[P2P-F] extra comments welcome on: Replacing systems management with complex responsive processes in peer to peer work environments

[Michel Bauwens]

I'm excerpting this on the 6th:
http://bobcannell.blogspot.com/2010/10/break-free-from-our-systems-prison.html



all major management schools are based on the idea of organisations being
systems. From 1920s scientific management to 2000s complexity edge of chaos
ideas. Systems thinking requires a separation between controlled and
controllers even if they are the same people

Excerpted<http://bobcannell.blogspot.com/2010/10/break-free-from-our-systems-prison.html>from
*Bob Cannell*:

*“As a worker cooperator I have struggled for years to use ‘normal’
management techniques in worker co-ops. Often they don’t work. Members don’t
like them even when they have agreed a business plan, they feel oppressed
and trapped by their own agreements.*

*The biggest problem has been strategic development. While ‘normal’
operational (next week) and tactical (next year) management ‘best practices’
are ok, I have never seen or experienced a ‘normal’ strategic development
method being successful in a worker co-op in the UK. After several years of
searching I think I may have found the reason. ‘Normal’ management methods
are fundamentally unsuited to our open, egalitarian cultures. Indeed at
their core, they are designed to suppress workers and privilege the vested
interests of their controllers. So, you say, we knew that, but the depth of
this ideology is the surprise.*

*Ralph D Stacey of the University of Herfordshire claims that all major
management schools are based on the idea of organisations being systems.
>From 1920s scientific management to 2000s complexity edge of chaos ideas.
Systems thinking requires a separation between controlled and controllers
even if they are the same people (hence the bizarre feeling of being
oppressed by your own business plan).*

*This idea is revolutionary. Furthermore the IT revolution is driving
changes in business which are making systems based management methods
unworkable anywhere. We are being pushed towards Stacey’s alternative; to
understand organisations as complex processes of relationships and
communications between people, with little opportunity for prescriptive
planning and executive control.*

*The picture of this “Complex Responsive Process” thinking in practice is
much more sympathetic to collectively organised worker co-ops and other
egalitarian workplaces. It encourages a much more co-operative way of
organising and operating businesses which we can use much more easily than
our investor owned or executive controlled competition.*

*What do we do? Stop trying to stuff worker co-ops into systems control and
start to take advantage of the liberation of process thinking.” *


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