Systems Learning; Observations and Experiments
For the past 18 years, I have been part of a number of experiments in liminal learning, or network learning (systems learning?)–I’m not sure there’s a great name for it yet. In short, learning and leadership that lives outside and in-between organizations (and other more-or-less delineated entities). I have been deeply curious about the degrees of structure required to support these learning and working spaces, as well as how power and identity (individual, group and collective) are co-constructed and evolved in these spaces. For me, this is far beyond the inquiry that we read about in business journals–more than a new organizational structure, or a new model of work, feedback and leadership. In the spaces I have been exploring, the construct/identity of an organization, with all its legal, financial and social claims, is not the single, dominant actor or organizing structure.
The learning and exchange that happens in liminal spaces, like the intertidal zone that Rachel Carson writes to elegantly about, is the birthplace of deeply exciting and relevant ideas and sensibilities, born out of the complex interaction of people, their ideas, their geographies, their past experiences and future trajectories. These spaces are not reducible. They are not easily understood, and they deserve a fair bit more attention.
“To understand the shore, it is not enough to catalogue its life. Understanding comes only when, standing on a beach, we can sense the long rhythms of earth and sea that sculptured its land forms and produced the rock and sand of which it is composed; when we can sense with the eye and ear of the mind the surge of life beating alway at its shores–blindly, inexorably pressing for a foothold. To understand the life of the shore, it is not enough to pick up an empty shell and say “This is a murex,” or “That is an angel wing.” True understanding demands intuitive comprehension of the whole life of the creature that once inhabited this empty shell: how it survived amid surf and storms, what were its enemies, how it found food and reproduced its kind, what were it relations to the particular sea world in which it lived.” Rachel Carson, The Edge of the Sea
Fields, Washing Machines, Fish Tanks and Oceans
My experience in participating in these learning spaces has felt very “out of time,” and as I’m reading quite a bit about time and physics lately, it feels worth noting the connection. In my mind, I imagine people themselves as the fields Einstein elucidated — people as their own curved gravities’, extended far beyond their physical bodies, each one with their own particular color, temperature and density. Some people’s fields are folded, bunched, looped back on themselves; enfolded, unfolding, entangled, unraveling and entwining with others–in proximity or across space/time (i.e. “action at a distance”). Occasionally these fields split, divide and separate, creating an opening that can draw into it other densities, or creating the equivalent of a black hole–a space through which human energies are condensed into a vibrating space of possibility (or destruction). I imagine this sounds a bit zany, and I recognize that these are ruminations by a non-physicist selectively applying some non-human concepts to human systems (forgive me, I know this is ill-advised!), but this is how I have come to think about my daily interactions with other humans. This picture (or sense, rather) shapes my understanding of how information and knowledge flows, how relationships are co-constructed, how work gets done and how “warm data” is generated and dissipated.
While this sort of interaction/human energy exists everywhere, it behaves differently in bounded spaces, versus spaces with permeable boundaries (or no defined boundaries at all). Our past construct of organizations (i.e. bounded, human-constructed systems) conjures up an image of a washing machine–with people and ideas propelled by strong forces in a certain direction. Within the spin, the contents of the barrel are “free” to move up and down and while they may get hung up on one another, the spin is always in one direction at any given moment. The forces at play are designed to accomplish specific goals (i.e. the washing, rinsing and draining stages), and they do so effectively and repeatedly. A highly functioning organization of the past might be seen as a washing machine–with occasional maintenance needed to ensure the proper function of the mechanisms that control the movement and timing of water, spin and soap. The role of people in these mechanistic systems is limited to providing input (soap, button pressing) and to collecting output (freeing up space for more activity through extraction).
In a washing machine, the structural forces at play dictate the narrow bounds in which items in the washer can interact–both with each other and with the machine itself.
In stark comparison, in the ocean, zones provide their own coherent rulesets and criteria for existence (and thriving), without fixed borders or boundaries. In this ever-changing environment, the system creates and recreates itself in a continue state of equilibrium based on who (and what) is present.
Maybe the washing machine and the ocean are too far afield. In exploring organizational constructs, perhaps it’s more useful to compare a washing machine and a fish tank. In the fish tank, as in a washing machine, the narrow bounds define the possibility space, and dictate the interactions that take place, based on who is in the tank, what other plants or structures are there, and what type of external “information” is pumped in. The plants and animals in the tank have limited range, and are forced to develop within a constructed habitat. If the configuration is not optimal for the inhabitants, whether because of their own nature, or the interactions patterns formed with other inhabitants (plant, animal or other), or the physical limitations, they will rapidly fail to thrive–either as a whole, or as individuals. A parallel could be made to the organization of today (some, at least), where there has slowly been a realization that companies are not, in fact, washing machines––that they are closer to living systems, and needed to be treated as such in order to “maximize sustainability” (there’s a concept that deserves further scrutiny!). When we treat organizations like ecosystems (which is arguably a bit nicer than treating them like washing machines), our approach is to simulate–and also control–the self-regulating, natural systems that are at play in nature. We have developed an arrogance (or is it simply curiosity?) that leads us to attempt to manipulate systems towards prescribed outcomes. This is undoubtedly the natural course for humans–seeking constantly to reshape the world to our own ambition. Where this curiosity/arrogance will lead is yet to be seen. If organizations now and in the future are more like mini, bounded ecosystems–and not washing machines–how might this change how we think about learning, development, power, control, order and boundaries (and time!). What are the implications of this understanding? And what are the natural limits of organizations, and how can we recognize these limits in time to start also directing equal attention to the world outside the fish tanks?
Far removed from the bounded systems of washing machines and fish tanks, we have our oceans. Their flora and fauna are called to action by forces at play on a vast scale, with variables and complexities which simply cannot be replicated in a fish tank, regardless of scale. In the ocean, we see zones, not mechanistic or constructed boundaries (or walls, as in a fish tank). These zones each have their own rules, co-constructed by the plants, animals and minerals that live within them, and according to the natural cycles of temperature, wind, current, ph and weather (among many other forces).
Boundaries here are fluid, with no defined edges. Species come and go according to their own needs (or instincts), guided by the information generated within and around their own bodies, and their surroundings, in constant conversation with their fellow ocean-dwellers. Plants and animals thrive or fail, depending on the complex woven ecosystem in which they find themselves. Freedom and learning look very different in these spaces; there is no purpose or intention that is superimposed on these systems. Human attempts to manipulate ocean systems tend toward collapse (and here, and here…). We’re not good at tinkering in complexity.
As we’re seeing, ocean systems, while self-regulating (often on timescales far beyond human attention), can be thrown out of balance (and here)–they are at once fragile and resilient. We are seeing that now, and no one entirely knows the consequences of it (though we do have some informed–and grim–guesses). At present, we’re testing the boundaries of human intervention–how far can we push until we see rapid, cascading collapse?
Unfortunately, it seems that we’re well on our way to finding out. There’s not a lot of time left.
How are our oceans learning to be, in these times? What are the limits of their learning? As we seek to reimagine the human-born construct of an organization as a bounded, natural ecosystem, what can we learn about learning in natural systems that might be applied or tested in organizations? And is this even a worthwhile effort, in that the central, defining difference between human-built organizations and ocean systems is that that the former is built for purpose, while the latter has evolved with no central control to yield a remarkable diversity of output, in continual self-renewal and self-organization. We’re working on building a better fish tank (organization), but will this really be the laboratory in which we come to better understand the whole, or how to engage with larger systems challenges? The utility of the fish tank spaces is limited given this lofty ambition. While it’s important that we keep tending to our fish tanks (maintaining and creating jobs, for example), it seems critical that we, as humans intervening in natural systems–and simultaneously trying to redefine and restructure organizations–should be learning about what learning looks like in the in-between, spaces–as quickly as possible.
Note: The Kauffman Foundation, in its work on entrepreneurial ecosystem building, is doing some very interesting work in this space, which I plan to write about in a future post.
It is from this type of learning that maybe we’ll be able to help our system escape to a higher order (à la Prigogine). The structures and understandings that will help us make the leap from our current state of ecological decline (collapse) to a healthy self-regulating ecosystem will require that we develop skills and knowledge that help us thrive in the spaces in-between. I’m directing my time, my hope and my attention to learning and self-organization in liminal spaces.
I hope to write about some of the experiments I’ve been involved in over the past 18 years that speak to liminal learning and liminal leadership, and what I’m learning, now.
In the interim, here are some things to spend some hours on.
- Nora’s post on Liminal Leadership in Kosmos
- Read Rex Weyler’s writing (some here)
- Watch David Bohm talk about wholeness and fragmentation
- Watch Carlo Rovelli talk about his new book, The Order of Time
- Order a copy of The Edge of the Sea, or listen on audiobook (it’s a good one!)
