Organizing Patterns

Over the millennia, human beings have developed many different ways of organizing together. One of the questions that the Art of Hosting community is continually asking itself is “What are the organizational concepts that we can develop together that are actually good for us, and are good for this time?”

Circle / Council - Nomadic Age		Hierarchy – Agricultural Age
Networks – Information Age		Bureaucracy – Industrial Age

Circle
The mother of all our organizational forms – humans started sitting in circle as soon as they invented fires to sit around. We told stories, held elder councils and solved problems in this way. This form is very useful for reflection, storytelling, being together. Purpose is in the centre – it is shared.

Triangle (hierarchy)
Then we stopped our nomadic wandering and settled in one place, we developed agriculture. Some people had more or better land than others, and we began to develop hierarchies where one person or group of people had power and every body else did not. And now we had belongings that we needed to protect. The triangular form of hierarchy is very useful for action, for getting things done. The boss says “this is what needs to happen”, and the others say “yes, sir!” and do it. Purpose is at the top.

Square (bureaucracy)
The more we got settled, the more we had to sustain. Our systems got very complicated, our population exploded, and the bureaucracy developed. It really is a development of the hierarchy, and becomes very complex, with lots of structures and processes involved. Bureaucracy is fantastic for stability and maintaining the status quo, and for managing complex situations. It typically moves slowly. Purpose in the bureaucracy is also at the top.

Networks
A more recent organizational form, networks are collections of individuals, circles or triangles – nodes that are connected together. We rarely find networked collections of bureaucracies, but networks can and often do spring up inside them. Networks are great for relationship and innovation, and for getting things done fast. The connection is guided by individual purpose. The different nodes are connected together because their respective purposes need each other. Once the need is no longer there, the network connection will most often lapse.

When a new organizational form emerges, the older ones do not disappear. Each form has both advantages and shortcomings – each is good for different things.

When we want to start an organisation ourselves or organize something in our lives, which one of these organizational forms do we choose? What we have seen in the Art of Hosting community is that we need to build structures that can use any of these forms at the right time. As need arises, how are we able to respond with the most useful organizational form?

When something needs to get done, then triangle is great. When we need to stop and reflect, circle is useful. When we need stability, it is good to have a bureaucracy. When we need to innovate, networks work best. So what is the next level of organizational form that can hold all of these? The Art of Hosting community is observing the emergence of a new pattern…

Introducing the fifth paradigm

At the centre, always, is our purpose. Typically, a core team will gather in a circle around a purpose, which will be based on meeting a need that is felt in our life contexts. As we gather around the core purpose, we begin to form relationships with others in the circle that, as we map the connections, start to show up as a network. But while these relationships can help us all with our individual work, they do not necessarily allow us to manifests our shared purpose in the world, which will typically involve making things happen. The first step might be to develop actions to sustain the core team. So individual members take responsibility for different aspects – like organizing meetings or raising funds - other members step up in a support role and this leads to the formation of triangles. The triangles will be dictated by the central purpose. Hierarchy forms in response to central purpose – not somebody’s ego!

Once the core team is sustainable, the next step is typically to open up the conversation to the wider community that feels the need that informs the purpose at the centre of our circle. A triangle from the core team might then get together to call a larger-scale assembly, which might become a circle of supporters for the larger project. The inner circle is reaching out to the next level, which will in turn reach out to a wider community, creating concentric circles rippling out into our society, each circle connected to the others by triangles animating action informed by the core purpose.


The pattern of core purpose, circles, triangles and networks repeats again and again. Another typical finding is that as the core team goes out into the community and the conversation expands, the core purpose is informed by a broader perspective and is adjusted accordingly, to accommodate the next level of scale and action.

It is important to understand that what we are describing here is not a deliberately designed model, but the description of a pattern that has emerged naturally and spontaneously throughout the global hosting community as we have collectively developed our work of hosting in ever-larger and more complex adaptive systems.

Example of the fifth paradigm: the Food And Society Conference organized by the Kellogg Foundation in the USA.  

The 5 ‘Breaths’ of Design

Over the years many hosts saw their work with different (larger scale) initiatives as a follow-up of different ‘breaths’, different phases of divergence and convergence. They became know as the Five Breaths. As we learn, in reflection on the work that we do, it is most likely that this pattern will gain more clarity in the months and years to come…

First breath: CALL

• Name the issue – calling the core question – birth of the callers.

• We noticed that there is always ‘a caller’, the person who holds deeply a question, a problem, a challenge. Sometimes there are a few callers. They will invite the host(s) to help them.

• Wise Action: Focus the chaos of holding the collective uncertainty and fear. Step into the center of the disturbance

• Don’t: Move too fast

• Question: What is really at stake here? What if some of us worked together to surface the real question and need that matters to the community?

• When the caller has reached the commitment to call the process, we go to the next phase.

Second breath: CLARIFY

• Creating the Ground: Callers and hosts create collective clarity of purpose and principles 1.0.

• Wise Action: Engagement

• Don’t: Make assumptions

• Question: How to get from need to purpose? What is our purpose? How to see and feed the group value?

• This phase goes to the next when the clarity emerges from the core.

Third breath: INVITE

• Giving Form and Structure: Design and invitation process

• Wise Action: Check in again and again to see if your design and invitation serve the purpose.

• Don’t: Try to do too much in your design (match it to the purpose).

• Question: How do we create an inspired invitation (process) that moves people to come? How do we let go of our expectations that certain people need to be there?

• This phase goes to the next when the design is made, the invitation process has brought a larger group of stakeholders, organisation has found a good space: time to meet!

Fourth breath: MEET

• Meeting – Conversation

• Our role is hosting the group, the purpose, and the questions.

• Don’t: Go alone.

• Question: How can I best serve as the instrument/container to allow the collective wisdom?

• When done the group of stakeholders find collective meaning and start to co-create.

Fifth breath: ACT

• Practice: Acting out the decided wise actions. Follow-up—Continued Learning and Leading from the Field

• Wise Action: Always come back to purpose.

• Don’t: Lose sight of the purpose or it won’t be embodied.

• Question: How do we sustain the self-organization?

• Here the seed of community gets born, and the results are a connectedness between the stakeholders and wiser actions.

• From here the next calling question arises…

The Chaordic Stepping Stones

There are clear strategic steps we take when walking the Chaordic path. These steps allow us to create steps rooted in real need that are sustainable for the community they serve and the people working within them. These steps can be used both as a planning tool and to help understand what you are discovering about an organization, community or initiative.
However, these stones don’t have a consistent starting point. For example, you might find yourself (or those you are working with) beginning with a concept, lacking clarity of need or purpose.  Another way to think of these are as facets, sides to a gem. Each illuminates the gem.
The Chaordic process is in continual motion, each step integrating and including the previous steps. It is not a linear process - it is an iterative process - supported by an ongoing documentation or harvest and feed back loop. Once you have defined the principles you check back if they support the purpose etc. The process allows us to be able to remain in reflection and practice.

Before we described principles as "principles of co-operation" - which is absolutely crucial for creating a container for the core team - but the principles are also a way of describing the "end-product", while you still do not have the fixed solution. Read the story of the VISA card - they did not know that the end product was a VISA card - but they could describe it through principles - "infinitely malleable" etc.  - some of the principles did describe the cooperation between stake-holders as well.

When we talk about people – people tend to refer to the core team - whereas Dee Hock refers to all relevant stakeholders - getting their input before they go and create the concept (for the VISA card).

The Chaordic Design Process 

The chaordic design process has six dimensions, beginning with purpose and ending with practice. Each of the six dimensions can be thought of as a lens through which participants examine the circumstances giving rise to the need for a new organization or to re-conceive an existing one.

Developing a self-organizing, self-governing organization worthy of the trust of all participants usually requires intensive effort. To maximize their chances of success, most groups have taken a year or more on the process. During that time, a representative group of individuals (sometimes called a drafting team) from all parts of the engaged organization or community meet regularly and work through the chaordic design process.

The steps involved in conceiving and creating a more chaordic organization are:

Develop a statement of purpose

The first step is to define, with absolute clarity and deep conviction, the purpose of the community. An effective statement of purpose will be a clear, commonly understood statement of that which identifies and binds the community together as worthy of pursuit. When properly done, it can usually be expressed in a single sentence. Participants will say about the purpose, "If we could achieve that, my life would have meaning."

Define a set of principles

Once the purpose has been clearly stated, the next step is to define, with the same clarity, conviction and common understanding, the principles by which those involved will be guided in pursuit of that purpose. Principles typically have high ethical and moral content, and developing them requires engaging the whole person, not just the intellect. The best will be descriptive, not prescriptive, and each principle will illuminate the others. Taken as a whole, together with the purpose, the principles constitute the body of belief that will bind the community together and against which all decisions and acts will be judged.

Identify all participants
With clarity about purpose and principles, the next step is to identify all relevant and affected parties - the participants whose needs, interests and perspectives must be considered in conceiving (or reconceiving) the organization. As drafting team members pursue their work, their perceptions of who constitutes a stakeholder will typically expand. They now have an opportunity to ensure that all concerned individuals and groups are considered when a new organizational concept is sought.

Create a new organizational concept
When all relevant and affected parties have been identified, drafting team members creatively search for and develop a general concept for the organization. In the light of purpose and principles, they seek innovative organizational structures that can be trusted to be just, equitable and effective with respect to all participants, in relation to all practices in which they may engage. They often discover that no existing form of organization can do so and that something new must be conceived.

Write a constitution
Once the organizational concept is clear, the details of organizational structure and functioning are expressed in the form of a written constitution and by-laws. These documents will incorporate, with precision, the substance of the previous steps. They will embody purpose, principles and concept, specify rights, obligations and relationships of all participants, and establish the organization as a legal entity under appropriate jurisdiction.

Foster Innovative Practices

With clarity of shared purpose and principles, the right participants, an effective concept and a clear constitution, practices will naturally evolve in highly focused and effective ways. They will harmoniously blend cooperation and competition within a transcendent organization trusted by all. Purpose is then realized far beyond original expectations, in a self-organizing, self-governing system capable of constant learning and evolution.

Drawing the Pieces into a Whole

The process is iterative. Each step sheds new light on all of the preceding steps and highlights where modifications or refinements need to be made. In effect, the process continually folds back on itself, more fully clarifying the previous steps even as each new dimension is explored. Over time, the elements become deeply integrated. None is truly finished until all are finished.

Two risks are frequently encountered - moving onto the next stage too quickly and allowing the striving for perfection to bog down the process. The first risk is common when working on purpose and principles, where agreement on "platitudes" can often be reached even when underlying differences persist. In these situations, finding an easy answer that pleases everyone is not enough; digging deeper to find richer and more meaningful understanding and agreement is essential. This can be taken to an extreme, of course, which leads to the second risk. Perfection is not required and will never be attained. Getting a very good answer that is "good enough" to move on to the next step is the goal. Keep in mind that what is done at each stage will be subsequently refined.

The most difficult parts of the process are releasing preconceived notions about the nature and structure of organizations and understanding their origins in our own minds. We often catalyze this process by asking the question: "If anything imaginable were possible, if there were no constraints whatever, what would be the nature of an ideal institution to accomplish our purpose?"

There is no absolutely right or wrong way to undertake and proceed through the chaordic design process, but we typically observe the following pattern in our work with organizations:
 

•    One or two sessions exploring the core chaordic concepts with a leadership or initiating group. We urge groups and organizations to take time to assess the relevance and "fit" of chaordic concepts and processes for their circumstances. Having key participants consider and endorse a major change initiative is essential if the effort is to have a serious chance of success.

•    One or two sessions determining participants, developing resources and devising a strategy for working through the chaordic design process. One or more months of work are typically required to organize the resources and support that an organizational development effort will need. This includes the development of several dedicated teams with responsibility for project management and staffing, outreach and communications, and organizational concept and design.

•    A series of in-depth meetings, each several days in length, to work through each of the six elements. Some elements, such as principles and organizational concept, often take more than a single meeting. It is not uncommon for this series of meeting to take at least a year, sometimes two, especially when dealing with large, complex organizations or industries.

•    Ongoing analytic and educational support for process participants. Issues invariably arise that require more detailed research or attention by a special team. Research on industry-specific matters, or mapping potential participants and their current relationships to each other, are examples. Legal analysis is often required.

•    Chartering and implementation. Our aim is to create a dynamic, evolving organization. Yet implementation of the new concept can take several month. In the case of existing organizations seeking to transform themselves, a careful strategy for the transition from one structure to another must be created. When a new organization is being formed, it may take some months for individuals and other institutions to elect to join and participate.

Resource:

Dee Hock, Birth of the Chaordic Age, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, San Francisco

Read the Visa story under Resources!