[p2p-research] Fwd: an absolute must-read on the history of organizational forms

[Michel Bauwens]

http://www-rcf.usc.edu/~padler/research/01-Heckscher-chap01%20copy-1.pdf

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: David Ronfeldt <ronfeldt at mac.com>
Date: Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 12:30 AM
Subject: Re: responding about haskins [UPDATE & MORE]
To: Tom Haskins <haskinstom87 at gmail.com>, Michel Bauwens <
michelsub2004 at gmail.com>
Cc: David Ronfeldt <ronfeldt at mac.com>



TOM (AND MICHEL):  fyi, i've finally added a few words and a pointer about
your efforts, and about p2p's reposts, as an update at one of my blog's
posts, as follows:


http://twotheories.blogspot.com/2009/05/organizational-forms-compared-my.html

MICHEL (AND TOM):  way down in the same post, i've added a new table and
blurb about an article by paul adler and charles heckscher that i think is
very interesting for all our interests.  i hope to do a long separate post
about it before long.  but meanwhile, i'd like to suggest you go download
and read their paper for yourselves (url is in my post).  it's about their
concept of building "collaborative community" in the corporate world.  their
approach, which involves distinguishing between traditional and newly needed
forms of community, overlaps a lot with what i try to mean by the network
form, and why it's different from the tribal form.

onward (so slowly).

===

On Jun 3, 2009, at 1:16 PM, Tom Haskins wrote:

 David: Thanks for putting so much thought into my writing and diagrams.
> It's very helpful for me to see how my message is getting construed, what
> assumptions I appear to be making, what I may be overlooking or distorting
> and how I can refine/upgrade my emerging model.
>
> I've inserted by comments within this email, where I formulated what then
> followed as comments on Michels' blog.
>
> Tom
>
>
> On Jun 3, 2009, at 11:38 AM, David Ronfeldt wrote:
>
>
>> i just submitted the following comment.  if you'd rather do something else
>> besides that, ok.  i've cc'ed haskins above.
>>
>> - - -
>>
>> Michel (and others?) -- This is intriguing.  I’ve looked at this and
>> related posts in the ongoing series by Tom Haskins at his blog.  He’s set
>> out on a rather daring course.  And I’m pleased to see continuing interest
>> in the TIMN framework.
>>
>>
>> I gather he is trying to show that TIMN, which I have pitched at the
>> societal scale, can also be used, along with other frameworks — notably,
>> Cynefin and Fiske’s relational models —  to analyze what’s going on at the
>> “micro scale” of discrete small groups, firms, and other enterprises.  He
>> appears to be interested in analyzing dynamic situations where pressures for
>> innovative changes are mounting, where old hierarchical and market ways are
>> proving deficient, and where it would be advisable to adopt new network/P2P
>> designs, but where stress and strain may drive the participants back into a
>> kind of tribalism before they manage to advance anew.  That’s not a full
>> summary of his effort, but it looks like a major strand.
>>
>>
>> I agree with that thrust, for I have often noticed that the TIMN forms and
>> related dynamics can be found at all levels of society, across all eras.
>>  I’ve even wondered about an assessment methodology for doing analyses at
>> the micro level.  But my efforts remain focused on the societal level.
>>
>>
>> So, I compliment Haskins for his efforts.  But in addition to compliments,
>> I also have some questions, issues, and suggestions for revisions.  Perhaps
>> I should offer them directly at his blog or via email (we had a preliminary
>> exchange about Fiske’s models).  But your blog has shown an abiding interest
>> in and been a good venue for TIMN matters.  So here goes:
>>
>>
>> 1. The charts and related text appear to miscategorize one if not two of
>> Fiske’s forms.  Fiske's CS (communal sharing/solidarity) corresponds to the
>> Tribes category, not EM (equality matching).  Fiske himself agreed that
>> tribes mainly reflect CS.  There is discussion somewhere at this blog about
>> this.  That’s not convenient for someone who wants to associate Networks or
>> P2P solely with Fiske’s CS, but that does not mean it’s okay to
>> miscategorize the Tribes form.  There are circumstances where Tribes exhibit
>> EM — after all, tribes are often egalitarian — but CS is their fundamental
>> relationship.
>>
>
> When we apply any single category of Fiske's relational grammar to anything
> as large as a single tribe, we risk anthropomorphizing the tribe. Relational
> grammars speak to the micro scale of personal relationships, coordinating
> interactions, social bonds, cognitive representations of significant others,
> interpersonal vulnerability/insecurity, self regard, differentiation of self
> from others, organizing mental representations of perceived
> inter-relationships, etc. Because tribes, institutions, markets and/or
> networks are comprised of many personal relationships, all four of Fiske's
> forms would apply to all four TIMN forms.
>
>
>>
>> 2.  The various charts and related text often read quite negatively about
>> the nature of the tribal form.  The charts tend to depict people being
>> reduced to a raw kind of tribalism — full of defensive attitudes and
>> behaviors — because of external pressure and disorder (note that I state
>> “disorder,” not “chaos,” as explained below).  But the charts do not
>> recognize the bright aspects of the tribal form, or that tribes are not
>> always faced with chaotic disorder — sometimes life is quite pleasant and
>> orderly.  And that applies to all kinds of tribe-like organizations across
>> the ages, modern ones included, even inside corporate organizations.  And
>> when the tribal form is functioning well, it may help with the other forms.
>>  The blog postings note this at points, but only incidentally.  Only the
>> Networks form gets consistently positive depictions.  Is some kind of bias
>> going on here?
>>
>
> I admit to a conscious bias in all this and no doubt have some unconscious
> biases as well. I believe every situation is inherently complex, highly
> interdependent, cyclical and capable of yielding emergent solutions. The
> network response to situations is the only one sufficiently complex to be
> sustainable, resilient, and mutually effective when stressed by the
> complexity. The tribal, institutional and market forms are progressively
> more responsive to the inherent complexity, but each falls short. Thus
> tribal responses are the least sustainable and most vulnerable to the
> adverse impacts of the complexity, most likely to get regarded as expendable
> by institutions, markets and networks, and most prone to violent conflicts
> between other tribal responders.
>
>
>>
>> 3.  The charts and related text correlate the TIMN and Cynefin categories
>> to each other in what may not be the most accurate way.  This is the first
>> I’ve come across Cynefin, so I’m not steeped in it.  But I gather this:
>>  Cynefin is about four problem-solving situations and approaches — simple,
>> complicated, complex, and chaotic.  In addition, there is a fifth situation
>> — disorder.  It looks to me as though Haskins’s charts and related text are
>> often more about disorder than chaos, given Cynefin’s definitions.  It’s not
>> clear to me how Cynefin defines disorder, but it views chaos as an unorderly
>> (but not disorderly) situation where cause and effect do not have a fixed
>> relationship — they’re unsettled — and if you solve a problem repeatedly,
>> the answer turns out to be different each time.
>>
>>
>> The charts show a continual association of Tribes with chaos.  But that’s
>> tantamount to saying that Tribes are not patterned as to cause and effect,
>> or that Tribes mainly arise when cause and effect are chaotically uncertain.
>>  But in fact, Tribes are often patterned and principled, even doctrinaire,
>> especially when faced with disorder.  Tribes are not “illiterate” (as one
>> chart claims).  Moreover, contrary to other charts, Tribes often do “sense”
>> and “categorize” before they “act.”  Tribes are not just a milling,
>> messed-up mass of people acting impulsively that arise only in times of
>> disorder.  True, disorderly and/or chaotic times can lead people to revert
>> to the tribal form — that is a TIMN principle, and I’m pleased these charts
>> and related text reflect it — but that’s different from saying that Tribes
>> pose a chaotic approach to problem-solving.
>>
>>
>> To the extent that the TIMN and Cynefin frameworks can be given a mash-up
>> — and it’s an interesting, even fun idea — perhaps it would work better if
>> the associations were rotated.  Show that Tribes associate not with
>> “chaotic” but with “simple” approaches to problem-solving — as indeed they
>> really do in comparison to the other forms. Then, Institutions go with
>> “complicated,” and Markets with “complex.”  That fits with historical and
>> current realities.  It also fits with the principles used by the author’s of
>> Cynefin to discuss their framework (though in one write-up they seem to warn
>> against relying on these four simplifying terms).
>>
>
> The confusion I've created appears to be between the categorizing of the
> situations themselves and the responses to those situations. I'm only using
> the Cynefin framework of (chaotic, simple, complicated, complex) to
> characterize the situations, not the responses to them. Cynefin also
> characterizes responses to situations differently (novel, best, good,
> emergent practices).
>
> I'm proposing that tribal responses are the only ones viable amidst chaotic
> situations. My take on the difference between chaos and disorder in the
> Cynefin framework regards disorder as outside their framework. No practice
> can be formulated because there is no basis for even experimenting,
> improvising or winging it. Chaotic situations allow for tribes to form, to
> provide safety to their members, to guard against traitors, and to
> continually experiment with its adaptations to the chaos (novel practice).
> When situations get simple due to increasing stability, institutions can
> form and provide complicated infrastructures, governance, etc (best
> practices). When situations get complicated by diversity, empowered middle
> class citizens, societal distribution of access, rights, resources, then
> markets can form and provide complex mechanisms, systems, etc (good
> practices). When situations get complex due to the predominance of markets,
> enterprises, commercial innovations, networks can form and function as
> complex adaptive systems which are living, self organizing, and congruent
> with P2P precepts (emergent practices).
>
>
>>
>> Of course, that would deprive one of associating Networks with “complex” —
>> and leave only the option of associating them with “chaotic” situations.
>>  That may not appeal to P2P proponents who like complexity theory.  But why
>> not?  At least for current times.  It makes more sense than associating
>> Tribes with chaos.  As noted above, unless I’m misreading, the essence of
>> Cynefin’s chaos category is that cause and effect are not fixed — they’re
>> unsettled — and if you solve a problem repeatedly, the answer comes out
>> differently each time.  Isn’t the rise of Networks having such effects?
>>
>
>
>
>
>>
>> Here’s a thought-experiment to try to illustrate it:  Imagine a large but
>> bounded set of people, men and women, in one place, where the problem is to
>> pair up, perhaps in dining, dancing, or dating relationships.  It’s not hard
>> to imagine how a Tribe, or a hierarchical Institution, or a Market method in
>> that setting might lead to a simple, complicated, or complex kind of
>> solution, respectively.  But how to imagine a chaotic solution that does not
>> amount to utter disorder?  I haven’t figured out an image for this situation
>> that really fits the Network form, but here’s a way to make the situation
>> chaotic:  Have the session start on time, but also have the participants
>> arrive at different times and from different directions.  That would mix
>> things up.  The session would still get underway with the same set of
>> people, but in an unorderly (not disorderly) fashion.  And the problem of
>> pairing-up would still get solved, but probably quite differently each time.
>>  No?  In any case, I repeat, the associations between the TIMN forms and
>> Cynefin models may bear rotation.
>>
>>
>> 4.  I have some issues with what I see on charts that associate TIMN and
>> Cynefin with different modes of group work, in a spectrum that runs from
>> action, to coordination, to cooperation, to collaboration.  That spectrum is
>> a start, one that draws on suggestions from another blogger.  But it needs
>> revisions too.  In particular, the nature of group work for Tribes is rarely
>> do-something-anything “action” as the charts claim.  Work in Tribes normally
>> revolves around rituals and codes of conduct — a collectively ordained mode
>> not evident in their spectrum.  For Institutions, their term “coordination”
>> is fitting; but it’s more than that — it’s command, control, and
>> coordination.  In Markets, “cooperation” does occur, as the charts indicate;
>> but that’s not the main mode — what’s missing from their spectrum is
>> “competition" (and sometimes competitive cooperation, or cooperative
>> competition).  Associating Networks with “collaboration” is fine.
>>
>
> Given the positional stances that emerged from that group work chart, I've
> concluded it's a serious oversimplification. My second attempt is the TIMN
> practice post where tribal responses work the insider/outsider distinction,
> institutional responses belabor the upper/lower differences, market
> responses pressure themselves with responsive/arrogant distinction and
> network responses get refined by recognizing the difference between living
> and automated systems. The internal dynamics of a tribe handling their
> insider/outsider issues could easily involve some action, coordination,
> cooperation and collaboration. Likewise for the other 3 TIMN forms and all
> four forms of group work.
>
>
>>
>> Anyway, there’s a partial set of comments to mull over.  I admire the
>> effort and enthusiasm that has gone into these charts and the related texts.
>>  The series amounts to quite a saga.  I also gather that the blog author —
>> Tom Haskins — may well have a particular set of “micro scale” circumstances
>> in mind where his points hold up, and my comments are made moot.  In any
>> case, I hope to post more, new material about  TIMN and its dynamics at my
>> own blog before too long. -- Onward, David
>>
>>
>> P.S.:  Thanks for the invitation to leave a comment here with this post.
>>  But since my comment is so long, feel free to move it elsewhere if you
>> prefer.  I’ll apprise Haskins that I have left a comment here.
>>
>>
>> - - -
>>
>>
>> ===
>>
>> On Jun 2, 2009, at 8:29 PM, Michel Bauwens wrote:
>>
>>  Hi David,
>>>
>>> I can also post your comment as a full blogpost,
>>>
>>> Michel
>>>
>>> On Wed, Jun 3, 2009 at 7:59 AM, David Ronfeldt <ronfeldt at mac.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> yes, i've wondered about replying via your blog, since i saw your post
>>> about haskins.  i've got a comment drafted, but i think i'll wait until
>>> tomorrow or the next day.  thanks for bringing the idea up.
>>>
>>> ===
>>>
>>> On Jun 1, 2009, at 7:32 PM, Michel Bauwens wrote:
>>>
>>> Why not explicate your issues and comments on haskins, that can only
>>> bring the effort forward, and you could do it via our blog?
>>>
>>> Anything I can ever do to spread TIMN around, let me know, I consider it
>>> one of the very best efforts to make sense of network-based change dynamics,
>>> and I will be using it in class next week,
>>>
>>> Michel
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Working at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhurakij_Pundit_University -
>>> http://www.dpu.ac.th/dpuic/info/Research.html -
>>> http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI
>>>
>>> Volunteering at the P2P Foundation:
>>> http://p2pfoundation.net  - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net -
>>> http://p2pfoundation.ning.com
>>>
>>> Monitor updates at http://del.icio.us/mbauwens
>>>
>>> The work of the P2P Foundation is supported by SHIFTN,
>>> http://www.shiftn.com/
>>>
>>
>>
>



-- 
Working at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhurakij_Pundit_University -
http://www.dpu.ac.th/dpuic/info/Research.html -
http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI

Volunteering at the P2P Foundation:
http://p2pfoundation.net  - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net -
http://p2pfoundation.ning.com

Monitor updates at http://del.icio.us/mbauwens

The work of the P2P Foundation is supported by SHIFTN,
http://www.shiftn.com/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/attachments/20090617/e409e93d/attachment-0001.html>