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Emergence and Large System Change


Understanding Emergence
Given that large training and education that focuses on reductionism, as individuals and groups we enjoy trying to reduce complexity and chaos so that it makes more sense to us. Even in the field of large system to change, the reductionist school emphasised that need for reducing complexities, thus the focus on building and using models, that simplify the complexities in organisations into well defined boxes.
However when we look at change, and particularly large system change, the focus is on being able to transform that entire organisation,  a comprehensive shift in how the organisation was working, delivering and believing in so far. For such change to happen it is important that all aspects of the organisation are looked into , and thus following well defined diagnostic boxes may not capture the essence of large scale transformation. This brings into fore the power of emergence.

Emergence refers to the process by which a complex set of actors in a system develop new ways of acting and thinking that is qualitatively different from what the elements of the system would collectively do (Holman, 2007).

Emergence stems from the positive exploration of questions that help to overcome challenges problems and fears that otherwise hold organisations back. In emergence the change process embraces chaos and then moves towards order, rather than trying to control chaos or defining it and then moving to order.

Emergence and Large System Change
In change emergence is not a process or technique, it rather stems from how change proceeds.  Most large system interventions are based on the idea of emergence and consist of two important facets:

1) Using powerful positive questions
2) A diverse mix of people to explore the unknown (Holman,2007)
 from such inquiry and process, stems discussions on what are the possibilities in the future.

Powerful positive questions ensure that fears and insecurities are addressed constructively, while a diverse set of people, ensures that ideas and thoughts from what truly represent the system are generated and collected.

What do we Need to Take Back?
  - In whole system/large system change, complexities increase, and it may not be ideal to work with reductionist approaches, given that they may not provide you with all the possibilities (think Diagnostic Models)

 - Rather than controlling chaos in large system change and get answers, it is important that we guide discussions around the chaos

 - Guiding discussions around chaos will require powerful questions that overcome fears, challenges associated with the chaos and the unknown

 - From these discussions will emerge order, and this order will be something that is vastly different from what existing elements of the organisation can do together

 - Given that emergent discussions are done with large and diverse group of audiences, ownership within the systems increase and the sense of urgency for change easily develops.


To conclude I would like to say that " It is perfect to believe that Chaos can create order"




Comments

  1. Shashank Vihari_MSVSeptember 3, 2019 at 12:31 PM

    Couple of questions came into my mind while i was going through the post:

    1)What could be some indicators/traits of a powerful question?
    2) Diagnosis is a rigorous process which provides information on key aspects of the current state of things(strategy, structure, processes, skills, rewards etc). Can powerful questions used by the emergence philosophy really substitute it?

    ReplyDelete

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