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p.20 As described by systems scientist Erich Jantsch, any living system is "a never resting structure that constantly seeks its own self-renewal" (1980, 10). And this description defines a paradox that is important to note when we think about change; A living system produces itself; it will change in order to preserve that self. Change is prompted only when an organism decides that changing is the only way to maintain itself.
p.23 One systems scientist said that a system is a set of processes that are made visible in temporary structures. These living structures are in no way similar to the solid structures we build. The structures of life are transient; they are capable of change if needed; "Caterpillar and butterfly, for example, are two temporarily stabilized structures in the coherent evolution of one and the same system" (Jantsch 1980, 6). The system continues to develop, to release itself from the old and find new structures as they are required. [JLJ - when playing a complex game of strategy, the pieces on the board are a temporary structure, "emerging" from the interacting processes "How might I proceed?" and "How much should I care about that?", combined and interacting with an opponent who selects and plays moves of his own choice and process.
p.25 "In life, the issue is not control, but dynamic connectedness," Jantsch writes (1980, 196). I want to act from that knowledge... I want to stop struggling to hold things together. I want to experience such security that the concept of "allowing" - trusting that the appropriate forms will emerge - ceases to be scary.
p.37 Karl Weick called attention to... what he termed enactment. We participate, he noted, in the creation of our organizational realities... There is no objective reality; the environment we experience does not exist "out there." It is co-created through our acts of observation, what we choose to notice and worry about.
p.37-38 Weick also suggested a new perspective on organizational analysis. Acting should precede planning, he said, because it is only when we act to implement something that we create the environment. Until we begin this interaction with the environment, how can we formulate our thoughts and plans? ...Weick argued, we create the environment through our own intentions. Strategies should be "just-in-time..., supported by more investment in general knowledge, a large skill repertoire, the ability to do a quick study, trust in intuitions, and sophistication in cutting losses" (1979, 223, 229). [JLJ - Weick is speaking of improvisation, which takes direction or guidance from the richly detailed emergent patterns of the present]
p.38 If there is no objective reality out there, then the environment and our future remain uncreated until we engage with the present. We must interact with the world in order to see what we might create. Through engagement in the moment, we evoke our futures.
p.42 When we take a step or make a decision, we are tugging at webs of relationships that are seldom visible but always present.
p.45 perhaps we hope that our small efforts will contribute incrementally to large-scale change. Step by step, system by system, we aspire to develop enough mass or force to alter the larger system.
But a quantum view explains the success of small efforts quite differently. Acting locally allows us to be inside the movement and flow of the system, participating in all those complex events occurring simultaneously. We are more likely to be sensitive to the dynamics of this system, and thus more effective. However, changes in small places also affect the global system, not through instrumentalism, but because every small system participates in an unbroken wholeness. Activities in one part of the whole create effects that appear in distant places. Because of these unseen connections, there is potential value in working anywhere in the system. We never know how our small activities will affect others through the invisible fabric of our connectedness... it's never a question of "critical mass." It's always about critical connections.
p.57 Let us remember that space is never empty. If it is filled with harmonious voices, a song arises that is strong and potent. If it is filled with conflict, the dissonance drives us away and we don't want to be there. [JLJ - such is the thinking of a sensitive visionary, and it is Wheatley's strongest characteristic. But it borders critically on the eccentric who hears voices.]
p.65 It is the existence of observers who notice what is going on that imparts reality to everything (Gribbin 1984, 212)... We all construct the world through lenses of our own making and use these to filter and select... "Whatever we call reality," Prigogine and Stengers advise, "it is revealed to us only through an active construction in which we participate" (1984, 293).
p.69 We live in a universe where relationships are primary... Nothing exists independent of its relationships. We are constantly creating the world - evoking it from many potentials - as we participate in all its many interactions. This is a world of process, the process of connecting, where "things" come into temporary existence because of relationship.
p.70 It makes me wonder how we will design our organizations in the future... we must invent organizations where process is allowed its varied-tempo dance, where structures come and go as they support the work that needs to get done, and where forms arise to support the necessary relationships.
p.73 Perhaps these are just the ramblings of one whose mind has gone fuzzy... from trying to understand quantum physics. [JLJ - ummm... you got that right.]
p.79-80 Prigogine's work demonstrated that disequilibrium is the necessary condition for a system's growth. He named these systems dissipative structures to bring attention to their paradoxical nature. They dissipate or give up their form is order to recreate themselves into new forms... these systems possess the innate ability to reorganize themselves to deal with the new information. For this reason, they are called self-organizing systems.
p.82 The viability and resiliency of a self-organizing system comes from its great capacity to adapt as needed, to create structures that fit the moment. Neither form nor function alone dictates how the system is organized. Instead, they are process structures, reorganizing into different forms in order to maintain their identity. The system... is not locked into any one structure; it is capable of organizing into whatever form it determines best suits the present situation.
We are beginning to see organizations that are learning how to use the power of self-organization to be more agile and effective.
p.83 An open organization doesn't look for information that makes it feel good, that verifies its past and validates its present. It is deliberately looking for information that might threaten its stability, knock it off balance, and open it to growth... in well-defended organizations... only information that confirms existing plans or leadership is let in. Closed off to disturbances, kept in equilibrium, such organizations run down, atrophy, and die
p.83-84 While a self-organizing system's openness to disequilibrium might seem to make it too unpredictable, even temperamental, this is not the case. Its stability comes from a deepening center, a clarity about who it is, what it needs, what is required to survive in its environment. Self-organizing systems are never passive, hapless victims, forced to react to their environments. As the system matures and develops self-knowledge, it becomes more adept at working with its environment. It uses available resources more effectively, sustaining and strengthening itself. It gradually develops a stability that then helps shelter it from many of the demands from the environment. This stability enables it to continue to develop in ways of its own choosing, not as a fearful reactant. [JLJ - compare with Internet quote, likely from earlier edition, below]
While a self-organizing system's openness to new forms and new environments might seem to make it too fluid, spineless, and hard to define, this is not the case. Though flexible, a self-organizing structure is no mere passive reactor to external fluctuations. As it matures and stabilizes, it becomes more efficient in the use of its resources and better able to exist within its environment. It establishes a basic structure that supports the development of the system. This structure then facilitates an insulation from the environment that protects the system from constant, reactive changes.
p.85 A living system changes in order to preserve itself.
p.86 Self-reference is the key to facilitating orderly change in the midst of of turbulent environments... Another characteristic of self-organizing systems is their stability over time.
p.87 Jantsch notes the profound teaching embedded in these system characteristics: "The natural dynamics of simple dissipative structures teach the optimistic principle of which we tend to despair in the human world: the more freedom in self-organization, the more order" (1980, 40; italics added).
p.87 In addition to these tantalizing paradoxes, self-organizing systems teach an important lesson about how change happens in living systems. When the system is far from equilibrium, singular or small influences can have enormous impact. It is not the law of large numbers or critical mass that creates change, but the presence of small disturbance that gets into the system and is then amplified through the networks. Once inside the network, this small disturbance circulates and feeds back on itself. As different parts of the system get hold of it, interpret it, and change it, the disturbance grows. Finally, it becomes so amplified that it cannot be ignored... Whenever a self-organizing system experiences any amplification process, change is at hand.
p.88 As the system changes and evolves, it also affects its environment. No participant in this dance is left unaffected by changes that occur in another. Scientists call this co-evolution.
p.89 All life lives off-balance in a world that is open to change. And all of life is self-organizing. We do not have to fear disequilibrium, nor do we have to approach change so fearfully. Instead, we can realize that, like all life, we know how to grow and evolve in the midst of constant flux. There is a path through change that leads to greater independence and resiliency.
p.89-90 The more I read about self-organizing systems, the more I marvel at the images of freedom and possibility they evoke. This is a world of independence and interdependence, of processes that resolve so many of the dualisms we created in thought. The seeming paradoxes of order and freedom, of being and becoming, whirl into a new image that is very ancient - the unifying spiral dance of creation. Stasis, balance, equilibrium, these are temporary state. What endures is process - dynamic, adaptive, creative.
p.90 Self-organizing systems offer compelling lessons in how the world works, of how order is sustained in the midst of change. This is very new territory for us [JLJ - hardly new territory, Margaret. Sports teams are a very familiar and real examples of order sustained in the midst of change. How about governments or political parties, or businesses that successfully adapt to changing market forces? Just because it is new to you does not mean it is new for "us".]
p.94 We don't understand information at all. [JLJ - The problem is that we are "programmed" to look to the information in the world around us in order to determine how to "go on". We have little choice. However, we need a framework to understand information - one is provided by our culture, our peers, or made up by we ourselves. Information has no meaning until it is interpreted - perhaps it even needs to be re-interpreted.]
p.95 All life uses information to organize itself into form. A living being is not a stable structure, but a continuous process of organizing information.
p.95-96 Jantsch... concludes that self-organizing systems are better thought of as energy processes that manifest themselves as physical forms (1980, 35).
p.96 Life uses information to organize matter into form, resulting in all the physical structures that we see... These things beguile us; we confuse the system's physical manifestation with the processes that gave birth to it... In a constantly evolving, dynamic universe, information is a fundamental yet invisible player, one we can't see until it takes physical form.
p.96 We need to have information coursing through our systems, disturbing the peace, imbuing everything it touches with the possibility of new life.
p.97 Information is unique as a resource because it can generate itself. It's the solar energy of organization - inexhaustible, with new progeny possible with every interpretation.
p.98 We have to... become much more astute at noticing new information as it emerges.
p.98 If a system has the capacity to process information, to notice and respond, then that system possesses the quality of intelligence. It has the means to recognize and interpret what is going on around it. [JLJ - I would say that more than noticing and responding is required for intelligence - additionally the ability to appropriately construct, then follow a framework to act and interpret - to create a custom diagnostic test of sorts - is the essence of intelligence. To be intelligent is to possess the capacity to 'ping the system' to learn what is really going on, then to guide social maneuver successfully - in known as well as uncertain environments. To be intelligent is to be able to answer the why? questions which always arise.]
p.99 Gregory Bateson (1980) specified similar criteria in defining "mind." Any entity that has capacities for generating and absorbing information, for feedback, for self-regulation, possesses mind.
p.99 Everybody needs information to do their work. [JLJ - yes, even machines "playing" complex games of strategy]
p.100 our organizations have literally been dying for information they could feed on, information that was different, disconfirming, and filled with enough newness to disturb the system into wise solutions.
p.100 We, alone and in groups, serve as interpreters, deciding which information to pay attention to, which to suppress. We are already highly skilled at this... We can open ourselves to more information, in more places, and seek out that which is ambiguous, complex, perhaps even irrelevant.
p.101 Information is always spawned out of uncertain, even chaotic circumstances... the processes that give birth to it are uncertainty and surprise... We refuse to accept ambiguity and surprise as part of life because we hold onto the myth that prediction and control are possible. [JLJ - people look to information cues from their environment to help them determine how to 'go on'. Information comes from an interpretive framework - it is not 'spawned'.]
p.105 information... it is never the volume that matters. It is only the meaning of information that makes it potent or not. When information is identified as meaningful, it is a force for change.
p.108 Jantsch, as a scientist, urges managers to a new role, that of "equilibrium busters." No longer the caretakers of control, we become the grand disturbers. We stir things up and roil the pot, looking for ways to provoke, even to disrupt, until finally things become so confusing that the system must reorganize itself into new forms and new behaviors... it is disequilibrium that keeps us alive
p.110-111 Jantsch contrasts our traditional approach of building block by block to nature's process of "unfolding" (1980, 75). From the "interweaving of processes" new capacities and structures emerge. Order is never imposed from the top down or from the outside in. Order emerges as elements of the system work together, discovering each other and together inventing new capacities. [JLJ - Yes, as mentioned earlier, this aligns with my suggestion that machines can "play" complex games of strategy by creating interweaving processes, such as using heuristics and the "internal conversation", effectively to sequentially ask and then answer "How might we proceed?" followed by "How much should we care about that?", stirring up the pot, then testing for the presence or absence of the adaptive capacity to mobilize coercion.]
p.111 "What is needed," writes Bohm, "is an act of understanding in which we see the totality as an actual process that, when carried out properly, tends to bring about a harmonious and orderly overall action, in which analysis into parts has no meaning" (1980, 56).
p.118 When we concentrate on individual moments or fragments of experience, we see only chaos. But if we stand back and look at what is taking shape, we see order. Order always displays itself as patterns that develop over time.
p.120 In a nonlinear world, very slight variances, things so small as to be indiscernible, can amplify into completely unexpected results. [JLJ - yes, and this is why we cannot "search" and then "evaluate" in playing complex games of strategy. We can only develop adaptive capacity, via multiple promising lines into the future, which we "see" only via "typical" positions.]
p.139 A system is composed of parts, but we cannot understand a system by looking only at its parts. We need to work with the whole of a system, even as we work with individual parts or isolated problems.
p.140 We must account for dynamics operating in the whole system that are displaying themselves in these individual moments.
p.142 Mostly we don't take the time to notice the dynamics that are moving in the whole system, creating effects everywhere... individual behaviors co-evolve as individuals interact with system dynamics. If we want to change individual or local behaviors, we have to tune into these system-wide influences. We have to use what is going on in the whole system to understand individual behavior, and we have to inquire into individual behavior to learn about the whole.
p.143 Seeing the interplay between system dynamics and individuals is a dance of discovery that requires several iterations between the whole and its parts. We expand our vision to see the whole, then narrow our gaze to peer intently into individual moments. With each iteration, we see more of the whole, and gain new understandings about individual elements... We keep dancing between the two levels, bringing the sensitivities and information gleaned from one level to help us understand the other.
p.145 If we are interested in effecting change, it is crucial to remember that we are working with these webs of relations, not with machines.
p.153-154 Life demands that I participate with things as they unfold, to expect to be surprised, to honor the mystery of it all, and to see what emerges. These were difficult lessons to learn.
p.162 Surprise is the only route to discovery, a moment that pulses with new learnings.
p.170 In this world, the "basic building blocks" of life are relationships, not individuals. Nothing exists on its own or has a final, fixed identity. We are all "bundles of potential." Relationships evoke these potentials.
p.183 "...They have adopted a structure that ensures their longevity"
p.186 Einstein's wonderful counsel that no problem is ever solved by the same thinking that created it defines what we must do.
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