BOBIP part 2: How can we evolve to “human organizing”, with other words how can we structure the chaos? By relating!

In the previous blog I talked about the balance between structure and chaos. Through building structure in the unstructured, we can evolve to a human organizing system. The following question may pop up right away:
How can we structure chaos?

• looking at a broader scoop: what is in for us?
• bringing the outside in

In general to relate.

Go further than just “ What’s in for me?” model

The traditional “What’s in it for me” model is transactional. The model above is different because of the green question: “What am I having with whom? or with the overall environment?” This relationship quality leg was missing: “what am I having with whom? and with the environment overall?” … which is not the same as the “how is the rest reacting?” ( purple ones).

During covid19, people emphasized the importance of connections. Do things together would help… really? You can have connections but do they result in outcomes?  A relation, (between people, between human and an artifact, subject, environment) exist through negotiation and involvement from outsiders. This commitment forms or strengthens the relation and exists in itself.

Asking yourself the question “What am I having with …?” gives you the possibility to orientate yourself within the group. To ask and answer this question will lead to implications and commitments. We speak about positioning.

Remember that I said that 61% of engagement depends on conditioning? Well, the other 39% of engagement depends on the positioning.

If you told any business that they could optimize their, quality, speed, … with 39% … which one would not take this opportunity?

The different participants and the involvement levels within an organism: how we can support them?

Structure the unstructured

As we look at the overall environment we can see 4 different levels, which we organized on a continuum from structured to unstructured. I will sketch how we try to structure today, in learning environments, the unstructured.

1. On the learning platform, content, the learning modules, evaluations, assignments, quizzes,.. are well structured. 
2. If you want to go to the next level, behind the individual learner, other features which enable collaboration between learners are used. On eXtended Massive Open Online Course ( XMOOC), collaboration or peer review isn’t working well. Within peer reviews, a learner writes “I agree” but did he/ she read the assignment of the peer? Anyway he/ she will get his grade… ( conditioning…) 
3. There is already a difference with the CMOOC, where the focus lies also on connections ( =C). In the CMOOC there is more attention to the network of learners themself. We can say that CMOOCs structure the community. They do this through the use of digital platforms such as blogs, wikis, social media platforms. Again this is a pushing strategy, so conditioning. Still, no real positioning tools are found yet.

As a teacher, coach you can recognize these levels and think that you do this. Isn’t this the role of the teacher, coach, trainer? Yes, these roles are taken by (a) teacher (s): content coach, process coach, social/ cultural coach, wellbeing coach,… All those are focused on transactional relations, which aren’t bad… but still more is possible!

Remark that we only involve the involved! Organizations are navel-gazing and are looking for solutions indoors/inside. What happens if we look further and see the other levels of involvement we involve outsiders!

From inside to outside

We can distinguish the following levels of relating

1. Transactional relating: The unstructured is not safe. To create safety, we will cover and structure the inside. All those ways of structuring, as described above, are transactional, based on conditioning.
2. Structural relating – the need for conversation: What if we involve the affected? We will organize a trialogue and start to negotiate, this is structural relating. We put people around the table, negotiate and trade commitments between them. When building commitments you give a part of the responsibility of a person to another person. eg John who is good at mathematics can help Peter, who has problems with mathematics. Through trialogue, we negotiate and John will help Peter to understand math. There is a structural relation that is built between John and Peter.
3. Peripheral relating – the need for conversation: Involvement of “goodwill” can be built through opportunistic barter. Suppose Mike wants to know more about artificial intelligence and learning. The coach, Susan knows Ann who is probably willing to help and is an expert in this field. Now there is a kind of trade market of commitments. What is the backup of Mike why should Susan do her best to connect him with Ann? Again there is a negotiation or parity. This is called peripheral relating.

Human teacher/ coach?

If you look closely at this model you can say that the coach, teacher does this. The human teacher, the coach has different roles to play. But there is an assumption: we think that we, as humans, are better in relating than machines. Humans are good at relating one2one, but not in mass relating! 

“The complexity of a single human or that of a single relationship between a human and any object is bigger than the complexity of anything systemic that contains multiple humans”

And don’t forget there is always a power- distance between the learner and the teacher, coach, trainer… That is why we need an independent external authority.

There is a need for relational meta intelligence, there is a need for digital support. We don’t remove the “human” coach/ docent, we will support them.

• massive early stage pulsing of observation by each individual in and outside the environment

• faceless (neutral)
• structure (protocol movement into new unknown territory, however good the new maybe)
• anonymous but effective aggregation of personal position information towards core process, team, and all relational processes and mediators

BOBIP, a relational meta intelligence.

How can we implement this meta intelligence? I will try to explain in the next blog about BOBIP, Bringing out the best in People