[Neurons] 2014 "Neurons" Meta Reflections #10

[L. Michael Hall]

From: L. Michael Hall

Meta Reflections 2014 #10

March 10, 2014

Creating a Self-Actualizing Company #4

 

 

CREATING AGAINST ALL ODDS

 

I've been writing about former CEO of VISA, Dee Hock and his wild and crazy
ideas about creating "a new kind of organization"- one that today we in
Neuro-Semantics would call a Self-Actualizing Company.  Yet back in the
early 1970s he didn't know what to call the new kind of organization, so he
came up with a term that he derived from combining the two critical dynamics
for companies: chaos and order.  From those two words he created the term
chaordic and a chaordic organization.  Never heard of that?  No wonder!  The
term never really caught on.  Thank God.

 

In last week's post I pulled from the bookf Birth of the Chaordic Age
quotations from him in which he wrote about the mistakes he made along the
way.  In seeking to create an entirely new kind of organization, his genius
was in business structure, not in psychology.  So years later he recognized
that the "deep cultural change" required much more attention and methodology
than he had.  Yet what he lacked in terms of understanding
Self-Actualization Psychology, he made up with his courageous willingness to
experiment with the ideas that he had been entertaining.

 

"There was a problem" he said after he had discovered that he had both the
permission and authority the National Bank of Commerce to pursue the idea of
creating a new kind of organization that could handle the challenges of a
worldwide credit card.  What was the problem?  In his own words:

"No bank could do it.  No hierarchal stock corporation could do it.  No
nation-state could do it.  In fact, no existing form of organization we
could think of could do it.  On a hunch I made an estimate of the financial
resources of all the banks in the world.  It dwarfed the resources of most
nations.  Jointly, they could do it, but how?  It would require a
transcendental organization linking together in wholly new ways an
unimaginable complex of diverse institutions and individuals.

"At the time, did I think it could be done?  No!  It was impossible!  Did I
think the Bank of American would give up ownership of the program?  No!  Did
I think banks worldwide could be brought together in such an effort?  No!
Did I think laws would allow it?  No!  Did I think anyone would seriously
listen to such notions or allow them the light of day if they did?  No!  But
did I believe it was what ought to be?  Ah, that was another question
indeed!  Powerful enough to draw me on.

"Absurd as it seemed, might this be an undreamed-of opportunity to
experiment with my beliefs about organizations and management?  It seemed
beyond imagining.  But what could be lost by the attempt?" (pp. 125-126)

 

What an ideal context for collaboration!  The impossibility of something
being created and coming into existence by all of the separate resources of
what's currently possible and the far-off impossibility of everybody coming
together to create it.  If only those who had invested in him and the years
of preparation were willing to not claim ownership, if only every other key
individual and group be willing to equally share, if only all would set
aside all of the old ways and old paradigms- then it could work.  Such was
that state of things.  What were the probabilities?  One percent?  Less than
that?  Whatever it was, against all odds, he plowed ahead inspired by a
vision of collaboration and what that collaboration could potentially do.

 

Pretty incredible, right?  So how does one just plow ahead?  Dee Hock began
by gathering his executive team, asking for a commitment to set aside a
week, isolate themselves, and see what they could create.  To facilitate the
group thinking and learning together he put forth an evocative question and
a distinction of four ways to look at things:

"If anything imaginable was possible, if there were no constraints whatever,
what would be the nature of an ideal organization to create the world's
premier system for the exchange of value?" (p. 132)

"As they were, as they are, as they might become, and as they ought to be.
Let's synthesize these and hold them in mind as a single perspective."

 

That elicited storming in the executive group: "we argued, frustration
increased, tempers flared."  From what I can tell he essentially "coached"
the group by using his insights which he presented as process instructions.
In that way the group was enabled to think together, learn together, and
finally decide together.  Here are some of those insights:

"Since the past can never be more than preparatory and the present no more
than a point of departure, it is the future that should have our best
thoughts and energy..." (p. 134)

"The problem is never to get new ideas in, the roblem is to get old ideas
out.  Every mind is filled with old furniture." (p. 135)

"What if we quit arguing about the structure of a new institution and tried
to think of it as having some sort of genetic code?  How does genetic code
in individual cells create recognizable patterns? ... If institutions have
no reality save in the mind, might their genetic code have something to do
with purpose and principles?" (p. 136)

 

In the end they succeeded.  In hindsight, VISA was brought into being
through the power of relying on the power of ideas (p. 140).  Yet these
ideas didn't fit well with others who were required to make the whole plan
succeed.  And it especially didn't fit as the team approached success, then
"bitter opposition emerged."  Then others in places of influence decided
against the new organization, instead they wanted the power of
command-and-control.  Hock even said that there were dozens of times when he
longed to quit.  So what kept him going?

"All that is clear was stubborn conviction that the ideas ... were sound.
They had to be tried. ... Attempting the impossible is not rational ... It
is a matter of hope, faith, and determination." (p. 142)

 

This is often the way with creating something against all odds.  It has
often seemed this way with Neuro-Semantics- creating a voluntary Association
of highly qualified, professional, ethical, and collaborative people all
working to a single end as if they were a single company.  It's not
rational.  Reason alone would say that people will not give of their time,
effort, intelligence, intellectual property, and money to promote a shared
value.  And like VISA, it has been certain ideas that have kept us going-
the realization that we can do so much more together than alone or apart.
The realization that self-actualizing people live at the Being-level and
have a need to contribute, give back, and make a difference in the world.

 

 

 

Neuro-Semantic News

.          NSTT --- Trainers Training in Neuro-Semantics occurs this July in
Rio de Janeiro Brazil.   If you are interested - write to me or to Dr. Jairo
Manchilha for the Brochure and for specific information about the ventue.
We are proud to say that this Training Boot Camp is the most rigorous and
challenging of any NLP Trainers' Training program in the world.  It is not
for the faint of heart.  It is for men and women who want to become the most
excellent trainer that they can become.  It is for people who want to take
this skills to the next level of development.  We becnhmark the presentation
skills and the training skills and we focus on the business of training.
NSTT is led by Dr. Hall and Colin Cox, the first Master Trainer along with a
team of Master Trainers. 

jairo at pnl.med.br    --- July 19-August 2.

 

.         Modules II and III of Meta-Coaching in the USA this year.
Coaching Genius (APG) and Coaching Mastery will be in the USA again this
year in early July --- July 1-3 and 4-11.  For more information see
www.meta-coaching.org  or write for a brochure, meta at acsol.net 

 

 

 

 

 

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

                Neuro-Semantics Executive Director 

                Neuro-Semantics International

P.O. Box 8

Clifton, CO. 81520 USA                             

                1 970-523-7877 

                Dr. Hall's email:
<mailto:meta at acsol.net\hich\af31506\dbch\af31505\loch\f31506> meta at acsol.net


     

    

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Self-Actualization: Neuro-Semantics launched the New Human Potential
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