Order for free(dom)

William Paley argued that complex natural systems required a designer, but Charles Darwin later demonstrated that natural selection could create design without a designer. Stuart Kauffman introduced "self-organization," suggesting nature tends towards order without external direction. This concept applies to social systems, enabling innovation through self-organized networks, like hackathons, that foster creativity and collaboration beyond traditional hierarchical structures. Organizations can harness these principles to balance structure and freedom, avoiding stagnation and encouraging dynamic problem-solving approaches. Recognizing order within freedom, as Kauffman suggests, can transform organizational dynamics and unleash potential. #complexsystems, #naturalselection, #selforganization, #innovation, #collaboration, #organizationaldynamics, #creativity

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome to the Colig Experience.

(00:06):
In this episode, we're diving into bold insights, experimentation and groundbreaking leadership strategies.
Today, we'll explore how self-organization and the concept of design without a designer are revolutionizing innovation across industries.
From software giants to pharmaceutical breakthroughs, discover how embracing freedom within structure can unleash creativity and drive success.

(00:32):
Let's dive in.
William Paley is considered one of the most important thinkers in 17th century England.
In his book, Natural Theology, he established that there cannot be design without a designer.
In other words, the order that exists in nature is so complex and depends on so many factors that it couldn't possibly have organized itself without being designed by an external entity.

(00:59):
One of Paley's arguments relates to the eye.
He claimed that the eye is a system with such a high level of organization and complexity that it couldn't have organized itself without an external guiding intention.
Seven years after Paley died, a fellow named Charles Darwin was born in England.
If we want to briefly summarize Darwin's contribution to humanity, we could say that he refuted Paley's claim.

(01:25):
He showed that design without a designer is indeed possible.
Darwin replaced the external entity that designed nature with natural selection.
And what about the eye?
Today we know that during evolution, eyes developed at least nine times in different creatures independently.
Amazing, isn't it?

(01:46):
But we must admit that despite our scientific understanding of natural selection, it's still a highly non-intuitive story.
Take the cell, for instance, one of the atomic units that make up a living system.
Within this cell, processes operate at such complexity that it's genuinely difficult to grasp how they could have organized themselves, even if it took millions of years.

(02:12):
Well, it turns out our intuition is healthy.
Mathematical calculations have shown that despite the four billion years since life began,
the probability of it evolving into what we see today solely through natural selection is almost zero.
Yet here we are. How is this possible?

(02:33):
One answer was provided by an American Jewish biologist named Stuart Kaufman.
Kaufman argues that the order we observe in nature depends on another factor besides natural selection.
This factor is self-organization.
He demonstrates that highly complex systems with numerous variables have a natural tendency to prefer certain order over chaos.

(02:59):
He coined a beautiful term, order for free.
His intention was that given certain conditions, nature has the potential for order that can be obtained freely and in unlimited quantities.
Therefore, the nature around us is not a statistical accident.
On the contrary, he claims, we are the expected.

(03:21):
Thirty years after Kaufman published his work on self-organization,
we know that the central principles in his and others' work on biological systems also apply to large social systems.
How do we make the logical leap from complex biological systems to organizations?
Carefully, through viewing complex systems as networks.

(03:45):
It turns out that networks, whether fungal networks, networks of neurons in the brain,
or social networks, virtual and physical, have several similar basic rules of behavior.
Under certain conditions, these networks organize in ways that can surprise us.
We experienced this first hand when working with a software development company that was struggling to innovate despite employing brilliant engineers.

(04:13):
Their rigid hierarchical structure wasn't producing new ideas.
We suggested they experiment with creating self-organizing spaces,
weekly periods with no assigned tasks where engineers could freely explore problems that interested them.
Within three months, these free zones had spontaneously organized into small, passionate teams,

(04:35):
tackling the company's most intractable problems.
One team even developed a solution to a data processing challenge that had stumped their formal R&D department for years.
The network self-organized more effectively than the designed structure could have dictated.
Let's jump to a concept that has become very popular in recent years,

(04:57):
especially in high-tech circles, the hackathon.
From Wikipedia,

(05:32):
the organization's permanent management mechanisms, organizational structure, processes, work routines and job definitions serve it in execution when it comes to innovation, entrepreneurship and creativity.
A different work environment is needed.

(05:53):
The wisdom of crowds is required as appears in the Wikipedia definition.
What happens in hackathons or other events of this genre is that we essentially neutralize the everyday rules of the organizational game
and allow the system to operate with many more degrees of freedom.
Seemingly, what should happen when we give employees freedom is that they would take this time for themselves,

(06:17):
and some of them might actually do this.
But what actually happens is that out of all the free interactions at the event, a certain order begins to emerge.
A network of people and topics that interest them begins to develop.
Around nodes in this network, groups of employees develop, bringing their passion and creativity.

(06:38):
If you will, design without a designer emerges.
We saw this phenomenon clearly in our work with a pharmaceutical research organization.
They had traditionally structured their research teams by therapeutic area, with clear reporting lines and defined projects.
When facing a particularly challenging molecule development, we helped them implement a cross-functional, emergent network approach.

(07:03):
Instead of assigning specific teams, they created an open problem statement and allowed researchers to self-select into working groups.
What emerged wasn't chaos, but a remarkably efficient network structure,
where specialists from different disciplines found each other based on shared interests and complementary skills.

(07:25):
The resulting solution came from an unexpected collaboration between a biochemist, a data scientist,
and a materials engineer who would never have been grouped together in the traditional structure.
Which brings us back to networks.
The classic organizational structure is also a type of network,
but it's a network built top-down without freedom and without passion.

(07:49):
It has no libido, it's B-O-R-I-N-G.
But we need it, right? Because we need order.
Except that order can very quickly be replaced with stagnation, with deadlock, with fixation.
And then it becomes very difficult to escape from it.
The price an organization pays to break free for this order becomes very high if it succeeds at all.

(08:15):
Sounds like a problem.
But the truth is that it doesn't have to be a problem.
It's only a problem if we remain captive to the paradigm that order is the opposite of freedom.
We're stuck in this perception because we confuse order with control.
If we manage to separate from this perception and see the potential for order that lies within freedom,

(08:37):
we might discover the real insight in Kaufman's expression. Order for free.

(09:07):
Stay tuned for more updates.