[Dialogue] [Oe List ...] getting real, hmmm . . .

[James Wiegel]

--- John Epps <jlepps at pc.jaring.my> wrote:

> Thanks, David, for your clarification, and
> especially for the tone of 
> collegiality in which it was framed. We are "all in
> this together" in some 
> sense, though the form right now is quite elusive.
> 
> John

Jim Wiegel here.  John's use of the term "form"
touched a chord with me.  There was quite a bit of
attention, among us on form in the early days --
"creating structures in 5th city", the local church
triangles and what form is the parish, congregation,
etc., all the internal work on forms of the order . .
.  Most of what I have been doing with ICA the last
several decades has been facilitation related -- up
front and also training people in methods.  These
methods, branded about 10 years ago or even longer as
"ToP", have seemed a durable "form" that came out of
the EI, ICA, OE tradition and are much in use around
the world, by old timers and new timers.  At the same
time, the notion of effectiveness and participation
and open decision making and collegiality and spirit
which they convey has not found structural expression
over the long term in very many places (I would
welcome a list of examples from this group) including
the internal operation of the various ICA's around the
world.


The article below, written by Jim Campbell, reviews a
very important context when we are talking about the
structural forms and organizational decisions of ICA
or other organizations.


Historical Perspectives on Participation
Jim Campbell, IAF Europe Representative
Modernism, which dates from the late 19th century, is
associated with mass production, uniformity and
predictability; post-modernism with flexibility,
choice and personal responsibility.” Michael Prowse,
“Post Modern Test for Government.” Financial
Times, April 21, 1992.
The sub-title of the book, The Age of Participation,
is “New Governance for the Workplace and the
World.”  Participation is about governance. 
However, what is governance?
Every human group has governance.  Whether it is a
family, a community, a nation state, or just a group
of friends trying to decide what to do on a Friday
night—governance is happening.  Governance is about
how people organise themselves to make decisions.  We
organise ourselves because we want our decisions to
enable the group’s security, to be fair and to
provide for the common good in the community or nation
state, we call this governance the “Political
Dynamic.”  However every group, organisation, or
family has a “political dynamic” we just do not
usually think of it that way.
Some thirty years ago, the Institute of Cultural
Affairs conducted a research project to enable its
concern for effective social change.  We asked our
selves what is the social process.  What is the
process that has to go on in every human community if
that community is going to survive?  Not only that, we
said that this should be a universal and history long
process.  The product of that research we called
simply, “The Social Process.”
We discovered that every human community has three
dimensions.  One is foundational (that without which
the community will not survive.).  One is relational
(how we organise ourselves and all our
relationships.).  And one has to do with meaning (what
is significant, what are our values and how do we
communicate these.).  These are, of course, the
Economic, Political and Cultural dimensions of
society.
Now I am not going to spend time on the details of
these three dynamics but I do want to talk about them
in terms of what has happened in the last several
hundred years and the category of participation.  In
the last few centuries, there has been a fundamental
revolution in each of these areas.  The first was the
political.  In the 18th century, the principle that
“every human being had the right to participate in
the decision-making processes that are determining the
destiny of his or her community” was articulated and
got into history.  Of course, we have been working on
the practical implementation of this ever since and
still have a long way to go.  But what is important is
that the principle is there and is globally
recognized.
In the 19th century, we had the economic revolution. 
Economics was invented in the 19th century—Marx,
Engles, and others invented it and analyzed the
economic dynamics in human society.  The principle was
that, “every human being has the right to
participate in and secure the well-being of his or her
self and family.”  Again, we are still working out
the practical implications but it has become a
universally recognised principle.
Finally, we have the cultural dimension in the 20th
century.  I was born in 1940 into a world that is gone
forever.  The last half of the 20th century saw a
Cultural Revolution sweep the world.  Much of what has
happened and is happening in the world today is the
working out of this Cultural Revolution.  I do not
think we are even sure what the fundamental principle
of this revolution is.  However, I would want to
suggest that it is something like “Every human being
has the right to freely participate in and practice
the cultural gifts and wisdom of all the world’s
communities.” 
Together these three revolutions have delivered us
into a new world where participatory processes have
assumed inordinate importance.  However, we have to
look deep into our history to find the true roots of
this reality.
A good place to start in western history is with
Plato’s The Republic where he articulated a system
of governance based on carefully limited and defined
participation—male citizens of property.  For
centuries after that, you have little development or
change.  In the Roman Republic you have a system of
representational governance but also limited to male
citizens of property.  The Magna Carta in the middle
ages again articulated the right of participation for
a limited group and put some restraints upon the
authority of the monarch.  With the coming of the
Renaissance, the Reformation and Counter Reformation,
we see the emergence of a fundamental principle that
would change the question of participation.  The
Renaissance’s focus on the human in this world and
the divine in the mundane forced a reconsideration of
the significance of every human being. The
Reformation’s focus on the individual as made in the
image of God and in a personal relation with God and
the Counter Reformation’s concern for the integrity
of the individual again recognized the worth of EVERY
individual.  This shift raised questions about the
suppression of people and the superiority of the
ruling class.  The Age of Reason was a secular form of
the Reformation, which led directly to The Rights of
Man and The Bill of Rights, the great political
thinkers and revolutions of the late 18th Century and
the 19th Century.  The American and French Revolutions
invented liberal democracy.  They gave structural form
to the radical concept that sovereignty resided in the
governed rather than in the governing.  This was a
participation revolution in that it placed
participation at the centre of the governance
challenge.  Much of what has happened since has been a
working out of who can participate—from male
property owners, to all males of a certain age, to
including women, etc.  Today in Europe we are looking
at the question of is it only citizens or all those
resident in the governed area who may participate in
the governance process?
The same thing has happened in our organisations.  The
classic organizational form we have used for the last
several hundred years was invented in the late 17th
and early 18th Centuries.  Its model was the monarchy
based on the Divine Right of a monarch who was
accountable only to God for his/her rule. Our
organisations are structured hierarchical systems,
which are designed to enable command and control from
the top, not participation from the grassroots up. 
Dee Hock in his book Birth of the Chaordic Age points
out, “An institution is a manifestation of and
inseparable from the social environment from which it
emerged, and on which its health and existence
depend.”  Because of the three great revolutions
mentioned earlier the social environment from which
the classical organizational form emerged has
disappeared.  According to a report in The Financial
Times at any one time one third of the large
corporations in the UK are restructuring.  This means
that we can anticipate that every major corporation
will undertake restructuring every three years.  The
problem with organisational structures is not going to
be solved with any amount of restructuring.  One of
the things that will happen in this century is the
invention of a new organizational paradigm. 
In addition we have a crisis in our societal governing
systems at all levels.  We are experiencing the
collapse of confidence in our representational
systems.  People no longer trust the representational
process.  They vote for one thing and get another.  No
doubt these systems will also be reformulated in this
century. 
All of this is to say that the power of participation
and the drive to find participatory processes in every
dimension of our life is not just the “flavour of
the month.”  It is a deeply embedded historical
trend that even with all of the set backs is slowly
moving us toward a more participatory society in our
personal, organisational and community life.
Bibliography
The Age of Participation. Patricia McLagan, Christo
Nel.  Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 1995.
Riding the Waves of Culture. Fons Trompenaars.
Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 1993.
Synchronicity. Joseph Jaworski. Berrett-Koehler
Publishers, 1996
Trust, the Social Virtues and the Creation of
Prosperity. Francis Fukuyama. Simon & Schuster, 1995.
Liberation Management. Tom Peters. Pan Books,
Macmillan, 1992.
The Courage to Lead, Transform Self, Transform
Society. R. Brian Stanfield. New Society Publishers.
2000. *
Real Change Leaders. Jon R. Katzenbach and the RCL
Team. Random House, 1995.
Participatory Learning and Action. Jules N. Pretty,
et.al. IIED Participatory Methodology Series, 1995.
The Fifth Discipline. Peter M. Senge. Random House,
1990
The Tao of Leadership. John Heider. Gower Publishing,
1985.
Birth of the Chaordic Age. Dee Hock. Berrett-Koehler
Publishers, Inc. 1999.
The Shock of the New, Art and the Century of Change.
Robert Hughes, Thames & Hudson, Ltd. 1991.
 

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