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  1. Organisational Dysfunction of the Day

    Divided for efficiency

    Context: The workshop has twenty people and a full agenda. The facilitator divides the room into four groups of five, each working a different question in parallel. After ninety minutes, one person from each group presents a summary. The room acknowledges the outputs. A synthesis document appears a week later. Most people cannot clearly recall what they agreed to, or why — only that it was their group's table, not the others'.

    OST explains: The reasoning behind the split is familiar: smaller groups work faster, everyone gets air time, parallel processing covers more ground. What it misses is that shared understanding cannot be transferred by a summary. It is something the group builds together, in real time, by working through difference. A summary tells you what another group concluded. It does not tell you the reasoning behind it, or the alternatives that were set aside. The integration cost is the whole conversation the groups never had. The Search Conference avoids this. The group works as a whole on the tasks that matter. Where subgroups are used at all, it is for two specific structural reasons: when the group is too large to work effectively as one, or when there are clear power imbalances and dominant voices need to be separated to allow others to be heard. Even then, integration is the main event. Where factions already exist, the split can surface them quickly and deliberately, and rationalisation of conflict becomes the tool for working through what the groups found. The crack is brought into the open, not papered over. Standard workshop facilitation splits for efficiency and hopes the outputs add up. The Search Conference splits only when the group cannot otherwise function, and treats the return to the whole as the most important part of the process.

    #OpenSystemsTheory #SocioTechnical #OrgDesign #facilitation

    ***

    The series has become a book, available now on Leanpub.
    organisationaldysfunctions.com

  2. Organisational Dysfunction of the Day

    Divided for efficiency

    Context: The workshop has twenty people and a full agenda. The facilitator divides the room into four groups of five, each working a different question in parallel. After ninety minutes, one person from each group presents a summary. The room acknowledges the outputs. A synthesis document appears a week later. Most people cannot clearly recall what they agreed to, or why — only that it was their group's table, not the others'.

    OST explains: The reasoning behind the split is familiar: smaller groups work faster, everyone gets air time, parallel processing covers more ground. What it misses is that shared understanding cannot be transferred by a summary. It is something the group builds together, in real time, by working through difference. A summary tells you what another group concluded. It does not tell you the reasoning behind it, or the alternatives that were set aside. The integration cost is the whole conversation the groups never had. The Search Conference avoids this. The group works as a whole on the tasks that matter. Where subgroups are used at all, it is for two specific structural reasons: when the group is too large to work effectively as one, or when there are clear power imbalances and dominant voices need to be separated to allow others to be heard. Even then, integration is the main event. Where factions already exist, the split can surface them quickly and deliberately, and rationalisation of conflict becomes the tool for working through what the groups found. The crack is brought into the open, not papered over. Standard workshop facilitation splits for efficiency and hopes the outputs add up. The Search Conference splits only when the group cannot otherwise function, and treats the return to the whole as the most important part of the process.

    #OpenSystemsTheory #SocioTechnical #OrgDesign #facilitation

    ***

    The series has become a book, available now on Leanpub.
    organisationaldysfunctions.com

  3. Organisational Dysfunction of the Day

    Divided for efficiency

    Context: The workshop has twenty people and a full agenda. The facilitator divides the room into four groups of five, each working a different question in parallel. After ninety minutes, one person from each group presents a summary. The room acknowledges the outputs. A synthesis document appears a week later. Most people cannot clearly recall what they agreed to, or why — only that it was their group's table, not the others'.

    OST explains: The reasoning behind the split is familiar: smaller groups work faster, everyone gets air time, parallel processing covers more ground. What it misses is that shared understanding cannot be transferred by a summary. It is something the group builds together, in real time, by working through difference. A summary tells you what another group concluded. It does not tell you the reasoning behind it, or the alternatives that were set aside. The integration cost is the whole conversation the groups never had. The Search Conference avoids this. The group works as a whole on the tasks that matter. Where subgroups are used at all, it is for two specific structural reasons: when the group is too large to work effectively as one, or when there are clear power imbalances and dominant voices need to be separated to allow others to be heard. Even then, integration is the main event. Where factions already exist, the split can surface them quickly and deliberately, and rationalisation of conflict becomes the tool for working through what the groups found. The crack is brought into the open, not papered over. Standard workshop facilitation splits for efficiency and hopes the outputs add up. The Search Conference splits only when the group cannot otherwise function, and treats the return to the whole as the most important part of the process.

    ***

    The series has become a book, available now on Leanpub.
    organisationaldysfunctions.com

  4. Organisational Dysfunction of the Day

    Divided for efficiency

    Context: The workshop has twenty people and a full agenda. The facilitator divides the room into four groups of five, each working a different question in parallel. After ninety minutes, one person from each group presents a summary. The room acknowledges the outputs. A synthesis document appears a week later. Most people cannot clearly recall what they agreed to, or why — only that it was their group's table, not the others'.

    OST explains: The reasoning behind the split is familiar: smaller groups work faster, everyone gets air time, parallel processing covers more ground. What it misses is that shared understanding cannot be transferred by a summary. It is something the group builds together, in real time, by working through difference. A summary tells you what another group concluded. It does not tell you the reasoning behind it, or the alternatives that were set aside. The integration cost is the whole conversation the groups never had. The Search Conference avoids this. The group works as a whole on the tasks that matter. Where subgroups are used at all, it is for two specific structural reasons: when the group is too large to work effectively as one, or when there are clear power imbalances and dominant voices need to be separated to allow others to be heard. Even then, integration is the main event. Where factions already exist, the split can surface them quickly and deliberately, and rationalisation of conflict becomes the tool for working through what the groups found. The crack is brought into the open, not papered over. Standard workshop facilitation splits for efficiency and hopes the outputs add up. The Search Conference splits only when the group cannot otherwise function, and treats the return to the whole as the most important part of the process.

    #OpenSystemsTheory #SocioTechnical #OrgDesign #facilitation

    ***

    The series has become a book, available now on Leanpub.
    organisationaldysfunctions.com

  5. Organisational Dysfunction of the Day

    Divided for efficiency

    Context: The workshop has twenty people and a full agenda. The facilitator divides the room into four groups of five, each working a different question in parallel. After ninety minutes, one person from each group presents a summary. The room acknowledges the outputs. A synthesis document appears a week later. Most people cannot clearly recall what they agreed to, or why — only that it was their group's table, not the others'.

    OST explains: The reasoning behind the split is familiar: smaller groups work faster, everyone gets air time, parallel processing covers more ground. What it misses is that shared understanding cannot be transferred by a summary. It is something the group builds together, in real time, by working through difference. A summary tells you what another group concluded. It does not tell you the reasoning behind it, or the alternatives that were set aside. The integration cost is the whole conversation the groups never had. The Search Conference avoids this. The group works as a whole on the tasks that matter. Where subgroups are used at all, it is for two specific structural reasons: when the group is too large to work effectively as one, or when there are clear power imbalances and dominant voices need to be separated to allow others to be heard. Even then, integration is the main event. Where factions already exist, the split can surface them quickly and deliberately, and rationalisation of conflict becomes the tool for working through what the groups found. The crack is brought into the open, not papered over. Standard workshop facilitation splits for efficiency and hopes the outputs add up. The Search Conference splits only when the group cannot otherwise function, and treats the return to the whole as the most important part of the process.

    #OpenSystemsTheory #SocioTechnical #OrgDesign #facilitation

    ***

    The series has become a book, available now on Leanpub.
    organisationaldysfunctions.com