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Re: Natural forms and human organization
Doug EVERINGHAM
Wednesday, 21 May 2003 03:02:20 +0200
Marielle JANSEN sociocracy@aol.com wrote on 20 Apr 2003 about Fibonacci numbers, found in ... relative size of one body-part to the other...the alternating clockwise and anti-clockwise spirals of seashells as well as in plants .. in line with the * Golden Ratio * (or golden section) of 1:1.618, used by painters and architects for aesthetic reasons. ... It is my intuition that the series could somehow be applied to organisation...
Doug Everingham replies:
I have appreciated Marielle Jansen's campaign for co-operative descison-making pioneered by the Sociocratic Center.
I think the sociocracy movement leaves it to the relevant groups in each case to decide on when and how to increase or decrease a decision-making group's size and when to encourage a part of a group to separate, forming a subsidiary or parallel group.
Dr Shann Turnbull's 2002 NEF publication "A New Way to Govern: Organisations and society after Enron" can be downloaded
http://www.neweconomics.org/default.asp?strRequest=newsarchive&strNewsRequest=newsitem&intNewsID=198
He there describes co-operative structures choosing approximate size limits to maintain practical 'human scale' administration, feedback loops, cross-representation and subsidiarity (administration by the lowest or most specialized groups practicable).
A critical group-building relationship is described by Dr Antonio Rossin. He finds that there are conflicting trends in the initial building of social groups, in particular in the first 3 years of life when family structure is forming along with acquisition of language. The healthy trend, like the sociocratic and other co-operative organizations, shows the child a flexible or 'dialectical' process of decision-making, a synthesis proceeding from one parent or mentor proposing a thesis and a second mentor proposing an antithesis; while both encouraging the child to use to the fullest extent possible her/his own reasoning capacities and to take part as an independent and interdependent agent, not purely dependent, in the decision making. This triad of child + more than one mentor seems to be critical to personal self-confidence, multicultural tolerance and group harmony.
The less healthy trend Dr Rossin finds dangerously dominant in our market-centred global culture, with the child tending to accept uncritically, as unquestionable authority, the decisions handed down by a dominant parent or mentor. This has caused most of us, he says, to suffer varying degrees of LFS, the "less flexibility syndrome". This includes susceptibility to addictions and perhaps lowered immunity generally. Addictions to mind-altering substances or gambling may thus have their beginnings or predispositions laid down in the first 3 years of life, a critical stage so far inadequately studied by educationists, including even 'pre-school' educators. Rossin thinks the movement to correct this deficiency, and bring home to parents their key role in teaching critical thought and tolerance, will most likely be led by parents concerned to avoid drug misuse by their children. But globally the worst addictions may be the prejudices that still dominate our adult years in adversarial politics, courts and career stances, bigoted creeds and other power elite manipulation of minds, evident in fanatical or 'holy' wars and the whole gamut of social dissension and disaster.
So I think the numbers quoted by Mareielle Jansen may be worth consideration, e.g.:
1+1=2: two heads are better than one -- even wooden ones
1+2=3 Rossin's dialectical triad (child/public participating with mentors)
2+3=5 management group including liaison with higher and lower level groups
3+5=8 perhaps the largest group workable without a chair person/ facilitator.
5+8=13 perhaps the largest for meetings without an agreed agenda
8+13=21 ...
13+21=34
21+34=55
34+55=89
55+89=144
89+144=233 etc.
but limits will surely vary with the nature of the groups interests, rights, responsibilities, expertise etc.
Apologies for reiteration and best wishes to all -- Doug Everingham
WP21 Alliance Forum on a World Parliament for the 21st Century
E-mail : world-parl@forums.alliance21.org
Fax 1 717 264 5036
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