Sunday, August 18, 2002

Charodic Design Process -- Organizational Concept From  Chaordic Commons: An Organizational Concept answers the question "How are Participants in the organizational system related?" It specifies the legal nature of the organization, depicts potential functional relationships among Participants, and describes governance processes, including the initial decision-making bodies. When all relevant and affected parties have been identified, design team members creatively search for and develop a general Organizational Concept for the organization. In the light of Purpose and Principles, they seek innovative organizational structures and relationships 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 usually discover that no existing form of organization can provide that level of trustworthiness and that something new must be conceived. In one sense, an Organizational Concept is the chaordic equivalent of the organization chart, though it tends to resemble the neurons of the brain or the complex patterns of an ecosystem rather than a traditional hierarchy. It also includes the key guidelines for interaction among Participants and for the emergence of new elements in the system.When the Organizational Concept phase is completed, the design team has several useful products. They include a description of the organization as a totality, in its systemic context; initial preferences concerning the legal structure of the organization; a set of diverse visual images of potential organizational structures, decisions concerning basic organizational elements and their relationships, and a sketch of the way that governance bodies will initially be composed. Prior decisions about Purpose, Principles and Participants will inform development of a powerful Organizational Concept. Work done in this phase will directly translate into key sections of the Constitution. (08/18/02) In Times of Crisis, GOLD RULES ! Terence R. Wilken, the editor of the RWWNL, points out this interesting link. (08/18/02) Would ET Vote ? If psychologist Albert Harrison is correct, ETs might feel very much at home with the notion of going to the ballot box. Or at least they would be familiar with the process of having input into the control of their lives, even if it doesn’t take the form of presidential elections. According to Harrison, a Professor of Psychology at the University of California at Davis, if we detect a signal from advanced extraterrestrials, there’s a good chance that the basic principles of democracy play a role in their society. "When we intercept a transmission from an ancient society," Harrison argues, "that society is likely to have achieved its great age not through an autocratic, belligerent government, but through a democratic government whose emphasis on bargaining, negotiation, and peaceful solutions to internal problems are brought to bear in dealing with other democracies." In Harrison’s view it’s possible that "democracy involves a set of functional principles that will work for other intelligent species in other places and at other times." ... By a similar line of reasoning, extraterrestrial dictators may be very rare. Autocratic governments on Earth face an uphill battle, Harrison says, and the same challenges may limit the life expectancies of fascist regimes around distant stars. For example, autocracies tend to ignore the desires of their citizens. The resulting disconnect between leader and followers can become increasingly extreme, resulting in discontent of the masses. By contrast, democratic processes incorporate input from a wide range of individuals, yielding a more responsive and thus stable form of government. Harrison suggests that this lesson would not be lost on extraterrestrials. "The greater the number of democracies in a galaxy," he says, "the greater the zone of galactic peace." (08/18/02) 7:09:17 AM

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