Organizational Existence - The Flywheel in motion

Thank you, Eric Zabiegalski, for producing the piece, part 6 in the series - enlightening, nothing less.

Setting the flywheel in motion Creating an ambidextrous employee ownership company, Part 6 Your role in a new world

And thank you, Eric, for asking me to make a comment on your writing and your generous words on parts of my éthos (with é, epsilon) "Per, thanks for the message. You’re a deep thinker and exceptional writer. I’ll message you after I’ve posted. Eric" - I will humbly take that as a compliment of appreciation that is entirely mutual (not reciprocal, because we are doing this together without expectations on return on investment - in short, it is beyond the transactional level). I'll revert to the epsilon stuff later and throw in "ê, eta" as well. You posted yesterday and as promised a comment - rather elusive yet very dense.

In the beginning... a prologue

The number of markers in the article where one could strike to make a point is abundant in this article, thanks to Eric for sharing your insights with the rest of us. One can find an equal number of starting points on the surface, and once diving in it simply explodes. If I should choose one as a headline I would choose "organising", probably overly ambitious, but the topics illuminated can all be led back to the ideas of how to organise. Organisations consist of people, individuals of many sorts, but first and foremost humans, all different, and the same at the same time.

For those more interested in #thegreatresignation, as Eric also refers to, I humbly refer to the end of this article for more on "Why are people ready to resign — coming back to life as we can now know it?" In this specific context, the topic of #thegreatresignation is only implicitly visible. Here I'll attempt to compliment Eric and have a look at what organising can originate from when thinking of humans at the core.

The character, not so much the psycho nor somatic, but both at the same time - the sum of our dispositions that neither psychology nor physiology can capture, is basically the theme here. Much in the same approach as you, Eric, tie topics together stretching the ambidextrous organisation, polymathic, serendipity and more. I'll attempt the same from a different starting point and perspective.

The character in existence

This modus is encapsulated in an abstract Aristotelian concept, namely that of "Hexis" (éthos is often used as a synonym) "disposition" a topic thoroughly treated in the Nicomachean Ethics. Hexis is translated by Cicero to Habitus in Latin and loses much of its original meaning, and today we are left with a drained notion of the constitution, physical build and at best an individual background related perception of the world. The concept of Hexis expresses the opportunity (choice) that a human has to shape/form life in the image of the Good, by learning about it and practising it and hence is a key concept in virtue ethics. We have sadly lost much during the past 2.500 years!

If one chose to have a closer look at Hexis through Habitus we find the meanings "condition, appearance, dress" originally past participle of?habere?"to have, hold, possess; wear; find oneself, be situated; consider, think, reason, have in mind; manage, keep,". Even deeper we find that it possibly stems from the Proto-Indo-European root "*ghabh-", meaning "to give or receive" probably with the basic sense "to hold," which can be either in offering or in taking.

It of course also is the origin of Habit meaning "characteristic attire of a religious or clerical order," from Old French?habit,?abit?"clothing, (ecclesiastical) habit; conduct" (12c.)

When we look really closely, we see the loss in semantics can be rediscovered as there are openings that shed light on certain liminal paths we can follow in different directions. Instead of eradicating the general modern meaning, maybe we can semantically inform it and improve it (mindset comes to mind - do we limit ourselves or do we welcome the event of meaning). The ability "to hold" oneself and both "to give or receive" an "and" could probably sneak its way in, to encompass both/and, if for no other rationale then to hold the meanings of "manage" and "find oneself" (on the latter Buber comes to mind, as we cannot define ourselves by ourselves - we must relate with others, the other and even the significant other comes in to play). In summary Aurelius "Be(come) who you are" could express the essence if we are imaginative.

Existence and coincidence

No human is an island (I think it was Lyotard who used the phrase, expressing the insignificance of the individual). We are influenced by the so-called outside world (nonsense, as we can never escape it, and hence we are a part of it). The events happening influence us, how they are construed is not important, they happen anyway, how we welcome the event on the other hand is partly in our control. Serendipity has sadly become a buzzword, but it serves a noble purpose in what mindset we approach the world. If we look to the ancestral relatives of the serendipitous I think we somewhere in the bloodline of the ancient will find "contingence".

The idea of serendipity holds some family relations with contingence, but where contingence is more abstract we can fly in the idea of serendipity and being serendipitous closer to the orbit of everyday life - we can choose to act in a certain way - in every "event" we encounter.

The event is the product of the contingent. Importantly we must remember that "contingere (latin)" is Bo?thius' translation and folding-in of two Greek terms from Aristotle, "endechomenon", meaning what is possible but not necessary; and "symbainein", which denotes a "throw", an "event" (that which happens). (Kirkeby, modified)

The concept of contingence/(contingency) is thus created through a combination of the concept of the possible and the concept of the event, but in such a way that it can mark the meaning and emerging significance that something is made necessary because someone takes on its realization. To commit to a possible opinion among many, that it is contingence/(contingency). At the same time this holds all potentiality when we remember that "what a thing is, it is, and also always already something else" this is the inner nature of contingence, the liminal state of vibrance that can change a human and the world.

Here I'm heavily leaning on Aristotle and the works of Danish Organisational & Leadership philosopher and professor Ole Fogh Kirkeby. Much depends on how we welcome the event, and how we "form" ourselves to become worthy of the event.?

So, when Sartre proclaims we are condemned to freedom, there are certainly a few things we are not free from - in Milan Kunderas's excellent words "The unbearable lightness of being".

Two right hands - exploiting and exploring

What to do, is an existential question, that holds the secret of "ambidexterity" - should I exploit and/or explore? Literally meaning "right-handed on both sides" from Latin ambidexter and closely linked to ambidextrous, "able to use both hands equally,". Exploit has come to have a negative meaning, much like "to utilise" as it has been linked to slavery and colonialism. However, the birth of the word is quite different and can serve to understand a more positive approach to its use and misuse for that matter.

It comprise of Latin "ex-, meaning "out"" and "plicare, meaning "to fold" which comes from the PIE root *plek, meaning "to plait" and a legacy that stretches back through Old French?esploit?"a carrying out; achievement, result; gain, advantage" (12c., Modern French?exploit), a very common word, used in senses of "action, deed, profit, achievement," from Latin?explicitum?"a thing settled, ended, or displayed," noun use of neuter of?explicitus, past participle of?explicare?"unfold, unroll, disentangle". Perhaps not so negative after all, the negative sense is traced to the 1830s and not at all ancient!

As you Eric neatly links ambidexterity to continue to polymath/polymathic we have several options of directions. The obvious is that of hybrids and transdisciplinarity - polymath, as a counterweight to the increasing specialisation we see. The short version would be poly-dexterity doing several things equally Good and more importantly across domains.

Before homing in and having an attempt to tie a knot reverting to the epsilon and eta topic (mentioned in the beginning), I would like to throw in a separate matter closely linked to the meaning of "unfolding" in exploitation (positive sense) which is of course preconditioned by some sort of in-folding and in its essence linking ambidexterity into complexity.

Edgar Morin plays a significant role here with his analogy of the tapestry and the weaving of it. The topic is of course that of complexity:

"Let’s take a contemporary tapestry: It is made up of the reads of linen, cotton. And wool, in various colours. To know this tapestry, it would be interesting to know the laws and the principles concerning each type of thread. However, the sum of knowledge of these types of thread used in the tapestry is insufficient for knowing the new reality that is the fabric, with the qualities and properties that are proper to this texture. It is also incapable or helping us know its form and its configuration."

He concludes firstly, "A whole is more than the sum of the parts" in the well-known sense of constructing a whole enables the parts, and secondly, "The whole is, therefore, less than the sum of its parts" - in the sense that constructing a whole constrains its parts.

This is highly relevant in all organisations and any attempt of organising as a discipline. As Morin expresses it:

"Organization means structure,?relation to wholeness, specific characters, relations between whole and the parts, unity-multiplicity, and emergences. The idea of structure mutilates the idea of organization, strips the idea of system, enucleates the idea of complexity."

New directions emerge if we do not constrain them (don't build walls), which seem to be a general conclusion.

An exit

We are back in the tapestry of the organisation and attempts to organise, and hence back where we started with the individual and the disposition (èthos, epsilon).

The original sense of "ethos", the firstborn, was with an "eta", the long "ê". It means the accustomed place, our hometown, the place we come from, the community (communities) to which we belong, the organisations we are part of. This is the fundamental rationale that it even makes sense to talk about an "organisational ethos" in the first place - the so-called spirit of an organisation. It should also be obvious that this is both a controlled and a contingent construct because the individuals in such communities not only have their own Hexis (éthos) but also always are becoming who they are by entering the events in their contextuality together with others doing exactly the same - in the words of Buber "All real living is meeting" - please do not constrain them, and please also try to keep attentive, it is people you're meeting… not functions.

We could go on for several hours, just think of the other topics that come to mind when the flywheel is set in motion - stakeholder management, relationship management, trust, conscious capitalism, stakeholder capitalism, teaming teams, poiesis and autopoiesis, conceptual design, strategy, and philosophy. We shall not today, and I leave you with this and huge thanks to Eric.

Why are people ready to resign — coming back to life as we can now know it?

Part I - Section 1/3

Part I - Section 2/3

Part I - Section 3/3

Why Are People Ready to Resign – Coming Back to Life as We Can Now Know It? – Part I… and a half

Part II – is in the polishing machine and upcoming

Remote Work is a Modus Operandi – Let’s Preserve the Option