SYNERGY-NET on http://www.wiredbrain.net/


RE: How bureaucracy finally strangles its own ability to survive!



It is an old family story that Grandfather Edwardo put himself to

sleep for several decades reading Gibbon's "Rise and Fall of the

Roman Empire." One essentials point is made in that great story:

"the Empire fell of it's own weight". It was not overwhelmed by

external enemies but simply had become paralyzed by its own

bureaucracy. The social law of bureaucratic cancer put an end to

the Roman Empire after 25 generations, the Spanish Empire after

5, the British Empire about the same, Soviet Empire in three

generation, to IBM and GM in two, and MICROSOFT in one.



   What brings this topic on, is looking at my institutions phone

book and realizing 80% of the names and positions have little or

nothing to do with the mission of the organization but could be

called support, such as a communications or  women's center, but

they provide no day care that would support the clients, they

have administrative enterprises of all kinds that don't return a

unit of measured work or in private terms " PROFIT." Less than

half of the institutions resources go to serving the institutions

mission. I am not sure people realize this.



    You need administration, staff services, buildings and

grounds etc but enough is too much. They have become so large

that the central role of the institution is almost forgotten and

becomes secondary to the administration of itself, just like

under communism in the USS was. This is an organic and natural

process, of bureaucries feeding on themselves, and can only be

stopped or reversed by great external pressures.  There are more

people in the Department of Agriculture, the Agricultural

extension services and land grant colleges than farmers. In most

large school systems, colleges and universities there are more

non-teaching staff (often hidden with teacher sounding titles,

than classroom instructors). 



There are twice as many clerical than sickness treatment people

in the modern hospital, including  Floor people who do only

paperwork , insurance and such like.



   Is a serious problem. All these people are busy but

unnecessary. The fact that they are working hard blinds them to

the fact that what they "do" doesn't need to be done. It is only

required by themselves and their own system.



  When the administrative overhead becomes more than half of the

total operating cost, it clearly represents a problem.  The

rebellion of the right led by Newt feels the federal state is

strangling the enterprise that makes social life possible. All

Bureaucracies in quasi-monopolies, in communist states, in public

schools (where less than 50% of resources get to the classroom) ,

in any big organization's administrative systems, are clearly a

necessary evil that can  become so large and expensive it

overwhelm the ability of the organization to produce and survive.





  The value of capitalism is that sometimes there is real

competition. Real competition  forces the reduction in

administrators  vs." Doers" or downsizing - becoming lean and

mean. The Airlines reduced overhead by more than 50% from the

fixed price era to survival under competitive conditions, ( not

PAA and Eastern, etc..  who are no longer with us)  AT&T likewise

has been drastically cutting overhead, planes still fly, calls

still work, what were all those people doing? Having meetings and

passing paper among themselves and creating more paperwork and

more administrative positions - this is why deregulation is so

important.



  The Japanese culture promotes decentralization. Decisions are

pushed down as far as possible. Western cultures promote

centralization. Decisions are pushed up as far as possible. The

Western character looks for "heros", who take charge, who are

leaders, the cowboy John Wayne enterprise. The oriental

civilizations are collective, the desire is to blend in, not

stick out. The work groups, the project teams, the "skunk works"

are the source of creativeness, synergy, and power not

administrative systems. Promotion by seniority has lowered the

pressure to create more high level jobs so people can get raises.

Flatter pay scales reduce the pressure to have so many captains,

majors, col., and generals.  This is the real social change going

on and sooner or later will get to public bureaucries, schools,

banks, police departments. Etc. if they are to survive rather

than be replaced or fall of their own weight.

************************************************  



RE: How SYNERGY creates the THIRD WAVE: New Educational,

  

  Governmental, organizational models.

  (Why the MASLOW - Benedict thesis is critical to understanding

our times and the future.)  The Thesis: The Third Wave is defined

as Independent rewards from voluntary cooperation within open

communications systems.



  Less bureaucracy, less government, less big corporations, less

socialist and industrial capitalist, less conservative, less

liberal, more flexible, quick, creative, flowing, moral, value

driven, domestic global village, independent, libertarian, and

religious.

  The open structure of the INTERNET encourages new centers of

creative energy outside institutional limits and reward systems. 

SYNERGY= shared rewards derived from cooperation and mutual aid.

  

  Motivation for effort are the material and non-material   

  symbols of independently achieved quality.  



THE TROOP: We are genetically programmed to communicate in small

groups.  Human Language uses symbols that create and reinforce

mutual aid and sharing. The troop on the savanna need to work

together to survive, raise children and defend themselves.

Linguistic symbols formed the "DREAMTIME" of laws, customs,

traditions, and social manners and habits that defined a

"people".  



The TRIBE: The first wave were agricultural settlements that

required planning, patience, institutional structures, (religion,

clans, government, economics) and means of conflict resolution.

In the Death and Rebirth of the Seneca, Wallace describes the

long house and the free association of groups to create "world

peace". Sharing naturally creates synergy, intergroup

arrangements (federation of the six nations) can bring lasting

peace, through ceremony, discussion, leadership, character and

vision.  



SECOND WAVE - The industrial revolution, with the systemic

application of science (rational thought) and technology (,

always looking for a better way) made nations possible. Large

scale warfare and exploration required big formal institution;

Corporations, insurance, Armies, Navies, Courts and tax

collectors. The factory system gained from economies of scale and

scientific management. Corporations, State Enterprise, all took

on the same bureaucratic rationalism describe by Max Weber,

people became positions and roles. The American Experiment in

rational government was matched by the Communist exploration in

state capitalism. Everything could be rationally planned and

organized by leaders and owners.  



The THIRD WAVE, began with the revolt against BIG, Institutional,

Bureaucrat power in the 1960's. The utopian schemes of liberal

capitalism or bureaucratic communism came under fire from Small

is Beautiful, Less is more, libertarian and other ideas and

passions. Institutional rewards means institutional behavior and

the "man in the gray flannel suit" complex. (IBM white shirts)

Which seemed just stupid to many.  MBO is management by

objectives. Teams gain certain flexibility within set limits and

by a prearranged external criteria. TQM (total quality

management) means self regulating groups who figure out (using

certain tools) what is a systems issue and what is an operational

problem. 



Most problems are system issues, the MBO groups had no power to

change and the TQM group does. If the structure is the problem,

how can management reinvent itself ?  Handy little Book "The Age

of Unreason" give insight into the decentralized power field

theory. The basic characteristics, and type of organization is

very different in third wave (Z - organizations). Z is from

Japan, self managing groups they learning partly from Druker

(MBO) and Deming (TQM) but and a BIG but - with American

individual enterprise and initiative within a free formed

collective - i.e. professional collaboration model long suggested

by management theory of high tech organizations, (Branch, group

theory people et al) with the technological capacity to be spread

around the world.  



This is the model for the INTERNET. No one owns it and no

institution can give or withhold rewards. Sun Microsystems and

Netscape can give MICROSOFT a real survival test. The institution

structure of the WEB is built on freely formed groups working on

projects, without a lot of central control. This is the model for

Global Village Schools - maybe we should call Third Wave Schools. 

RE: A.H. Maslow: The Farther Reaches of Human Nature  "Synergy in

the Society and Individual" An Esalen, Penguin Books 1976 ISBN 0

14 00.4265 2 Chapter 14, Page 191



  Ruth Benedict (Patterns of Culture; Race, Science and Politics)

an essay on holism, invented and developed the idea of synergy at

lectures at Bryn Mawr College in 1941. Maslow had the only copy

which was to be published with the assistance of Margaret Mead in

1970.



  Benedict tried to overcome the idea of cultural equality ( not

everything is right ) and the doctrine of cultural relativity,

what ever works for you is OK by me. Societies she said have a

flavor, character and are not all equally functional.  Some

societies are "anxious", surly, nasty, aggressive, and hateful,

this come from insecurity and causes low morale. ( such as the

Chuckchee, the Ojibwa, The Dobu, and the Kwakiutl) Other

societies were "nice" people, affectionate, kind, secure and with

high morale. ( Zuni, Arapesh, The L(d)eKota, Eskimo ).  The

critical element in the concept of synergy is aggression vs.

cooperation. Synergy is where individual benefit and groups

welfare are in sink. Farming, fishing, hunting can product mutual

benefits of cooperation. Selfish self-interest (winner/losers)

vs. unselfish, altruism (win/win).



  Siphoning vs. funneling of wealth, use vs. ownership,

Comforting vs. Frightening Religion, high energy or low energy

institutions, are characteristics of synergy, where are we ? We

have had a out break of win/lose - me and mine - the hell with

the hind most, winner take all, activity. This discourages the

losers, causes aggression, and is socially dysfunctional. A few

institutions maintain high energy but the society is winding

down. Synergy is spirit and systems for successful cooperation,

institutional means of using aggression (learning for conflict),

and rewards for all from social success (tide lifts all boats).



  RE: Action: The action group, a reason for being.  



What Am I doing?  Now is the time to try men's (and women's)

peoples souls! During the first 200 years as a nation each

generation was better off, better educated, and in many ways

freer that the generations in the past. Freedom is a state of

mind. (Sufi and Plato, Masons, science and democracy are linked

by the belief in true ideas and ideals)  



Moral: We are in trouble as a society!  The average American (or

mean or median) are less informed, more illiterate, less

prosperous, than their parents. (The median wages in REAL dollars

has not moved since 1969, familial income had gone up a little

due to more workers - women in the labor force).  Why? Bad

values! Short tern, commercial, greed, lack of concern for

others, selfless, not understanding the interrelationship of all

things and all people, prejudice, bigots, closed minds, hate, and

other bad values. Good values as Bill Bennet points out are

universal and necessary for a working society. Long term,

community, hard work, family, beyond self etc (Stephen Covey) 



Competition from others countries who are simply better organized

to provide for high value added jobs than we are. (Reich) They

are have better values, are smarter. better educated, more

organized, and their minds are freer from false ideas.  Values

are an economic issue because of Quality.  The inability to

cooperate is part of an anti-intellectual, anti- science,

anti-technology, anti-reality attitude of people in general and

my students in particular. A society where 40% believe in

UFO,(not only UFO'S but Aliens that take people aboard to study

them) para-psychology, astrology, and other false ideas is in

trouble.  



Carl Sagan made a point of belief in Astrology not simply as a

harmless hobby but as a symptom of a lack of understanding the

roots of science.  The old cowboy, macho, Ayn Rand, the hero in

history, attitude of Limbaugh and the groups of right, who are

basically nay sayers, plus the religious conservative,

(Creationism) some small business and old style populist - not

that they are wrong but they just don't understand the issue of

reason, science, facts and people working together using rational

thought to create new ideas. Psychics, sorcerers, talking snakes,

Health Cures, demons, mind power, false prophets, crime,

illegitimacy, rip offs, swindles by established financial

institution, cheating, corruption, etc are part of the Seneca

syndrome.  Our current decline in the quality of life is another

case of when the culture no-longer can provide a working

construct (illusion) there is an outbreak of ghost cults.

(Oriental religions in the end of the Roman Empire, and The Cult

Explosion today) Money mag. reports that 250,000 of the best and

brightest are leaving for places with have a better quality of

life.  



Reimann@digex.net suggests that I use a service such as

info@world.std.com to set up a "shell" using a Majordomo as a

communications link. I don't understand this but will

investigate. Delphi has a BBS at !-888-365-4636 Modem or 695-4005

Voice. The idea is that individual interested in ACTION, in doing

something about the steady decline in the quality of life work

together to do something. (use WP7944 for BBS id) 

************************************************************

RE:New methods new Ideas?  With new technology do we do new

things or the old things in new ways? The technology in itself

does not require we do anything really different. We can teach by

the lecture method, with E-mail or HTTP text, have tests and

papers just like the days before the printing press. Printing did

eventually had some impact on education, the blackboard, the

school bus and paved roads, radio, T.V., but not much. The

paradigm remained the same. 



There is a set of information, skills, attitudes which are in the

teacher and the "system" and will be transmitted into the

student. The process is from outside in. What is "in" the

student, their attitudes, skills, goals, hopes, desires, styles,

is not very important, what is important is that "they" get the

"material" into them. That is what learning means.



  There is another model, not the Socratic one, which is just

another trick to get the ideas and methods from outside into the

student. The model is a natural general systems ecological

approach where an environment is created that promotes learning.

What is learned depends on the learner. Everyone learns something

different and in different ways. Total learning is increased but

the content varies. We all learn to read but in different ways

and what we read is not the same. We all learn to think but not

the same things in the same way. The administrative system is

education promotes learning but not a fixed agenda of content. 



The content is the method and the means to learn. Think about it,

learning to learn ? From the inside out. The teacher doesn't have

the information or stuff of knowledge but is just a friendly

helper, guide, coach, who spends her time setting up conditions

of learning.



  The conditions of learning are three. One a stable and friendly

group, honest and sincere in concern for each other welfare.

Second, rewards and joys, and pleasures and hopes, and fears, and

desires, and the complete range of human action is accepted and

encouraged; Third a material rich environment where stuff is

there for the learner. The new technology can provide the rich

environment. It offers a chance for those few who are interested

in doing something different (out side the bureaucratic model) a

place to met and organize, and maybe have fun. It is not place

bound and can break the state monopoly on certification by having

a better product. It can be very cost effective in that

institutions are now spending more than half their resources on

overhead and are being strangled by their own administrative

systems.

  ************************************************ From

gapdev@DELTANET.COM To Robert Golden - What about asking how

students could help make the school a more exciting and vital

place?  Tell them the world has changed; they know it. Get them

posting their goals for the year; have different grades come

together if necessary and share the list. Then ask them the worst

things that could happen this year within reason.. things we

should all be working to avoid.... get out those fears and get in

dialog about what they and you could do if such things happen. 

Then, presume them to be adults with goals worth honoring. Tell

them you Then, presume them to be adults with goals worth

honoring. Tell them you need input and guidance for improving

quality. 



Anything has to do with quality which stands in the way of their

goals... so have them work in small groups and identify the

things about school which waste time and energy from them as they

struggle to accomplish their goals. Have groups put these

"quality barriers" on flip charts around the room... give kids 5

Avery color dots of each of a variety of colors... red for the

ones they think you as principal will have to work from... You'll

consider these as their priorities for you. Have them distribute

yellow dots on priorities which they hope for attention from

teachers. Put green dots on issues which they think students...

as individual, or through student government, etc. will have to

be involved in tackling. Get a couple teachers who have an ounce

of energy left... ask students to volunteer to the green team

themes and meet one hour a week after school to develop research

and recommendations for you and your staff... these should be

presented in the auditorium about Christmas.  For the heck of it! 



The point of what we are doing - we are inventing the future..  



Did you see FrontLine Last night. Good program I learned a few

things about the commercial side but I don't think they got it

quite right. Why interview "futurist" who say the future is

uncertain - as if we didn't know. The job is to develop possible

futures and "WORK" for those we want.. It's not a passive

observation of what they "corporations" will do to "us" the

consumer. The family they showed was passive - sit back for

entertainment - more movies ?  Save a trip to Blockbuster? Maybe

that is a corner of a market but the social and Economics will

not be really interesting if it's in more movies ? An electronic

Mall - good grief.. 



What social live will there be without the MALL.. Church.. bank,

travel agency, these are human contacts as well as commercial

transactions - well the ATM was resisted for awhile - people

wanted a "person" - they got used to it.  The netscape, yahoo,

examples are more to the point - quick start venture capital

target special needs. 



NARROWCASTING or individual casting. Not only the Washington Post

on line ( an electric newspaper ) but Information on line from

the publishers, from book stores, from all over on new books

(electric books), this is the problem of breeding electronic

Ponies for the pony express rather than looking for opportunities

in a really new system like the telegraph.  It's not just doing

what you did before with new tools (sure a lot of that too) but

really new things in new ways.



  Note on Educational Technology: The only technology to really

affect public schools in the last 100 years has been the

blackboard - (OK maybe the overhead - telephone ? School BUS,

very little from radio, movies, TV, ) the school system remains

unchanged since the 1860's, then age of railroads - except it

doesn't perform as well, a curriculum set up is 1980, school days

so kids could plant and reap, no math invented since the 16'th

century, almost no qualified science teachers, 50% of graduates

are functional illiterates, the top 2% on national test have less

education ( They know and can do less with language, math,

science, geography, etc the Average American student is last is

all international competitions, the Nation is At RISK ! and

nothing happens ...) than the average student in 10 of 13

industrial countries, overhead has increased 100% in two decades,

cost have doubled, quality had declined.  It's a market ripe for

plucking - Silvan learning center growing at 100% a year doing

basics because teachers don't know how to teach basics, either do

their professors in schools of education that get the lowest 25%

of the talent pool.



   I want to start a national charter computer school. I think we

can get part of the public dollar because the civil rights of

citizens are being denied by poor quality education. The court

could find, Just as black kids could not get a fair start in all

black school - so your kids can not get a fair start in a Global

economy in most public schools, sure maybe Scarsdale, Shaker

Heights, Highland Park, but do you all live there ? Is this equal

protection of the laws, is this the foundation of a democratic

society, is the economic future of a super-power, do we want a

economy dependent of foreign skilled labor, (more that 50% of

graduate students in high tech are foreign, 30% of the domestic

students are of oriental origin, is this fair ? )  



When IBM looked at Xerox copies they studies the number of

carbons people used - they didn't understand that new technology

generates its own uses. They said there would be 64,000 PC in

1975, they we off by a factor of 100. This is forecasting at the

end of a tunnel - tunnel vision. Open up to the big blue sky

theory.  Follow the money trail.. services, contacts,

information, entertainment, sales - depends on the person and the

time and place. 



There is this big INTERNET growing at 15,000 pages a week, maybe

17 million North American users (50% on services like AOL ???

growing at a million a month ??? 35 million world wide.. More

Computers sold than TV, the price of Netscape greater then CBS ??

all kinds of special markets. (fishermen, games, politics,

interactive tack shows and soaps, 1000's of services) How do they

get money - maybe subscription fees, maybe ad's, maybe part of a

general fee ( like a cable package) maybe because people just

want to do it ?  



Now in EDUCATION and training there are 30,000 people involved as

providers of  Distance Education (wild guess) maybe 650,000

students doing remote classes, maybe 1 1/2 to 2% of the market

(includes industrial or commercial training - 50% of a 500

billion business, defense schools, special needs, public

education, colleges, inservice requirements for teachers,

accountants, doctors, other professionals, so 1 or 2 % is less

than a billion $ now using remote services. This could be 10

billion by this time next year. Most current services are doing

mostly pony express on the electronic network. Here are the

lectures - dates - reading - test - just like in traditional

teacher talk and textbook classrooms - Some e-mail exchange - a

few conferences - chat - but still an electric pony. NOW What ??? 

I really new thing (Like John Dewey in 1905, Markarenko in the

1920"s, OUTWARD bound) is real interactive groups learning to

learn on the web and in work groups. Maybe MOO/Mud maybe Hot

Java, maybe something not yet here. More bandwidth (wireless or

cable or space via Motorola Clark communications systems. a plan

proposed by Clark (2001) in 1948 for 65 low flying (200 miles up

rather than 22,000) orbiting transponders) Maybe the market is in

in-service certification for accounting, medical updates, work

group set ups, you have a project we have the facilities for LAN

on WINS. Distribution and library guides.. files and transfer -

Go with the flow. 



We have a few interested in WISDOM, learning to learn - we have a

few interested in METHOD - electric communications - We have a

few interested in relationships - people to people contacts 

DYNAMIC SYSTEMS  The "yes, indeed" was a memory of dynamic

systems at the Harvard Business school seminar (and Slone at MIT)

with Ackoff as a focus - vectors, multi-dimensional space, stable

and unstable control systems - Tony Ollinger ? and the AI

(artificial  Intelligence) people from MIT.. (in the late 60's)



  We did a model for APT (is he still in Cambridge) for Title I

of the Education Act - Too complex - I was the public sector

(education and policy - economics and social development ) guy.

Public policy has not become rational - social interventions are

all value issues - Smart systems are people ( using tools ) The

Map is not the Territory no matter if it is a three dimensional

computer model. Better maps do help but should not be confused

with reality.



  We all live in a virtual reality anyway. The world we see,

hear, taste and feel is imperfect sense information filtered by

our human-creature-ness, eyes, ears, social programs, prejudices,

wants, need, desires, hopes - Color and matter are fancy energy

illusions that give impression we must believe.



  I have become interested in biological systems of perception,

of chemical thoughts and electrical transmitters. This gives us a

more solid base to figure out the human condition, the nature of

reality as people come to know reality, the meaning of life, and

how to improve it's quality.



  Sufi physics from RUMI in the 13th century are almost right on

target of the modern version ? How did they know about atoms,

energy fields, the forces in the Universe ? Are we not part of

this world of nature - maybe inside us (Know thyself) we can

sense the order and mystery of creation itself / too mystic for

you ? Try atomic physics, more mystic that the Sufi..  Before

reality reveals itself the noise of false impressions and social

programming need to be cleared away. We need to "think again" and

see, hear, feel, know in different ways. The shades are removed

for the eyes, the light shines - enlightment - not a new idea.



   SPQR the Roman System (Church and State)  You know the Roman

Empire fell of it's own weight. (Gibons) The protestant

reformation was about the powers of an executive bureaucracy.

(Weber) The Mayas workers just picked up a left when the tax rate

was too high. The History of China, for 5,000 years, is the Yin

and Yang of central and decentralized power. The center brings

order but get oppressive which sparks rebellions and war lords

and chaos a new strong ruler. 



The American System of Government is congressional where the

Speaker of the House was the most important figure in Federal

Government for with most of our history. (Wilson) The power is in

the hands of war lords called committee chairmen and policy is

called log rolling.  Lincoln (and to some extent Roosevelt, one

of the few presidents more powerful than the speaker - but Joe

Cannon could make a case ) ignored the constitution then rewrote

it. The original idea was to give very limited powers to a

federal state. We could try that again. IBM, GM, CBS, were the

local lords of their day, and their day has almost past, they are

in the twilight of history.  According to Hagel (and Marx ) the

thesis of the corporate state is meeting the anti-thesis of the Z

organization, small is beautiful, less is more, fast, creative,

moral and meaningful beyond material gain.



  The bottom line has changed.



  The consumer society, were frantic families are working hard in

stupid jobs, to keep up the mortgage, the car payments, the

credit card bills, are buying themselves into dis-illusion with

the commercial, material, superficial, false frills of fashions

of current relativist value free society.(while the children go

to hell and bad public schools) We have meet the enemy: who are

is our best and most creative element of our civilization -

commercials and psychological manipulation. The glory of product

images and the happiness they bring is so wrong and successful,

MTV and Bill Clinton, only being a leading edge of all

commercials and false hopes.  Education is "face the truth and

the truth shall make you free". There is no freedom ( An ancient

Greek argument ) for those whose lives are false, living in a

dream, asleep, unaware, intellectually comatose. Commercial are

just so designed to produce slavery, tyranny to THINGS, to

externals that make false promises, the whispers and temptations

of the devil himself.  That's why values and character matter -

I'll go with the General (Powell) because he has character -

policy doesn't matter much or does the president for that matter.

It's mostly show so we may hire another professional actor. Who

gets what, when and how is a power play. The masses are not even

in the audience, and the public address system doesn't give the

real score. 



It's all a "human interest" story on sound and fury that signify

nothing, the evening TV news is the muttering of mad people,

Bengie (in the sound and the fury) like me...