As a political activist I frequently contemplate how
activist organizations pursue strategies over long periods of time, even when
the situations they seek to rectify or reform become increasingly dire. One
key to the puzzle is the dynamic of self-organization, a phenomenon of complex
adaptive systems. Applied to social experience, self-organization is expressed
through the tenacious integration of individual capacities with social
organizational needs.
Here’s the conundrum in personal terms. You have a leadership role in an advocacy
organization that engages your talents and gives you great satisfaction…. Your
colleagues appreciate your contributions, you receive recognition for your
work, either through gratifying personal relationships and/or monetary
compensation and your efforts are your personal, intellectual, political and/or
spiritual investments in what you believe.
In these circumstances there are limited if any incentives
for you or the organization to change course…even if the strategies are not
bringing about the change envisioned in the mission. This example of self-organization resonates
with Einstein’s remark, “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and
expecting different results….”
Self-organization is the sine qua non of ‘the whole is
greater than the sum of its parts.’ The
challenge is where to find the levers to reconfigure the parts that a newly
formed whole can emerge.
Under what conditions can the values, interests and skills of
individual participants be tapped to contribute to a modified vision, new set
of strategies and/or a different tactical approach? Or, at what point do
reflection and discomfort among participants provide the stimulus for
rethinking organizational direction? And, how open are participants to
acknowledging that what they know best is not good enough and to unlearning
what they know best as they learn new best ways?
Bifurcation points and gaps are concepts from complex
systems theory that depict moments where a system is hovering between
directions, where the current situation is not tenable, but a new direction or
configuration has yet to emerge. Our
capacity for self-reflection enables us to be both witness and participant in
these adaptive processes.
The symmetry of individual reflection and personal challenge
with organizational effectiveness is a common experience in tumultuous
times. Bifurcation points, individual
and organizational, social and cultural are moments of intense ambiguity, ambivalence,
uncertainty, anxiety and fear. In such times we are particularly vulnerable to
manipulation and easy answers to assuage the discomfort of knowing the status
quo is not holding and where we are going is not clear and pretty much beyond
our control.
