2. Self-management

(a sub-section of Co-creative Learning Teams)

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Autonomy

1. The systemic idea of 'self-regulation' helped the development of automation.
2. It can also be applied to improve the way that we set up and manage teams.
3. An effective team must remain both responsive and reactive to what is happening.
4. Negative feedback is vital for any system to maintain its equilibrium.
5. The correction principle applies to any self-regulating system, whether living or otherwise.
6. An early example is the thermostat which maintains a constant temperature by 'correcting' itself.
   • see essay that references thermostatic devices).

Positive and Negative Feedback

1. For sighted people most of the important feedback for steering your bike is visual.
2. If you can see where you are going you can use the information to update your intentions.
3. If you veer too much to the left you can correct your error by turning the handle bars a bit to the right.
4. In systemic terms, steering correction is called negative feedback.
5. The word 'negative' is used simply because we are reversing the terms left and right.
6. Of course you could exaggerate your error by turning the handle bars even further to the left.
7. This is called positive feedback - (a better example is an avalanche)
8. In this process the current tendency amplifies itself to produce an eventual runaway effect.

Self co-ordination

1. It is important to consider how well your team would cope if left unsupervised.
2. Many self-regulatory systems are working simultaneously in a living organism.
3. When we speak of coordination do we mean events within the team or outside it?
4. Hypothetically, perfect shamanic consciousness would mean both.
5. Let is imagine a team that was totally shamanic.
6. It would be 100% conscious of its interior state and its exterior context.
7. This gives us the full range of conditions that need to be coordinated.

Inside & Outside

1. But, to remain viable, a living system must ensure they all work together.
2. E.g. In higher lifeforms, a brain acts as the coordinator for the rest of the organism.
3. But this is still uncanny, as it describes a circular process of cause and effect.
4. Although the brain is inside the whole organism it also seeks to influence external events.
5. This way of thinking about living systems is called autopoiesis (literally: self-creation)
6. It is also known as the Santiago Theory of Cognition (Maturana & Varela, 1980).

Regulating the Regulators

1. Cybernetics explains how negative feedback enables a self-regulating stability
2. However, self-coordination requires more complex processes than simple self-regulation.
3. When driving a four-wheeled vehicle forward, the logic of steering remains constant.
4. But when reversing an articulated lorry you must coordinate rule changes in the system.
5. This is because both the front wheels and the trailer influence the steering process.
6. But cab and trailer apply their own logic of steering that don't coordinate themselves.
7. So drivers need feedback from the road and from the cab's angle.

Self-coordinating Teams

1. Sports and singing in choirs are healthy forms of teamwork.
2. In both cases each member can influence the collective destination of the team.
3. Unlike solo activities the main feedback is from the team, not from you.
4. This makes it a second order cybernetics process.
5. In human terms, it can be really useful to watch other team members with empathy.
6. Being able to imagine how others see things will help you anticipate what they do next.
7. Once everyone observes empathetically, the team's self-coordination should improve.

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The Whole Course

1. Systems Thinking
2. Self-management
3. Living systems
4. Team consciousness
5. Team synergy
6. Team sizes
7. Team diversity
8. Lucky Teams
9. Team Tools
10. Heart to Heart