[1] Paper originally presented at the Netherlands Institute of Tourism Management, Breda and Enschede, The Netherlands, October, 2004.
Introduction by Blog Coordinator Darnell Lattal, Ph.D.
Those of us in OBM or working within organizations can learn a great deal from Dr. Keller’s example of change within a group with a large national network. The group’s philosophy and reason for being may have different roots, but what John focuses on is a kind of Gilbertian notion of letting behavior find its purpose by setting up conditions and seeing what individuals and the group can do to achieve the end goal. Bill Abernathy would certainly also applaud this approach. One of his chief principles, captured in his book, “The Sin of Wages,” was to stop managing behavior by the clock and up the supervisory chain, and instead design conditions of work into the organization’s fabric to promote and sustain change. Aubrey Daniels’ mantra was one of belief in individuals, given the right consequences, having the capability to manage their change. John asks us to consider what can be achieved in a trusting and open setting, where individuals, with strong structural and process support, take on new behaviors and strengthen their effects. While not everyone changes in the direction that they or the organization desire, the overall impact continues to sustain individuals and the group across years of work. He extracts the principles that link the methods to positive change from a behavior-analytic perspective. What conditions are set up and maintained, and what is the role of the individual in achieving change under those conditions? The lessons he promotes are beneficial for all of us as to how they might impact our practices as well.
Management and the ‘New Science’: Part II
John V. Keller, Ph.D.
Applying New Science Principles to Organizations
Niels Bohr once warned that, “Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it.” (as quoted by Panda, 2006)
Paraphrasing him, I would say, “Anyone who has thought about applying New Science principles to management and not been shocked has not understood it.” For if our companies were managed by New Science principles, instead of Newtonian ones, I believe they would be as different as night is from day.
Consider, for the moment, what New Science might say about “leadership.” The first thing it might say is that “effective leaders do not lead.” Remember Reynolds’ flying boids? The flock moved organically, adapting to circumstances naturally; When the flock encountered an obstacle, it had no trouble splitting apart, flowing to either side as each bird did its own thing.
Now, imagine there was a leader bird. Imagine that the leader bird felt it was his responsibility to give the rest of the birds a flight map and detailed, top-down instructions on how to fly. The instructions would have been impossibly complicated, and the result would have ended up looking jerky and unnatural, like a bad cartoon. Or imagine that the leader bird said, “Follow me!” That might have been OK until he flew close to the obstacle. Blindly following their leader, half the birds would have crashed and fallen to the ground.
Effective leaders, from the perspective of New Science, are those who communicate a few rules that individuals can use to guide their behavior. The leader’s task is to communicate these rules, to keep them ever-present and clear, and then allow individuals in the system their random, sometimes chaotic-looking meanderings. (Wheatley, p. 133). The leader does not actually lead.
Because they are so new and so different from what we are used to, we might be inclined to dismiss New Science principles as being very unworkable. “That’s great for computer simulations,” you might be saying, “but I can’t see it working in any organizations I know!” Ordinarily, I would be inclined to agree. Certainly, none of the companies I work with are organized this way, and they would surely resist transforming themselves so radically.
However, one real organization I know operates very differently from others. Over the past year, I have read extensively about it and have considered writing a book on the topic for a management audience someday. As I read Wheatley’s book and others dealing with the ‘New Science,’ I found myself saying, “That’s just the same! That’s what they’d say, too!” I was amazed how well New Science principles seemed to map this actual organization.
Alcoholics Anonymous as a Self-Organizing System
The organization I refer to is Alcoholics Anonymous. A.A. was born in the working-class city of Akron, Ohio, in 1939, and came of age in church basements across America. A.A. is an unlikely example of new-science management. But I believe it is just that.
A.A. has been extraordinarily successful. Since its founding, membership has steadily grown to close to three million men and women. Today, A.A. is in some 50 different countries, and there are about 50,000 active groups worldwide. Roughly, half of A.A.’s membership comes from outside the U.S.
A.A. is considered to offer the alcoholic his or her best chance for recovery, and although recovery rates today are lower than in years past (for many reasons), millions of alcoholics feel they owe their lives to this simple program
Like quantum theory, A.A. is built on a paradox. The most important of A.A.’s paradoxes is that the power to stop drinking comes through surrender. For the alcoholic to be freed of the obsession to drink, he must first admit his powerlessness over alcohol and the resulting unmanageability of his life. This surrender is the first of A.A.’s 12 Steps, and it is considered the most important element of the transformative process.
Guiding Values: A.A. achieves form, order, and purpose without the benefit of any formal rules, without hierarchy, and with no real governance. Nor are members guided by any forward-looking vision. Following its well-known dictum, “One day at a time,” A.A. abstains from looking into the future. The organization sets no membership goals, it makes no forecasts or projections, and it has no “vision” of a future state or world order.
A.A. achieves form, order, and purpose through a core set of values to which all members subscribe. These core values are what Wheatley would describe as a field of vision. This vision completely permeates the organizational space and invisibly guides the behavior of individuals. It is consistently communicated and involves all members. There are five elements of this vision.
- A shared belief in an individually defined God or “higher power”,
- A unitary purpose: to help the alcoholic who still suffers,
- A.A.’s program of recovery: the 12 Steps (see Appendix A),
- A.A.’s organizing principles: the 12 Traditions (see Appendix B), and
- The book Alcoholics Anonymous is known to members as the “Big Book.” The Big Book is the organization’s basic text, and, in its essentials, it has remained unchanged since its publication in 1939.
In many groups, the 12 Steps and the 12 Traditions are read at the start of each meeting. Together with the Big Book, they serve as what Wheatley would call the organization’s self-referential guideposts. They provide a stable reference point for any change. They are the globally stable structures that have allowed A.A. to continue through world wars, social upheaval, and to survive the grandiosity and egotism of some members. They guide the discussion that takes place in the meeting, and they serve as the “benchmarks” against which all proposals, opinions, and innovations are evaluated.
Openness and permeability: Anyone with a desire to stop drinking may be a member of A.A. Unlike other organizations, there are no boundaries between membership and non-membership: no membership roster to sign, no oath to take, and no membership dues to pay.
Since there is no formal definition of membership, there is no method for excluding a person from membership. One reason that A.A. has avoided any serious internal splits is because there is no possibility of driving anyone out of the organization and thereby winning a permanent victory. A.A.’s openness of membership and the freedom to come and go also distinguish the organization from religious cults.
A.A.’s processes are open and transparent. Information such as meeting schedules, historical archives, publications, and documents can be obtained by anyone. Personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, and film is one of the organization’s guiding principles, but within A.A., members’ names are freely exchanged.
A.A. is also remarkably indifferent to social class. Alcoholism is a great leveler, and differences of income, education, religion, and ethnicity seem quite unimportant in A.A. One member commented, “It doesn’t matter whether you live on Park Avenue or the park bench, and it doesn’t matter whether you went to Yale or jail. If you’re an alcoholic, you’re like the rest of us.”
More important than social class is the length of time that a member has been sober. “Old-timers” in the program are accorded special respect, and they play a role of moral leadership in the organization. However, even they are expected to subjugate their personal opinions to the will of the group and to welcome and support the newcomer.
Leadership as Service: One of A.A.’s 12 Traditions states that A.A.’s ‘leaders do not govern, they are but trusted servants.’
The leadership of the group is highly flexible. Leadership of the meeting usually rotates among the group’s regular attendees, and it confers no special status. In the meetings, individuals have a great deal of freedom of expression, but even as leaders, they have remarkably little power to control or even disrupt the overall flow. One member remarked, “The only person who can f..k up an A.A. meeting is a cop.”
When leaders or readers are absent, other members quickly step in to fill their place. Meetings nearly always begin on time, and it is remarkable how smoothly meetings run with so little apparent organization.
Acceptance of Disagreement: Most organizations actively avoid disagreement and dissent within their ranks. A.A. appears to accept and even welcome it. Through dissent and questioning the 12 Traditions are tested, the 12 Steps are clarified for the newcomer, and the organization grows in effectiveness.
Decisions in A.A. are usually reached through consensus, rather than the expedient of compromise or majority rule. This means that seemingly inconsequential choices (say, the size of coffee cups or the type of donuts to be served at meetings) are sometimes discussed and deliberated ad infinitum. However, this approach does assure that differences are brought into the open and will be less likely to re-emerge later as a resentment (AA teaches that resentment is the foremost cause of relapse).
In our discussion of self-organizing systems, we mentioned that disturbance and disequilibrium are necessary for the system to change and evolve. For Alcoholics Anonymous, conflict is also a stimulus for growth and renewal. When differences of opinion cannot be resolved within a group, members can, and often do, form new groups that better suit their preferences. One of A.A.’s many sayings is that “To form a group, all you need is a coffee pot and a resentment.” When, for example, non-smokers could not get smokers to refrain from smoking during meetings, they formed their own non-smoking meetings; today, most US meetings are of this variety. The formation of new groups is not perceived as competition to existing groups. Rather, it is seen as an opportunity to reach more alcoholics.
Primacy of the A.A. Group: The fundamental organizational unit of A.A. is the group. Other A.A. functions are intended to support the group, not direct or oversee it. This inversion of the usual organizational ‘pyramid’ is real; it is not rhetorical (see Appendix C). There is no President of A.A. and there are no A.A. officers. Few A.A. members are even able to name anyone who works at the organization’s administrative headquarters. Many do not even know who represents their own group in A.A. councils.
A.A. groups support themselves by passing the hat at meetings, and they do not accept contributions from any outside agency or individual (Tradition 4). The A.A. group also avoids any formal or implied association with other groups. The group does not endorse, finance or lend the A.A. name to any related facility or outside enterprise (Tradition 6).
Groups have complete autonomy, except in matters affecting other A.A. groups or A.A. as a whole (Tradition 4). A.A. meetings are similar around the world, but they are not bound to any particular style or format. This freedom allows the groups to experiment, resulting in some interesting local variations. For example, in Big Sur, California, the spiritual home of many “new age” philosophies, A.A. meetings often include periods of meditation, and they are sometimes conducted by candlelight.
Having great freedom, the A.A. group can respond and adapt to change. This flexibility at the level of the group has allowed A.A. as an organization to remain remarkably stable over the years.
When they enter A.A., many alcoholics experience a profound sense of relief. They report feeling a sense of oneness and belonging that they have never felt elsewhere.
Conclusion
In her book, Margaret Wheatley poetically captures the longing that many of us have for organizations like this.
“I want to move into a universe I trust so much that I give up playing God. I want to stop holding things together. I want to experience such safety that the concept of “allowing” – trusting that the appropriate forms can emerge – ceases to be scary. I want to surrender my care of the universe and become a participating member, with everyone I work with, in an organization that moves gracefully with its environment, trusting in the unfolding dance of order.”
I am not alone in wondering why organizations aren’t working well. Many of us ask, “Why do so many organizations feel dead? Why do projects consume so much time and energy yet so often produce disappointing results? Why do we spend so much time planning, only to be buried by events we hadn’t anticipated? Why have our expectations diminished to the point that all we hope for sometimes is the power to endure and survive?”
In her book, Margaret Wheatley asks why our organizations are so rigid, so bound by past practices, on accepted forms and true answers. Why are they not more like a stream or small river? As it flows through mud and rocks, sand and stone a stream is constantly shifting and adapting. Swirling and letting the focus of power shift, while somehow retaining its basic form. Behind this adaptability, driving it and making it all happen, is the water’s essential ‘purpose’ or ‘vision.’ The water answers to gravity, to downhill and it hears the call of the ocean.
Structures emerge, but only as temporary solutions that facilitate rather than interfere. The stream shows none of the guarded, graceless inflexibility that I am accustomed to seeing in the organizations I work with.
Before we can create organizations like this, we must address a deeper problem. We will have to release our hands from the steering wheel. As A.A. would put it, we need to “let go and let God.” We will have to stop trying to control everything and trust that something as simple as a clear central core of values and vision – embedded deeply in the daily life of the company and its people — will keep us moving forward and out of the ditch.
I’d like to close by telling a little story about my son, Jacob, when he was a little boy.
Jacob was about four years old when my wife and I enrolled him in swimming lessons at the local YWCA. After a week or two of lessons, he wasn’t making much progress. He was still a “guppy”, I think.
A bit concerned, I decided to attend a lesson. I arrived while the class was in session. All the children were seated around the pool, their little legs dangling in the water. In the pool’s center stood the instructor, a very large woman in a one-piece suit and a bathing cap, who spoke with the authority of a Quantico drill instructor. She was giving a demonstration of floating, and her subject was Jacob. He was lying in the water beside her, his little rear end supported by the palm of her hand. His lips were blue, and his jaw was tightly clenched in unmistakable terror.
“JUST RELAX!” the teacher bellowed. “JUST RELAX!”
The lesson here, and one that highlights how companies are often run, is that relaxation requires trust, and trust requires respect. The tiny child with blue lips has trouble relaxing while being yelled at, as does the shop floor worker who worked all day to meet an impossible deadline. Let’s just “relax” about how we evaluate our own and others’ behavior, providing support as needed for the brave and fine things the behavior around us does under ‘blue lip’ conditions, when, if given a small break, a warm towel, and a nod of encouragement could perhaps float along to a good conclusion, exceeding expectations all around.
Perhaps the advice we all need to follow in our organizations is, “Just relax“, without ever using caps.
References
Anonymous. Alcoholics Anonymous. New York: Works Publishing, 1939.
Jantsch, Erich. The Self-Organizing Universe. Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1980.
Mandelbrot, Benoit. The Fractal Geometry of Nature. New York: Freeman, 1977.
Panda, Nrusingh C. Maya in Physics. Delhi: 2005.
Prigogine, Ilya and Strengers, Isabelle. Order Out of Chaos. New York: Bantam Books, 1984.
Waldrop, M. Mitchell. Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos. New York: Simon and Shuster, 1992.
Watson, John B. Behaviorism. New York: The People’s Institute Publishing Co., 1924.
Wheatley, Margaret J. Leadership and the New Science: Learning about Organization from an Orderly Universe. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 1992.
Zohar, Dana The Quantum Self: Human Nature and Consciousness Defined by New Physics. New York: William Morrow and Co., 1990.
Appendix A
THE TWELVE STEPS
OF ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS
1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
Appendix B
THE TWELVE TRADITIONS
OF ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS
1. Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends upon A.A. unity.
2. For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority — a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern.
3. The only requirement for A.A. membership is a desire to stop drinking.
4. Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or A.A. as a whole.
5. Each group has but one primary purpose—to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers.
6. An A.A. group ought never endorse, finance or lend the A.A. name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property and prestige divert us from our primary purpose.
7. Every A.A. group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions.
8. Alcoholics Anonymous should remain forever nonprofessional, but our service centers may employ special workers.
9. A.A., as such, ought never be organized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve.
10. Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the A.A. name ought never be drawn into public controversy.
11. Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio and films.
12. Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.
Appendix C
Alcoholics Anonymous Organization Structure
