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- Title
Developing An Awareness And Understanding Of Self-Organization As It Relates To Organizational Development And Leadership Issues.
- Authors
Stevenson, Barry W.
- Abstract
This paper presents a preliminary discussion of self-organization as a basis for organizational development and leadership work in complex human social systems. It is intended as a primer to allow those unfamiliar with 'self-organization' to gain a fuller understanding of this concept. The term, 'self-organizing leadership' was coined by Richard Knowles and is the focus of the Center for Self-Organizational Leadership. Information contained in this paper has been extracted from an earlier paper submitted by the author to the 46th annual meeting of the International Society for the Systems Sciences (ISSS) held in Shanghai, China in August, 2002. The context and relevance of this republished paper a decade later speaks to the need to maintain an even greater awareness and understanding of self-organization as it relates to organizational development and leadership issues. As then, it remains of critical importance to view complex human social systems (e.g., communities, organizations, teams) through the lens of self-organization. Examples of organizations that have explored and adopted this view, in part at least, include Sears, Monsanto, Hewlett-Packard, Royal Dutch Shell, The U.S. Army, 3M, Federal Express, Visa and Alcoholics Anonymous. Each have attempted to see themselves as living systems employing principles of complexity and emergence as a leadership and management paradigm for growth and sustainability in a complex, changing world. The relative success of these organizations in applying principles of self-organization is not the focus of this paper but it is fair to say that they have all adapted to changing times and challenges with the insight of these principles, whether through mergers or acquisitions, innovative growth and diversification strategies or simply continuing to do what they do best. It remains the author's view, based on over three decades of organizational development work incorporating the principles of self-organization, that teams, organizations and communities significantly benefit from applying these principles in managing the turbulent waters of change and complexity. This paper examines this view.
- Publication
Emergence: Complexity & Organization, 2012, Vol 14, Issue 2, p69
- ISSN
1521-3250
- Publication type
Academic Journal