Journeying to the Millenium Organisation
Navigating through Chaos
An occasional paper from
the Open Space Institute of Canada
This paper was
written by Birgitt Williams of Dalar International and Michelle Cooper
of The Cooper Group Consultants. Much of the content is taken from THE
MILLENNIUM ORGANIZATION which was written by Harrison Owen (1994). Birgitt
and Michelle give you an overview of the Journey to the Millennium Organization
using Owen's teachings, as well as highlighting for you the role of the
manager along the journey.
Please note that
while the combination of thoughts in this article is our work, the majority
of the content is the work of Harrison Owen and the reader can get much
more insight from reading Millennium Organization. This article was merely
an attempt to capture Owen's work in a condensed form as a simple introduction
to the Millennium Organization and to the role of management in the "new"
organization, which is a question that Michelle and Birgitt are frequently
asked.
In 1981, we remember sitting
through seven weeks of an intensive management course in which we were
learning all about quality circles and what was then referred to as team
leadership. At the time it seemed like ground breaking management technique.
Like many managers of the time, we were taught and believed that carefully
controlled team leadership and careful use of quality circles, along with
management practice of making the plan, managing the plan, and meeting
the plan would have us move our organizations to the leading edge in efficiency
and competitiveness. In hindsight, this course as well as others taught
in the same era were not faulty in what they taught --it should have worked
and for a time it seemed to--but were faulty in what they did not teach.
But then as with all things in life, hindsight is wonderful, and we have
a choice about bemoaning that which did or did not happen, or to learn
from the hindsight and move to the future with new understanding.
In the late 1980's and early
1990's with some hanger-ons even today, there was a proliferation of material
about "managing change". The net result was that managers were
led to believe that change could be managed and hence controlled. We know
today that managing and controlling change is impossible, an act in frustration,
and usually a prolonging of unnecessary organizational stagnation and
pain. We also know that chaos is not going to go away, but is in fact
a very present force in our organizational lives.
Leading management experts
of the 1990's (Senge, Wheatley, Bridges, Owen, to name but a few) have
helped us to understand that our organizations are not closed systems
to which careful management practice can be applied, but are open systems
that call for entirely different management practice. At this point in
1996, our lived experience reflects this. The rules have changed. Usually,
by the time a plan is made, the rapidly changing environment has declared
it as obsolete. If we are then foolish enough to proceed with the plan,
we run into serious trouble. Managers are experiencing stress at record
levels. They try to work even harder, somehow more efficiently (as though
they weren't already doing so), but end up with that feeling of "the
more I do, the behinder I get". The environment is changing so rapidly
that chaos starts to seem all pervasive.
So we need to embrace the chaos,
learn how to navigate it, and proceed on our journey to the millenium
organization with a vision of what it might be. To do this we need to
understand the change process, we need to understand our role as managers
in the change process, we need to let go of the many fears we have, and
move to the new. We need to learn how to navigate.
Enter the work of Harrison
Owen. He puts other management/leadership theory and practice into perspective,
he discusses the importance of chaos, he provides a tool for navigating
through chaos (Open Space Technology), and he provides insight to the
characteristics of the Millennium Organization (see the bibliography at
the end of this paper for reference books). Owen has trained many of us
throughout the world in the use of Open Space Technology as a navigational
tool, sharing his material and insights, and inviting us to participate
in the evolving of Open Space Technology in the world.
THE JOURNEY
First we need to put the old
to rest by acknowledging that the organization as we knew it no longer
exists. The end of what was needs to be told and acknowledged. As human
beings we need to grieve that which was, whether it was good or bad, before
we can move on to the new.
THE ROLE OF MANAGEMENT IS TO
UNDERSTAND THAT WE NEED TO LEAVE BEHIND THE OLD, AND ASSIST THOSE IN THEIR
ORGANIZATIONS TO GO THROUGH THIS RECOGNITION AND THROUGH THE GRIEVING
PROCESS.
To do this, management must
learn about and understand the grief cycle and recognize that each person
goes through it at their own pace. It is helpful to name this for everyone
and assist everyone in understanding that they will likely all be at different
stages in the grief cycle.
The grief cycle is characterized
by shock and anger, denial, avoidance, resistance, and then memories.
When we are through these parts of the cycle, there is a time of chaos
when we know that the old is no longer but the new is not yet formed.
It is a time of change. The good news is that the new can be grown with
wonder and imagination (Owen, 1991).
THE ROLE OF MANAGEMENT IS TO
LET GO OF CONTROL. CHANGE CANNOT BE MANAGED OR CONTROLLED.
THE ROLE OF MANAGEMENT IS TO
UNDERSTAND CHANGE AND TAKE ON THE JOB OF THE MIDWIFE IN BIRTHING THE NEW.
THE ROLE OF MANAGEMENT IS TO
BE ABLE TO RECOGNIZE CHAOS AS ONE OF THE CONDITIONS NECESSARY FOR THE
NEW TO BE BORN. MANAGEMENT NEEDS TO LEARN ABOUT CHAOS, LEARN FROM IT,
PREPARE FOR CHAOS, AND THEN GO WITH THE FLOW.
THE ROLE OF MANAGEMENT IS TO
FIND TOOLS TO NAVIGATE THROUGH CHAOS TO THE NEW. THE TOOL THAT IS MOST
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED IS OPEN SPACE TECHNOLOGY.
THE ROLE OF MANAGEMENT IS TO
BE ABLE TO RECOGNIZE CHAOS AS ONE OF THE CONDITIONS FOR OPEN SPACE TO
MAKE A DIFFERENCE.
Open Space Technology
If Open Space Technology is
used as the way to get to the Millennium Organization, it is important
to note that there is exactly one way to derail the journey and that is
to attempt to control it. Spirit does not respond well to commands and
orders (Owen, 1994).
Owen has demonstrated that
one large Open Space event involving everyone in the organization is the
best way to get the journey to the millennium organization started. It
is fast, simple, effective, relatively inexpensive, and will change the
story of the organization with everyone involved in the change. People
are challenged and free to realize their potential and as a result they
take charge of the new and do good work. Following the one big Open Space
event, it is wise to have a number of Open Space events in series or simultaneously,
each one dealing with a separate business issue.
Owen is clear that there is
a limit to the number of Open Space events that one organization can digest.
There is a point (around about seven events) that Open Space moves from
the status of a special event to a way of doing business, and you know
that the Millennium Organization has arrived.
Telling the Story
The Critical Questions
With the use of Open Space
Technology as a navigational tool, it is essential to answer three fundamental
questions:
- Who are we?
- What are we doing here?
- Where are we going (what
are the issues and opportunities for our future?)?
This forms our organizational
story, our purpose for being. It is important to analyze the story, sustain
the story, listen and pay attention.
THE ROLE OF MANAGEMENT
IS TO WORK WITH THE STORY ON A DAILY BASIS
The Millenium Organization
From Owen (I994) we learn that
productive organizations will be flexible, adaptable, capable of constant
transformation, all the while maintaining a clear sense of purpose, meaning,
identity. It will generate high impact, effectiveness, and high overall
performance.
According to Owen, the Millennium
Organization is Spirit filled and supported by appropriate structure.
It grows from within and is not laid on from the top. Barriers to doing
a job quickly, with excellence and pride are eliminated. This results
in efficiency, high productivity, and shared leadership.
THE ROLE OF MANAGEMENT IS TO
FOCUS, GROW AND CULTIVATE THE SPIRIT OF THE ORGANIZATION.
Owen describes the Millennium
Organization as having the following characteristics:
- high learning
- high play
- appropriate structure and
control
- genuine community
High Learning
Owen is clear that it is chaos
that sends an organization on to its future. Enter the importance of learning.
Learning that is fully responsive to the chaotic conditions of the environment
and the organization as an Open System leads to creativity and innovation.
He acknowledges that while painful, chaos can open up any situation in
new and different ways. According to Owen, in the Millennium Organization
learning is an everyday, everybody, all together phenomenon.
High Play
As we explore new realities,
we engage in constant alternation between experience and concept, and
we need to do this playfully. Owen advises not to ask if the theory is
true, but rather whether it works. If it works, use it. If it doesn't,
try another. High play is characterized by the following principles: show
up, be present, tell the truth, let it go.
These principles are taught
by indigenous peoples around the world.
Appropriate Structure and
Control
According to Owen, the Millennium
Organization is more a matter of style than of structure. The structure
should be anything that works. The non-critical nature of size and structure
is a challenging statement to make in this era, when many are investing
heavily in moving toward the Millennium Organization by changing size
and structure as the essential components. Owen says that size and structure
make only a marginal difference in terms of impact, effectiveness, and
overall performance. It doesn't matter whether we configure our organizations
with no visible structure, or a flat-lined hierarchy, or a steeply ranked
hierarchy, or a circle. The critical element about structure is that the
structure is appropriate to the task, the environment, and to the people
involved. The metaphor that Owen uses is that structure in an organization
is like shoes on the feet, with different shoes for different occasions.
The organization may well find it necessary to operate from multiple structures
simultaneously.
THE ROLE OF MANAGEMENT IS TO
PUT IT ALL TOGETHER. MANAGEMENT IN THE MILLENNIUM ORGANIZATION IS NOT
PERFORMED BY AN ELITE GROUP OF PEOPLE, BUT A FUNCTION TO BE PERFORMED
BY ANYBODY. THERE ARE A NUMBER OF CENTRES OF CONTROL BASED ON TASK AND
FUNCTION. THE ROLE OF MANAGEMENT IS TO ENSURE AND ENABLE THE GROWTH OF
APPROPRIATE STRUCTURE TO SUSTAIN THE NEW CULTURE. THE STRUCTURE NEEDS
TO SUPPORT THE SPIRIT (DYNAMIC PURPOSE) OF THE ORGANIZATION.
Genuine Community
Owen states that we do not
have to work at building community. He says in the past that we have worked
hard at this with seminars, training programs, books and videos, but that
the more we tried, the further we got from our intended objective. Somehow
we built walls, created boundaries, and created turf. In his experience,
when structure and control stand in the service of learning and play,
community is the inevitable result. Leadership becomes a shared phenomenon
which is passed around depending on the task at hand. This phenomenon
was grown in Open Space, with passion linked to responsibility.The net
result is genuine community.
We have successfully used Open
Space Technology to move many organizations along on their journey to
the Millennium Organization. We thank Harrison Owen for his pioneering
work in giving organizations this navigating tool and insight into the
Millennium Organization.
A Selected Bibliography
Bridges, William. Managing
Transitions: Making the Most of Change
1991 ISBN 0-201-55073-3
Owen, Harrison. Spirit:
Transformation and Development in Organizations
1987 ISBN 0-9618205-0-0
Owen, Harrison. Leadership
Is
1990 ISBN 0-9618205-1-9
Owen, Harrison. Riding
the Tiger
1991 ISBN 0-9618205-2-7
Owen, Harrison. Open
Space Technology: A User's Guide
1992 ISBN 0-9618205-3-5
Owen, Harrison. The
Millennium Organization
1994 ISBN 0-9618205-4-3
Owen, Harrison. Tales
from Open Space
1995 ISBN 0-9618205-5-1
Senge, Peter. The Fifth
Discipline: the art and practice of the learning organization
1990 ISBN 0-385-26095-4
Wheatley, Margaret.
Leadership and the New Science
1992 ISBN 1-881052-01-x
To obtain copies of other occasional
papers, or to order copies of Harrison Owen's books, contact the Open
Space institute of Canada, 15 Delisle Ave., Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V
1S8 (416) 975-9229 (phone)
Birgitt Williams can be reached
at info@dalarinternational.com
Michelle Cooper can be reached
at coopgrp@interlynx.net
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