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CCK08 Week Five: Groups vs Networks vs Communities
Week 5 of the Connectivism MOOC
is about the distinction between groups and networks. One of the key
readings for the week was written by my friend Stephen Downes when he was obviously high on something (possibly New Zealand, which will do that to you).
The point of the lesson is to distinguish groups, which are apparently inherently homogeneous and hierarchical, from networks, which are apparently neither. Members of both are connected to each other. George Siemens asserts
that most organized collective activity (like education) fails to
recognize the identity of the selves within the collective. Rather than
groups vs networks, he distinguishes collectives (in which the self is
subsumed) from connectives (in which autonomy of self is retained).
"As we integrate our ideas and concepts with others'" he says, "and we
extend them into some kind of collective activity, there is an
important protection of self in which we retain our identity and our
contributions."
I thought this dichotomy rather interesting in
the context of the diagram above (which Chris Corrigan and I
collectively, or perhaps connectively, created) of the dynamic of
decision making which moves from individual engagement and cognition
through collective conversation and consensus and thence to individual
action, following a Scharmer "U" pattern.
Are we not, I thought, iteratively and simultaneously collective and connective,
producing some "work product" that is collective, that of the
integrated group, and some that is connective, the individual
acceptance of responsibility and resultant actions, whether they be
done alone or with others?
George goes on to warn that groups
will coerce individuals with deviant ideas to conform to the group
norm, with the result that groups stifle innovation. Networks are
positioned as the compromise in the continuum from highly diverse
independent individuals and conforming, structured groups.
This
model doesn't jibe with what I've observed in workplaces throughout my
life. Using the terminology of the Wisdom of Crowds, my experience has
been that:
- "crowds" that are diverse
have particular talents (decision-making and prediction among them)
that are better than that of either "expert" individuals or non-diverse
groups;
- innovation works best when there is a balance between creative thinkers and critical thinkers; and
- groups
and networks that do not share a common understanding of an issue spend
most of their time and energy trying to find a common context, and
often never get around to applying their abilities to finding solutions
to the issue.
Can groups be dangerous? Of course. Groupthink
has ruined many once-great companies. Cults are one of the scourges of
civilization. Mobs, of organized criminals, religious zealots or
drunken college students, can cause havoc and heartache and ruin lives.
But groups of people with a shared purpose and shared set of
values and principles have also, as Margaret Mead has said, achieved
important changes that would not have been possible any other way. They
are what we call communities.
Networks
are useful for the reasons explained in Granovetter's "Strength of Weak
Ties". They are 'farm teams' for the communities that you do your most
important work with, the 'trade routes' between communities. They are
often delightful, stimulating, and helpful when you need something in a
hurry. But to me, networks are too loose, too fragmented to be
communities or to
accomplish any of the important things that communities can do.
Communities are connective and
collective and only they can fully enable the powerful activities
depicted in the graphic above. As I've said before, love, conversation
and community are the essence of what it means to be human, alive,
connected, part of all-life-on-Earth. |
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Six Steps to Natural Enterprise: A Synopsis of "Finding the Sweet Spot"
This will be the first of a series of 'teasers' on my new book Finding the Sweet Spot,
available from most booksellers or online from the sites listed in the
right sidebar. A complete set of reviews of the book (thank you,
reviewers!) can be found on Beth Patterson's site here.
I've
spent most of my professional life helping entrepreneurs succeed. After
I'd worked with over a hundred, I began to notice something special
about a small number of them. Their people smiled all the time. They
loved their work. They didn't work especially hard. Their customers
loved them, so much that they rarely had to do any marketing -- word of
mouth was enough. They were partnerships of equals, working together,
with no 'boss'. They had few or no debts, and were beholden to no one.
They were connected to, responsive to, and responsible to, their
people, customers and the communities in which they worked. They were
environmentally sustainable and economically resilient, not vulnerable
to vagaries of the market or economy. They had created the kind of
workplaces that made you say "Boy! I'd love to work in a place like
that!"
So I studied them, to try to find what made them special,
different from all the rest. I found they had mostly done six things
differently from all other entrepreneurs. When I looked at these six
things, they seemed obvious to me, until I realized that none of these
things is taught in business school, and none of them is the
"conventional wisdom" of what starting your own business is about. So I
decided to write a book about them, in the hopes that others could use
this "formula" to escape from wage slavery and create their own
responsible, sustainable, joyful enterprises -- what I have come to
call Natural Enterprises. Chelsea Green agreed to publish the book under the name Finding the Sweet Spot.
Here, in a nutshell, are the six things these remarkable entrepreneurs did differently:
- They discovered what they were meant to do.
The work they do is in the "sweet spot" where their Gifts (the things
they do uniquely well), their Passions (the things they love doing),
and their Purpose (the things people in the world really need, that
these entrepreneurs care about) intersect. This "sweet spot" is Area 3
in the three-circle chart above. When I studied all the unhappy and
unsuccessful entrepreneurs I knew, I found they were doing work outside
this "sweet spot", most often in Area 2 (unappreciated work) or Area 5
(work they did well but hated). So the whole first chapter of the book
is about how to find that "sweet spot" for you, with lots of examples
and exercises. It's really all about knowing yourself, a voyage of
self-discovery.
- They found the right partners.
The biggest mistake most entrepreneurs make is trying to do everything
alone. It's a recipe for failure and exhaustion. Natural Entrepreneurs
seek out partners who share their Purpose, and whose Gifts and Passions
complement their own. That
way, everyone gets to do what they're good at and love doing. Chapter 2
of the book suggests how and where to find just the right partners.
- They did their research to discover a real unmet need.
Where most businesses start with a product, and then try to chase money
and customers for it, Natural Entrepreneurs start with a need that no
one else is meeting. They do that not by copying anything else out
there, or by looking for ideas online, but by talking to lots and lots
of potential customers (this is called "primary research") and
discovering something that people really need which no one is
providing. So Chapter 3 of the book explains a simple, rigorous
research process, one that draws on the processes used by the world's
best research organizations.
- They innovated a product or service that met that need in a unique way.
The innovation process, which I explain in Chapter 4, enables you to
iteratively imagine and then realize products and services that are
significantly different from anything already in the market, so that
you are not competing with anyone else -- you are creating a new market
for something that you have already established meets a need not met by anyone else.
- They made their organizations resilient to marketplace changes.
Because they were so connected to their customers and so responsive to
their communities, they knew what was happening before anyone else, and
they perfected improvisational skills and processes that allowed them
to adapt quickly to change, instead of locking into plans that
inhibited their flexibility. Chapter 5 of the book provides examples of
how to make your organization more resilient and improvisational.
- They built strong, collaborative relationships and networks, and operated their enterprises "on principle".
They understood that powerful social relationships are the underpinning
to all human enterprise, and that collaboration succeeds better than
competition. And by sticking to principles of responsibility and
sustainability they ensured that these relationships were deep,
trusting, and reciprocal. Chapter 6 explains how to build strong
business relationships and networks, and provides examples of
principles that engender trust and guide responsible, responsive
decision-making.
Finding the Sweet Spot starts you on your
journey to Natural Enterprise, and contains a full set of resources,
including books by successful Natural Entrepreneurs like Dave Smith and
John Abrams who tell you their stories in greater detail.
As I
watch our economy unraveling, I am more and more convinced that we need
to create a whole Natural Economy of responsible, sustainable, joyful,
Natural Enterprises, and that the time is now. I hope you'll pick up a
copy of the book and help me make it happen.
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Play
Johan Huizinga, who wrote a book on the subject, defined play as follows:
a
free activity standing quite consciously outside ‘ordinary’ life as
being ‘not serious’ but at the same time absorbing the player intensely
and utterly
Other books have urged the incorporation of
more play into health and fitness routines, school activities, work
activities, and of course social activities. Play is more engaging,
easier to persevere with, more relaxing and stimulating and creative.
It helps you to think differently.
We
use the term to mean many things: hobbies, games, dancing,
role-playing, roughhousing and other unstructured physical exercise
(alone or socially), story-telling and other imagining and innovating
activities, joking, flirting and other empathic activities, using toys,
and a variety of sports and recreational activities. We say we 'play' a
musical instrument. We contrast it to work, which is 'serious'
activity. Yet for many play is fiercely competitive, and for them it is
only 'fun' if you win. Is this still play?
A few years ago I wrote about Tom Robbins' concept of 'crazy wisdom':
Robbins
describes his personal experiences with near-suicidal depression, and
how he was able to pull himself back from the brink of what he calls
Weltschmerz (What a wonderful word! -- per dictionary.com it means
"Sadness over the evils of the world, especially as an expression of
romantic pessimism.") The trick was to rediscover playfulness,
or what the Tibetan Buddhists call Crazy Wisdom. Robbins says it is
"the wisdom that evolves when one, while refusing to avert one's gaze
from the sorrows and injustices of the world, insists on joy in spite
of everything".
Hmmm. For many people I know, what should
properly be play (i.e. joyous and fun) is instead essential therapy for
coping with their Weltschmerz:
- Our commercial entertainments are ultra-violent and escapist (to inure us to the pain of everyday modern living?)
- Comedies
are cruel put-downs of caricatures, whose sole function seems to be to
make those with low self-esteem feel that at least someone is stupider
or more ridiculous than they are.
- Sports are either so
competitive as to provoke fights and tantrums, or so 'extreme' as to
provoke near-cardiac arrest. This is supposed to be fun? And what exactly is a 'spectator sport' anyway -- vicarious play?
- Video
games are addictive, needing no imagination and little real social
interaction, and seem to test one's capacity to manage chronic
excessive adrenaline flow rather than evoking anything that could be
called real pleasure.
- In fact, a lot of 'recreational
activities' (what exactly is being 'recreated' here?) are addictive --
gambling, drug use, overeating, and shopping probably being the big 4
-- and I don't believe that when you can't stop doing something it's
still 'play'.
- Sex is portrayed as desperate, cathartic, even
painful. Is this a realistic portrayal what happens in most of the
world's bedrooms -- a stress-busting, power-displaying, skill-testing,
sleep-inducing 'workout', when it should be play, fun, and full of
laughter? If so, no wonder it's disappeared from so many relationships,
and has driven so many to consume performance-enhancing drugs.
- I suspect exactly the same can be said of the dating 'game'.
- "Work
hard play hard" is presented as the model for leaders. But to me if you
work that hard, you're probably not working smart. And isn't gentle
play more fun?
In short, I think we've lost the practice, and forgotten the meaning, of play.
While I agree with John Perry Barlow that we should not pursue happiness for its own sake, I do think we should make more time for play.
How
might we do this? I think most of us could probably learn from the
masters -- young children. Engaging with them, making stuff up with
them, or just playing non-competitive games like hide & seek, can
re-teach us the value of imagining just for fun. And the key to real
play is imagination. And with children of course, the sillier the better.
Practicing
a piece of music a thousand times is work, and while it is admirable if
it leads to excellence, it is hardly play. Improvising with other
musicians, on the other hand, just jamming and making it up as you go
along is play -- just look at the faces of those participating and
you'll know that immediately.
Companion animals (and even
watching wild creatures) can also teach us about play. It's how young
creatures learn, effortlessly and safely and joyfully, but even older
creatures indulge often in play, especially when they're around the
young.
Other improvisational activities -- dancing, flirting,
role-playing -- balance imagination (breaking the rules and making
stuff up) with the social and physical constraints ('rules') of each
activity. The tension between them -- knowing when to do what's
expected and when to interject the unexpected -- is what makes them
playful. The role-playing I do in the virtual world Second Life is most
enjoyable when it's creative, whimsical, clever -- our island is mostly
natural but has a kitschy flying submarine. Likewise, carnivals and
masquerade parties and murder mystery evenings give you the chance to
be someone else -- to get outside yourself and flex your imagination.
What other ideas do you have that could help us all put more play into our lives?
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Finding People to Live With and Make a Living With (Take Two)
My book Finding the Sweet Spot
(see right sidebar for details) suggests a variety of approaches to
finding people to partner with in Natural Enterprises. One of these is
illustrated above. The idea is to approach a problem with an open mind
and as much data as
possible, and engage others to help solve it. Here's a brief
walkthrough:
- Articulate Unmet Needs (That You Care About): Do
your research. Explore. Visit. Converse. Discover what's needed that is
not being met. Tell a story that illustrates the need, and a second
story that imagines it being solved. But don't jump to solutions, and
don't start with a solution. Students of complex systems know that an
understanding of
the problem co-evolves with the emergence of possible solutions, so
what is important is to articulate the problem or need, and not rush to
solutions. Who needs your gift now?
- Appeal to People's Sense of Purpose: Your Purpose is
what you were always meant to do, why you're here. It's personal,
and the articulation and discussion of needs will draw in people whose
Purpose is aligned with solving that problem or filling that need. This
is not a persuasive process
-- you're appealing to the latent interest that people already have in
the subject. Those who respond will bring additional stories and
additional research to improve the articulation and substantiation of
the need.
- Craft the Invitation: You already have part of the solution team by virtue of having appealed to people's sense of Purpose. Now the invitation, Open Space style, is crafted to draw in people who have the Gifts and Passions to come up with solutions.
- Complete the Solution Team:
Now you bring together people who share your Purpose, and who
have the Gifts (things they do uniquely well) and Passions (things they love doing) to collectively find approaches
to address the problem or need effectively. When you find people who
have the shared Purpose, shared Passions and complementary Gifts, you've found the partners
you want!
- Collaborate & Innovate: Using techniques like Open-Space,
brainstorm innovative and adaptive
approaches collaboratively. You'll end up with the
raw material for a host of experiments. Some of them will work, others
won't. But now you're working with people who share your Passions and
Purpose, and whose Gifts complement your own, you won't stop until
you've found a set of solutions that make a difference. And in the
process, you'll learn more about the needs and problems you're
grappling with, and evolve even better answers.
The book explains this in a lot more detail, but you get the idea.
Need, Shared Purpose, Invitation, Convocation, Conversation,
Collaboration, Innovation. It's a natural method of collective
problem-solving, and it has the advantage of helping you find the
people you were meant to work with.
Recently I wondered: Could such an approach also be used to find the people you were meant to live with -- in Natural (Intentional) Community?
As I reflect on the recent fracturing of our massively centralized
financial system, and the fragility of our massively centralized
political, social, health, business, education and other systems, I
grow more and more convinced that Natural Communities and Natural
Enterprises, if they are to be resilient enough to survive the threats
facing us today, will have to be small-scale, bottom-up, networked and
as self-sufficient as possible (the last two qualities are by no means
contradictory).
I've referred as well to some surveys that suggest that, while Dunbar's number (150) is the maximum number we can maintain meaningful social relationships with, the optimal
size of networks is either 5-7 or 40-60 (the two sizes being optimal
for different purposes). Putting all this together it seems it would be
appropriate to try to evolve Natural Communities of 40-60 people made
up of Natural Enterprises of 5-7 people. If 5-7 people working together
seems a small number, consider that their main customer base is only
40-60 people. Also, there are some very powerful enterprises that have
only this small number of partners -- they network with other small
enterprises with different Purposes to meet larger needs,
collaboratively, and the Internet and other conversational,
organizational and virtual presence technologies make this increasingly
easy to do.
Some of the oldest advice for finding the person you were meant to live with is to get out and enroll in some activity where you can meet others who share your Passions. And the method above suggests one way of finding the people you were meant to work with is to get out and enroll others in some activity around a shared Purpose. So which would work best for finding people to live with in a Natural Community?
I'm thinking about the amazing group I spent three days with this week
on Bowen Island BC. We were, in a way, an instant Natural Community. We
shared a Passion for facilitation and a Purpose of enabling better
conversations and hence making the world a better place by empowering
people, bottom up, in their communities. We talked a lot about the
objectivity of the facilitator, and when it was best for the
facilitator to be a 'content provider', bringing a point of view, new
knowledge, ideas, even provocations to the group, and when it was
better for the facilitator to be a process manager only. And even when
it was appropriate for the facilitator to largely do neither, and let
the group find its own natural process.
My sense is that what made that group so magic was the fact that, as
professional facilitators, they are very astute about the process of
opening space, drawing people out, letting solutions emerge etc. and
hence are extremely competent self-managers and very effective
collaborators in just about any imaginable situation. And they all know
themselves very well, which is enormously helpful in optimizing
productivity and keeping conflicts and negative emotions in check.
So
perhaps the 'rules' for people who are meant to live together (in
Natural Community) and to make a living together (in Natural
Enterprise) are these:
- Those in a Natural Enterprise need to
have a shared Purpose, complementary Gifts, and Passions that are
consistent with their Purpose and Gifts (i.e. in the Sweet Spot)
so they love what they are doing (applying their individual Gifts) and
what the Natural Enterprise is doing (realizing their shared Purpose).
- Those
in a Natural Community need to love each other. This is more likely if
they have a shared Purpose and/or shared Passions. But mostly, I
suspect, it's chemistry -- it's either there or it isn't. I trust
nature to tell us who we should love, and hence live with, though there
are some who believe that communities based on love will tend to lack
essential diversity.
- To be effective members of either a
Natural Enterprise or a Natural Community it's essential that people
know themselves well -- what their Gifts, Passions and Purpose are --
and have a good number of the core set of twelve capacities that I
outline in my book (excellent instincts, critical thinking skills,
imaginative skills, creative skills, attention skills,
communication/storytelling skills, demonstration skills, learning
skills, responsibility, self-management, passion/energy and
collaboration skills -- including facilitation skills).
- Ideally,
a Natural Community (of around 40-60 people) will coalesce in such a
way that its needs are met by the Natural Enterprises (each of around
5-7 people) of its members, making it substantially self-sufficient.
This would also save an enormous amount of valuable time and energy
since the Natural Enterprises would be within the Natural Community and
there would be no need to travel from one to the other, or for what we
call work-life balance.
This is a tough recipe, and
because of the love factor, it isn't one that can be orchestrated. It
needs to be a self-managed process. In pre-civilization times it would
have been much easier -- there were far fewer people to choose from,
and the self-knowledge and twelve core capacities were present in
almost everyone (as a Darwinian necessity). And there was no education
system to pound these capacities out of us.
Nevertheless, it
just makes sense to me that this is the natural way to live. It's
effective, resilient, sustainable, responsible, and joyful. It draws on
the best of all of us. It taps into our inherent social nature.
To
find the people for our Natural Enterprise and Natural Community we
need first to know ourselves, and to cultivate as many of the twelve
core capacities as possible. Then we need to put ourselves out there,
authentically and honestly and fully, by offering and accepting
invitations that will connect us with others who share our Purpose and
our Passions, and help us find those we were meant to live and make a
living with.
Perhaps it's not so difficult after all. It might only take a lifetime.
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Saturday Links of the Week: October 4, 2008
The always-brilliant Charles Barsotti in this week's New Yorker sums up the real problem behind the financial system collapse
Still
euphoric over the past week's retreat on Bowen Island BC, and the
possibilities it has allowed me to imagine -- a whole world of informed
people with the essential capacities, notably the capacities of
collaboration, conversation, imagination and self-management, needed to
thrive in the 21st century. More on this in coming days. Meanwhile,
here's what made it though my filters this week:
Extend Extend Extend Yourself: Communicatrix writes: "Sometimes, the most productive thing you can do is to pick up the phone when it rings and talk to the (relative, soon-to-be-not) (and brave!) stranger on the other end." Or to be brave and initiate that call yourself.
The Practice of Sleeping Outside: Chris Corrigan tells us why sleeping outside is important to connecting with ourselves and with all-life-on-Earth. Why don't we do it more often?
Changing Human Behaviour: Taxes vs Caps vs Education:
If you want to change consumer (and hence producer) behaviour, there
are several ways you can do it. Taxes (and incentives and subsidies,
their opposite) are one way, punishing certain behaviours and rewarding
others where it hits hardest, in the pocketbook. Caps, limits and
regulations are another. prohibiting certain behaviours outright (this
only works if you have the will, means and manpower to enforce them).
Awareness and education, using knowledge and moral suasion to change
behaviour, is a third. While all three are needed, and can be
effective, more and more evidence
suggests that taxes, and incentives and subsidies for alternative
behaviours, are far and away the most effective, and solving modern
problems like global warming and peak oil cannot be done without them.
The Value of Everything: It's All Psychology: A NYT story correctly states that what stocks, homes and anything else is worth is no more or less than what most people think (trust) they're worth. This is the argument that says the trillion dollar bailout, by massively loosening credit and the ability to issue and borrow more
money, will reassure investors and borrowers that everything is OK and
they can go on spending more and more every day to keep the growth
economy afloat. But what this argument misses is that there are
fundamentals underlying these investments that suggest that their
current value is wildly inflated. The real rate of inflation today,
despite the lies of governments, is double digits, so investing your
money in anything that pays only single digit returns is waving it
goodbye. No house is worth more than the cost of building a comparable
new home at rates that reflect the true cost of materials and labour.
No stock is worth more than the current value of future cash flows,
which as our economy moves to steady-state is a fraction of what most
stocks are selling for today, despite their recent plunge. And no
currency is worth more than its issuer's capacity to make good on it by
providing real goods and services, repaying the debts it incurred to
issue it. The only thing between us and the second Great Depression is
the belief that there is no inflation, that houses are worth three
times what it cost to build them, that stocks are worth three times
future discounted cash flows, and that the US will somehow be able to
repay a $12 trillion and rising debt to stave off bankruptcy, so that
its currency has a value greater than zero. How long we will continue
to believe this is anyone's guess, but I can't see it being longer than
twenty years.
CDS: The Next $55T Bubble: Credit
default swaps are completely unregulated (Bush made regulation of them
illegal), greater in value (on paper) than the global GDP, and Warren
Buffet called them "financial weapons of mass destruction". They may be
next to collapse. Thanks to Dale Asberry for the link.
Bail Out OF Wall Street: Community Economy advocate Catherine Fitts suggests ten ways you can move your money and time from corporatist investments to community-based and local learning investments.
Safely Drinking Toxic Sludge: The makers of insecticide-soaked screens and tarps has now come up with a straw that allows you to instantly drink water from anywhere without having to boil out impurities and microbes.
I suppose it is a breakthrough for those living in desolated struggling
nations whose waters have all turned to sewers and toxic waste lagoons,
but am I the only one that sees this type of innovation as alarming,
even tragic? Is this what we've come to? Thanks to Craig De Ruisseau
for the link.
Just for Fun: Where the Hell is Matt: A lovable dancing fool infects the world with his message of joy. Thanks to Joan in Vancouver for the link.
Thoughts for the Week:
from Goethe: "Know yourself -- never by thinking, always by doing". And
from Margaret Miller: "Most conversations are merely monologues
delivered in the presence of witnesses." |
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