in which the internet has developed do not reflect any one individual’s conscious decision. They are the result of an enormous number of interactions among individuals. I would say that the internet has to develop in the ways that it does not because anyone in particular wants it to, but because of certain constraints that emerge at the social level. This is society reflecting, learning and adapting.
Someone recently posted here an abstract of an article at Integral Review. I noticed in the same issue of IR, Tom Murray and Sara Ross have proposed some new rules for online forums that will soon be ongoing at IR. To me, these rules were very predictable. We have to have rules like this in order for the forums to operate smoothly. If you want to say that Tom and Sara created these rules consciously, go ahead, but if they are so free and conscious, could they have created some totally different rules? No, because only those rules, or something very much like them, will allow the forums to work. That is quite obvious to anyone who has spent much time on forums. We are compelled to behave in this way for the larger social organizations to work, then after the fact we say we â€Âwant†to act this way. Higher development is to a very large degree becoming into harmony with the higher social system one is embedded in. We say that people are more evolved, more civilized, etc., precisely because they understand the social constraints they are embedded in.
I think we can see the same process at work in any number of other social phenomena. Why do we have traffic lights? Do individuals in their cars really want to stop and wait periodically as they move down the street? Of course not, and if you have spent much time in third world countries, as I have, you know that when individuals lack these social constraints, they don’t stop in this manner. It is everyone for himself. Traffic laws evolved not because anyone wanted them to, but because it was impossible for the larger society to function without them. Of course, once it became difficult to function without them, certain individuals stepped forward with their proposals to have these laws. But was this a conscious decision? I don’t think so. It was something that people were forced into by conditions, and after-the-fact they rationalized it as “their†decision. What they really mean when they say they “want†to behave in a certain manner is that they have to, that if they don’t, the consequences will be unpleasant; and what they really mean when they say they made a conscious decision is that their desire to avoid the unpleasant consequences has become to great to ignore.
It’s really a matter of perspective. Individuals think they are making conscious decisions, when in fact I would say they are constrained by social realities to act in the way they do. And this occurs throughout the hierarchy. As I alluded to earlier, our thoughts are the result of a huge number of interactions of neurons in the brain. To the extent it has consciousness, a neuron may “think†it is acting consciously, but from our higher perspective, we can easily see that it is constrained by all its interactions with other neurons to act (fire or not fire) in the way that it does. It really has no choice in the matter. In much the same way, what individuals see as their conscious decisions are really acts that they are compelled to engage in because of social interactions.
Andy: clearly I don’t belong on this forum.
Take care.
Also: thanks for teaching me a valuable lesson and some more humility.
Ok, guys, hold up. I thought we were talking about organizations such as I-I or corporations etc. It seems to me that there needs to be some sort of distinction made between primarily unconcious structural adaptations and groups that are conciously formed and run.
As to the statement: “Most integral analyses run foul of the individual form of this reductionism. Wilber often falls into this individualist reductionism (perhaps due to his American cultural background), e.g. when he says stuff like “a social holon is a group of individual holons plus artifactsâ€Â. Such definitions are examples of pure individualist reductionism.
This may well be due to my American cultural background, but I think that the processes we are reducing to “individual reductionism” may be a little more complex- given the distinction between (unconcious group?) and concious organizations. In our internet/traffic light examples we are talking about what could almost be called a stable state. If an individual person or small group does not obey these laws or tries to destroy the entire system itself then they go to jail and probably don’t convince anyone else that their “rebellion” is a good idea.
On the other hand, given that someone already has a reasonably influential position in a corporation, he can bring it down and/or do tremendous damage to both it and the idea of it (see Enron). In this sense the individual decisions of people within this type of organization do “make or break it.” This doesn’t mean that there are no group dynamics, but as Mark noted there are in fact “leaders” who steer group agency.
The razer thin edge we are walking seems to me to be how to discuss or imply autonomy for the individual human holon in a rhetorical environment that is almost supersensitized to it. How can each of us be one of these leaders without having the prejorative “disreputable” attached? I’m sure Ken would like to know.
Speaking of which, in IS Ken specifically notes that the “we is not a super-I” but instead asserts the idea of dominant monads in collectives as social discourses. This sounds to me like an aknowledgement that “you can recognise the independent agency of the collective without also regarding it as a superorganism.”
Ned, if I were to sum up what your message said to me it would be: Don’t argue, everything you guys are saying is unimportant anyway! I like Aurobindo!
Just try to be aware of your audience.
Hi Andy,
Yes, I agree, the concept of self is a fiction, as is the concept of free will. But none of what you say suggests that organizations have agency. My original point was that organizational agency is an illusion.
Ned: Just because someone criticizes something you say doesn’t mean you don’t belong on this forum. We all criticize and in turn are criticized. It’s part of the game. I recall Mark coming down very hard on Ray a while back, Ray bounced back
Matthew: “On the other hand, given that someone already has a reasonably influential position in a corporation, he can bring it down and/or do tremendous damage to both it and the idea of it (see Enron). In this sense the individual decisions of people within this type of organization do “make or break it.†This doesn’t mean that there are no group dynamics, but as Mark noted there are in fact “leaders†who steer group agency.â€Â
Yes, an aberrant CEO can “bring down†an organization, just as a clone of cancer cells may destroy an organism, but that is an extreme effect. My point is that they can’t change the functioning or group dynamics of the organism/organization very much. That is pretty much set by evolving rules of social interactions. Being able to destroy something is very different from being able to change it’s functioning; it doesn’t take much intelligence, or really, much power. An elephant can destroy a car, but it can’t change it’s functioning.
Ray: “Yes, I agree, the concept of self is a fiction, as is the concept of free will. But none of what you say suggests that organizations have agency. My original point was that organizational agency is an illusion.â€Â
I will agree with that if you mean by it that all agency, including individual agency, is an illusion. My point really was that to the extent that we can say individuals have agency, we can also say that social organizations have it. Not in the same way, I am not trying to say that organizations are super-organisms, but in the sense that they do things that are beyond the power of any of their individual members to affect.
Not only has an organization an agency or a soul but also a destiny, pre-designed, if you like. Sri Aurobindo has discussed at length about the group-soul of a nation in his classic, The Human Cycle. The same applies to the evolution of an organization as well.
Agency and free will an illusion? The concept of self is fiction? Is there disagreement with Mark on that earlier post where he said “that the actions of individuals cannot be subsumed within collective totalities”?
I appreciate that the individual vs collective issue is big here on OI, but words like illusion and fiction can easily fuse seperate holons- in a rhetorical sense anyway.
How about agency/freewill as a transcendental signifier?
Hi Andy,
First a comment about bouncing back. I have a profound respect for the capacities of everyone on this blog so when Mark ‘attacked’ me I listened. But I’m an old polemical warrior and can pick a pejorative argument a rhetorical mile away and will always call it.
Any collective unleashes processes that are beyond any individual, such is the nature of group dynamics. Group conformity is a powerful factor. Most decisions made in collectives are often non-decisions, that is, a decision not to push for a position – not to speak up. You can see this in action in meetings if you are sufficiently attuned to the sub-textual body language (NLP territory). You can see that someone disagrees but had decided not to say they do. The reasons people decide to conform are complex and it is here I agree with Mark that you cannot separate the individual from the society.
If there is a formula for this it is a kind of bootstring formula, societies create individuals and individuals create society.
Tusar – ahh yes, group souls. Hmmm, I’d ask for proof, otherwise it’s theory without substance, which equals belief and faith – just because Aurobindo says it’s so don’t mean it is, this is argument from authority. In any case Aurobindo is suggesting a location for the agency, the medium of soul realm (subtle). So I guess that Enron, British Tobacco, Halliburton, MacDonalds, WalMart, etc, all have a divine purpose and a group soul?
Daffodils are as much divine as the dredgers and the Infinite is under no compulsion to stop imagining and staying outside the walls of WalMart. Proof, like beauty, lies in the eyes of the beholder and all epistemological rigours, therefore, need to be tempered by suitable hermeneutical hormones so that a new aesthetic is perceived. In this subjective adventure we are all loners and have to plough our own furrows.
I think agency and communion are strongly linked in the social holon: If there is more communion and agency within the individuals the capacity for group agency increases.
Of course both agency and communion can be of the healthy and of the less healthy (and even pathological) kind. The individual holons that make up the social holon have to perform some kind of healthy agency to make the communion real. In Rays example of course the individuals who withdrew themselves because of group pressure have no healthy agency. Also the other extreme happens, f.i. in the corperate world where leaders can have a overdominating agency (often to repress feelings like insecurity or anxiety or out of narcissism) which also is not healthy. This will mean there is a dominating of individual agency over group agency as Andy pointed out. This can have a destructive effect on group agency.
Both unhealthy forms of agency will have negative influence on communion and thus on group agency because real communion between individuals is needed to develop a functioning social holon out of the individual conciousnesses. The individuals need to make contact, commmunicate and relate as real as possible for the social holon to function and thus have agency. If the communion is unhealthy and does not work well, this will hinder the development of the agency of the social holon.
So I don’t believe every group has agency. It is a developmental acquirement that is dependant on the interaction of healthy agency and communion within the group. I also do believe that this agency on the social holon level isn’t just the same as the combined agencies of the individuals. The process of the interaction of both communion and agency brings about a new social agency functioning on a different level than the individual level, but that can be perceived by the individual holon.
When all holons perceive this social agency this of course can optimise the agency on a social level and group development can happen in a faster rate. One can see this happening in therapy groups that work together for a long time or in very good sportsteams. This then in return optimises the individual function, sometimes to a dimension of capability far exceeding his or hers when alone.
Brian’s response does not “resonate” with me, as the jargon goes in holacracy. On the one hand he says he cannot engage in the theoretical dialog about holcacracy because his focus is practical application. Yet he then “sells” holacracy based on the theoretical principles of sociocracy and holacracy. He claims that these theoretical principles arise from the practical experience as if he is merely reporting the experiences from an objective perspective, because that’s the way it IS with “experience.” But here we have the myth of the given par excellence as Ken ably describes it.
There is no experience without simultaneous intepretation, aka “theory.” They arise together in a developmental holarchy and shape each other. It’s not that experience is pure and the theory is a best guess intepretation. So when Brian emphasizes practice as somehow more “real” and theory as after-the-fact and superfluous it is a bit disingenuous. I notice that the theory is not superflous when it comes to “selling” holacracy, which he seems to do quite well. But for the purpose of analyzing the theory deeply in debate and dialog he bows out due to the excuse that he’s too busy applying it, which is really the more important business of the day.
Now I can see one having a preference for and/or more skills in one or the other. And I can see in any organization utilizing one’s skills and preferences in balance and not requiring everyone to develop all skills equally. But that’s different than trying to justify not engaging in philosophical debate because it’s just not as important as “doing the actual work.”
In fact, the more developed aspects of intellectual cognition have traditionally been what is valued more in executive positions, the ability to “see the big picture,” to organize, plan and execute the business. Hence the higher salaries in line with the level of complexity of the tasks performed. And the “workers” that just follow the plan with less “thinking” are paid less. Even holacratic theory recognizes this within its structure.
Those that “market” and sell the business are differently oriented with different skill sets. But they tend not to be CEOs or executive vice presidents because it does not require the same level of cognitive development. I’d suggest that perhaps Brian, while being the good salesmen, is not as good a CEO if he cannot handle a rigourous defense of his theory. He seems fine when he is the only one presenting it via interviews or for the purposes of sales, but if he cannot engage in philosophical debate to defend the theory with the excuse that “I’m too busy actually ‘doing’ it,” or that “business is not about the debate of ideas,” then perhaps it’s time for the following? 1) a reevaluation of a business organization’s relationship to society at large via an integral perspective and perhaps 2) a CEO election (not appointment) in his company.
Ah, but who gets to vote on that and what theory are they “sold” on? I’m guessing the highest circle only gets this vote (nothing new there) and are they are sold on the theory of holacracy? And who developed holacratic theory (but won’t defend it)? Case (and system) closed.
Yes, I know, that’s “the way it is” in the business world. But is that the way we want business integrated within socieity in an integral perspective? Is “the way it is” the way it could and should become in our vision? And to what extent are we complicit in enabling “the way it is” by engaging in traditional business practices, just dressed up with new clothes and a new name?
Ok, I’m taking a bit of poetic license here. Holacracy and sociocracy are not the usual way of business. And both have made great strides forward in my opinion. But I still think my questions are legitimate albeit a bit hyperbolic for effect. It’s called rhetoric and it’s my forte.
By the way, I’m wondering if my objections would be considered reasoned and paramount in Brian’s company, were I an employee and/or director? Or even if I’d ever get to be an employee and/or director in the first place with such objections?
No need to be too hard on Brian, he was good enough to post comments- I don’t think he ment to imply that he can’t agrue at a theoretical level, but just that he doesn’t want to in this type of forum. Which in my opinion makes sense for anyone who has the option of publishing in print.
With regard to this talk about CEOs and such- remember that corporations are ultimatly owned by shareholders who elect the board (who make silly amounts of money for the 2-4 yearly board meetings… usually). The board elects management who then have the responsibility to follow the dictates of the company charter. There is both agency and communion built into corporate structure, with “communion,” or
downward control from stockholders, the state, and external regulatory bodies, and upward “agency” from employees and management.
I’m sure you all are already aware of this… but addressing these elements
might clarify some issues in this conversation.
Hi Edward,
My apologies, I absolutely didn’t mean to imply that debating theory is less important than what I spend my time doing! Just that it is not my core skilll nor my preference (particularly in an electronic forum – my preference is for real-time interaction, ideally in-person; I also prefer dialogue over debate – again, a personal preference and skill issue, not a comment about inherent worth).
Perhaps I’d be better off steering clear of online forums entirely, as I imagine it is a bit frustrating when I begin to engage and then duck out when the questions start flying! I’m sorry if I’ve left a sour taste in your mouth. For what it’s worth, I find a lot of value in the posts folks offer about my writings and talks, and I use posts like yours to guide what I write and speak about in the future. I hope I can address several of your questions in my writings and talks before long.
Cheers!
- Brian
As a response to both Matthew and Brian, one of the things I appreciate about holacracy is that it has more than one bottom line in business organization, i.e., it isn’t just about what the shareholders want (the ones with the money). Profit is included in the corporate charter (purpose) but so are worker and societial issues. For example, empowering the workforce (giving them some say and maybe some monetary ownership) and not contributing to environmental pollution or a wage slavery mentality. I applaud such advances in business organization and fully support such theories and applications as holacracy. But like with Ken and integral theory/application, I criticize and question in the hopes of making such projects better and improving everyone’s lot in life. So keep up the good work Brian and please don’t be too offended or put off by my at times aggresive challenges.
Hi Edward – I appreciate the note of encouragement and the feedback, and likewise, the critique and questioning helps me a great deal, and I appreciate your offering it – I suspect you wouldn’t bother if you didn’t see something of value worth digging into!
Also, an FYI: I have posted a response to Peter Merry’s post on the I-I forums (referenced above). It includes clarifications to some of the questions and comments raised in this thread. Here’s the link:
http://multiplex.integralinstitute.org/Public/cs/forums/permalink/17018/17018/ShowThread.aspx#17018
Cheers!
- Brian
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