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Emergence: Difference between revisions
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So changing an emergent property is tricky. You must the nature of the individual interactions so that a different property emerges, even though each of those interactions, of itself, is not obviously deficient. | So changing an emergent property is tricky. You must the nature of the individual interactions so that a different property emerges, even though each of those interactions, of itself, is not obviously deficient. | ||
We know of one institution which instituted a “bureaucracy hotline” where staff could, in essence, denounce examples of bureaucracy when they encountered them. | We know of one institution which instituted a “bureaucracy hotline” where staff could, in essence, denounce examples of bureaucracy when they encountered them. Another institution had a “see it, say it, fix it” programme. Neither worked — for every ''particular'' there is some [[special pleading]] justifying the status quo, usually by reference to someone or something elsewhere in the hierarchy, or some hypothetical risk, [[precedent]] or scar tissue sedimented into the mythological fossil record of the organisation. In any case, beyond any individual’s ability to fix, or even influence.Notwithstanding excellent intentions, it too fell on stony ground. The conditions which needed to changed were not ones the employees controlled. In most cases the incipient ''You can’t tell a cup of water to stop being wet''. | ||
However tempting it may seem to an administrator, you cannot change the wider system, except by changing each of the individual interactions from which the property emerges. You can’t stop water being wet, unless you change the conditions in which water molecules interact (by making it colder, or hotter, or mixing other molecules with H<sub>2</sub>0. Likewise, you can’t remove bureaucracy from an organisation while keeping the organisational hierarchy which incentivises people to be bureaucratic. Each individual actions may be explicable — if a bit conservative — viewed in isolation. You can’t see the bureaucracy in it, and the individual may feel she has no alternative, given the hierarchical structures, than to act that way. | However tempting it may seem to an administrator, you cannot change the wider system, except by changing each of the individual interactions from which the property emerges. You can’t stop water being wet, unless you change the conditions in which water molecules interact (by making it colder, or hotter, or mixing other molecules with H<sub>2</sub>0. Likewise, you can’t remove bureaucracy from an organisation while keeping the organisational hierarchy which incentivises people to be bureaucratic. Each individual actions may be explicable — if a bit conservative — viewed in isolation. You can’t see the bureaucracy in it, and the individual may feel she has no alternative, given the hierarchical structures, than to act that way. | ||