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The "I don't have time" factor in collective intelligence, conscious social systems, and co-evolution

Submitted by Tom Atlee on March 12, 2006 - 20:53.
If we don't take time to see, think, feel and act together, how conscious can our social systems be?... how much collective intelligence can we generate or tap into?... how effectively can we co-evolve?... Those of us doing evolutionary organizing work run into this issue when we and others don't seem to have time to do what seems necessary. Informed reflection about this issue uncovers a rich and deeply interconnected tangle of personal, spiritual, cultural, social policy, technological, and other factors. Do we have time for that reflection? Do we have time to deal with what we find? Is "lack of time" really the heart of the matter, or is it a symptom of one or more deeper dynamics? Can we create the world we want without addressing this? What ideas or resources can help us with this topic?

A big part of our problem is

Submitted by Lion Kimbro on March 13, 2006 - 20:09.

A big part of our problem is that our communication technology here makes it really hard to (A) figure out what is relevant to us, (B) filter out what is not relevant to us, (C) summarize for others, (D) delete what is old, unnecessary, and useless.

So, I "efficiently suggested" an evo nexus wiki, and I've just transcribed this page over to it, as part of a demonstration.

The conversation about: "It would be nice if there were a forum on..." discussion is now moot, because anybody can "make a forum" by just smashing words up together, as I did on that page.

I'm crossing my fingers, hoping you can figure out how this works, and how it solves a huge mass of our communications difficulties here. 

Doubt that hierarchy is the time saver.

Submitted by Lion Kimbro on March 13, 2006 - 19:34.

"Solid structures and rules and hierarchy do a lot to handle "not enough time.""

I'm not so sure; I thought that it was "letting people do what they want to do" was the market's solution to the not-enough-time problem that they had in Communism. (Theory of the Firm.) 

Instead of having to send messages up & down a hierarchy, the individual components can work much faster.

Within an established hierarchy, it is more efficient to have solid rules and form. Granted.

But hierarchy itself is a stopper, and necessitates communications whereas, before, there were none.

One thing that's clear to me is that this medium is working against us.

I'm strongly tempted to just set up an OddWiki, beg everyone to put their posts their, and beg people to stop emailing each other. That would instantly cut down dramatically on the amount we felt we had to read.

thanks, Tom.

Submitted by Tree Fitz on March 13, 2006 - 00:17.

thanks for the explanation.

 And yes, I'd like there to be a forum for 'how to create the evolution'

Why this got posted here

Submitted by Tom Atlee on March 13, 2006 - 00:12.
Tree, I appreciate your catch re targeting me with the "why is this posted here?" question -- and pointing out that it is a collective question. To answer it: the Moving the Edge (MtE) conference planners put up a blog elsewhere for MtE participants to post things related to collective intelligence moving the edge of evolution (the theme of that conference). I felt the "not having time" inquiry was relevant, so I cut out all the ES3 details and posted it on that blog. In our MtE phone call today, I was told that they'd decided to do those discussions at EvolutionaryNexus, so I suggested I'd post it as a forum here. I looked for a Forum on "Leading Edge Issues in Evolutionary Work" or something like that, and there was none and I couldn't figure out how to post one. So I entered the MtE Forums and created this within that. That's the story, for better or worse. But ideally, there would be a whole-community forum on "General Issues of Concern to Evolutionary Workers" or something like that -- which could also, by the way, include your money inquiries.

The challenge of initiating change

Submitted by Ria Baeck on March 12, 2006 - 23:57.

The "I don't have time" factor is the first one that Senge et al. describes in his book 'The Dance of Change. The challenges to Sustaining Momentum in Learning Organisations'. He puts it under the heading of "challenges for initiating change", there are other one's for continuing change and more.

In Senge's 'learning' language he writes that, if a learning initiative wants to be succesful, important people need to schedule time voor new activities: reflection, planning, working as a group and training. And he admits that it can consume a lot of time.

But he states that the underlying problem is not "not enough time", but a lack of flexibility. He means with this: can people set priorities in their own schedule?

From my own life I can share that if I have the feeling of "not enough time", I stop doing things and go to sit and meditate. Because this "not enough time" is NOT what I want in the world that I want to create. How can I be part of creating the new, while still in the same 'mood' as the world that I don't want? 

Senge writes that it can be very useful to inquire into the underlying assumptions we hold about time flexibility. 

My guess is that "not enough time" is a deep, deep collective assumption we hold in the Western world. We don't have time for change, we don't have time for reflection, we don't have time for long term thinking. 

In one of Tom's emails when he was in his retreat he send some lines (don't find it back, don't remember who it wrote) and it goes something like this: We don't have time any more to do it quickly. Since then it is written deep in my brain and in my cells. I keep it as my main mantra these days.

Senge writes further that our collective assumption goes back to the model of 'humans as components in a machine'. Components cannot decide about their time. But we are humans; what makes us different from machines and animals is that we have the capacity to reflect.

Individual reflection is basic; and collective reflection is needed. The question is not: "Do we have time for that reflection?" But: do I and we take the time for the reflection? Do we decide to make that the priority?

That was my part of an answer ... 

I love the 'slack' input, tom

Submitted by Tree Fitz on March 12, 2006 - 23:17.

Wow.  27 users online.  Look what energy we have together.  There were ten when I logged on.

 

 

To give each other slack = ???

Submitted by Ria Baeck on March 12, 2006 - 23:10.

I had to look it up, this is what the dictionary told me: 

Idiom:
cut/give (someone) some slack

Slang To make an allowance for (someone), as in allowing more time to finish something.

responding, a bit, to Tom

Submitted by Tree Fitz on March 12, 2006 - 23:02.
I am wondering, Tom, why you put this conversation in the section for the conference in Denmark?

 

I have actually written a detailed, lengthy response to your note, Tom.  I was letting it sit overnight before I shared it with you.  I am happy to have the conversation here on evonexus. . . . . but I am confused why you put it here?  hmmmmmmm. . . . doesn't my confusion illustrate some of what you are talking about as you ask 'what about responsbility in this kind of work?  Where should we put this discussion so that folks will know to find it?

I have lots of thoughts about how to create containers for the way we ahve been working on ES3.  In a way, thinking about new containers to contain human systems in transformation has been the central conversation in my life for almost twenty years.  A big dissatisfaction I have had with working on ES3 is that we rushed into a date and a commitment to stick to the date without doing all kinds of preliminary planning that I believe we might have done. We're going to have a great event, yes, but for me, it is just as important that an evolutionary salon be a great experience for the planning team ............ i.e. the planning work should also be a great experience.  I believe it is possible . . . and almost easy . . . . . to plan for a good planning experience but we did not do this.  We all rushed in headlong.  I have voiced my anxiety about this lack of planning and been ignored. . . . we all feel the wave, we all feel catapulted.

 

 

 

Here are some free-associative thoughts:

I am the lead organizer that Tom mentioned and he's right, the 'flaw' that resulted in an invitation going out with some thoughtlessness is no more my responsibility than any of the other organizers. . . . I have to resist the temptation to blame myself, actually. . . . but the fault, dear reader, is in our collective selves, not in one person.

 

another point that is real important to me, Tom, is to point out to you that I am not working for free, as a volunteer.  We will be asking people attending ES3 to pay a fee for the fantastic, professionally administered and expertly facilitated four-day gathering, just as one would expect to pay for any other four-day, professionally-administered and expertly facilitated event. Just because I don't know how much I will be paid, I do expect to be paid.  And I sincerely expect all the other people working to make this happen, working very hard, to be holding a clear belief, not just an expectation but a full blown belief, that they will be paid a fair, sustainable wafe for their good and valuable work.  I know, Tom, that your reference to 'volunteers' was only made in passing but it is not evolutionarily sustainable to have a bunch of brilliant people working to create amazing events without compensation.  Yes, we have created an experimental money container to make the event accessible but it is important that everyone working on the event that wants to be paid holds the expecatation that they will be paid.  People are of course, free to work for free, but people who want to be paid need to be clear, esp. within themselves.

This is part of a larger inquiry about evolutionary organizing

Submitted by Tom Atlee on March 12, 2006 - 21:08.

(Note: I sent the following to a lead organizer of the May Evolutionary Salon after a letter with several major errors was sent out to a broad list, and that lead organizer was held responsible. The problem didn't come from her, but from the group as a whole not taking time to do certain things. I think this issue is critical for any group that aspires to be and/or to create a "conscious social system" characterized by a field of collective intelligence.)

This is another part of being a conscious social system, I guess: Being aware that we are operating on different assumptions here than in a normal organizational framework. What, if anything, constitutes or replaces "responsibility" and "answerability" in a volunteer operation like this? What are the role and limits of "trust" and "giving slack"? How much time and attention do we each -- and as a group -- put in to establishing our organization and agreements, to tracking what's happening, and to learning from the outcomes (including successes, consequences, and surprises) of our individual and collective actions? 

This issue is of broad concern to me, given that virtually every action being done in this nascent "movement" is like this one, and subject to these questions -- and because these questions lie at the very heart of what we say we are about. In other words, this question may be the most important of all:

"What is the relationship between time and being a conscious social system?" 

Paying attention takes time. Formulating and exploring questions takes time. Communicating thoughtfully takes time. Changing arrangements and behaviors takes time. What is the meaning of "I/we don't have enough time", given what we are doing? It isn't a question of making each other wrong or feeling guilty. It is a question of what is waiting to be learned about "not enough time" in the context of "creating conscious social systems." Perhaps none of us has time to explore that question!!! 

Solid structures and rules and hierarchy do a lot to handle "not enough time." You need less thinking and less processing time to get things done. And the resulting system is less conscious, responsive, alive, and life-friendly. So what do we do? 

Giving each other slack is, I think, a big part of the answer. But there may be limits to that, too, if we are to actually function and produce results. And while giving slack may make our work together more psychologically comfortable, it doesn't necessarily help us learn together and become more conscious together.... 

So what are the nascent principles at work and to be discovered here? Where's the leverage for evolutionary movement? What's needed?