Hierarchy, Rules, Commands ... an alternative
Posted: Thu Oct 01, 2009 1:47 am
NCI is a society within a society within a world within a world. NCI was formed with some simple ideas in mind, probably a lot like "have fun and help people". As people join and leave, come and go, things change, and things stay the same. We are large now, and have been trying to run "more like an organization" for some time.
My point here is that "run like an organization" may not mean what we might initially think. More specifically, I'm thinking that we will do better with very little hierarchy, few rules, almost no commands. Instead, we'll prosper by sharing values and practices in a respectful way.
The fact that NCI is bigger than it once was doesn't mean that it needs more, or more specific rules. It is impossible--literally impossible--to define the behavior of a human organization using rules, and the attempt generally makes things worse. It's more difficult than programming, and believe me large programs are hard enough. Computers do what we tell them, and the languages we use are unambiguous. Human language is imprecise, and people don't do what we tell them anyway.
People use judgment to decide what to do, always. This is especially true for the kind of people we have here in SL but it is true enough everywhere.
So what do we need? We need our leaders--the official ones and all those among us who have leadership in them from time to time--to share their vision of what NCI is and what it should be. They need to share their perception of how things are going. They need to share their understanding of what we need.
They need to trust the people, the helpers, the land officers, the citizens, to do their best. Sometimes, of course, we'll fail. The leaders should respond by providing feedback, quietly, directly, describing what would be better.
Now trust is not absolute trust. It would not make sense to give everyone full edit capability on all NCI assets or anything that silly. What does make sense is to grant people more freedom than they need, and to keep in touch with them to give them lots of feedback on how they are doing.
As people show themselves trustworthy--which they can only do if we trust them--then we will trust them more, and grant them more freedom and leeway. We always want to grant them more than they need to do whatever it is they're trying to accomplish for us, and to provide feedback promptly.
But not too promptly! People need to make mistakes. We learn by making mistakes. So our leaders can't go around holding on to all our bike seats to make sure we never fall down. They need to let us fall, help us get up, dust us off, and let us go again.
We don't need a complex hierarchy of power. We don't need a complex table of rules. We don't need to be given a lot of commands. We need to understand what is needed, and to have enough freedom to do our part in it. And we need feedback from our leaders on how we're doing.
That's pretty scary for leaders. But it's the only way that really leads to excellence.
Think about it, please.
My point here is that "run like an organization" may not mean what we might initially think. More specifically, I'm thinking that we will do better with very little hierarchy, few rules, almost no commands. Instead, we'll prosper by sharing values and practices in a respectful way.
The fact that NCI is bigger than it once was doesn't mean that it needs more, or more specific rules. It is impossible--literally impossible--to define the behavior of a human organization using rules, and the attempt generally makes things worse. It's more difficult than programming, and believe me large programs are hard enough. Computers do what we tell them, and the languages we use are unambiguous. Human language is imprecise, and people don't do what we tell them anyway.
People use judgment to decide what to do, always. This is especially true for the kind of people we have here in SL but it is true enough everywhere.
So what do we need? We need our leaders--the official ones and all those among us who have leadership in them from time to time--to share their vision of what NCI is and what it should be. They need to share their perception of how things are going. They need to share their understanding of what we need.
They need to trust the people, the helpers, the land officers, the citizens, to do their best. Sometimes, of course, we'll fail. The leaders should respond by providing feedback, quietly, directly, describing what would be better.
Now trust is not absolute trust. It would not make sense to give everyone full edit capability on all NCI assets or anything that silly. What does make sense is to grant people more freedom than they need, and to keep in touch with them to give them lots of feedback on how they are doing.
As people show themselves trustworthy--which they can only do if we trust them--then we will trust them more, and grant them more freedom and leeway. We always want to grant them more than they need to do whatever it is they're trying to accomplish for us, and to provide feedback promptly.
But not too promptly! People need to make mistakes. We learn by making mistakes. So our leaders can't go around holding on to all our bike seats to make sure we never fall down. They need to let us fall, help us get up, dust us off, and let us go again.
We don't need a complex hierarchy of power. We don't need a complex table of rules. We don't need to be given a lot of commands. We need to understand what is needed, and to have enough freedom to do our part in it. And we need feedback from our leaders on how we're doing.
That's pretty scary for leaders. But it's the only way that really leads to excellence.
Think about it, please.