Category Archives: organisational permaculture

Medborgerne – a platform for community organising in Denmark

From the life of..., organisational permaculture, Politics, Work

Bio update: Since I left Borgerlyst in June, I’ve been working on a new community organising initiative, focusing on building a local broad-based citizens’ alliance in Copenhagen.

After some months in stealth mode with the working title “Civilsamfundsalliancen”, we’ve now made ourselves known to the world by our official name:

medborgerne

Medborgerne is Danish, and can be translated as “citizens” – but with the added connotation of being an active member of a community, not just a set of rights. Medborgerne is a platform for broad-based community organising in Denmark. Inspired by Industrial Areas Foundation in the US, Citizens UK in the UK, and DICO in Germany, we hope to take similar role in Denmark, helping local communities build power for social justice and the common good.

I’ve co-founded the initiative with Ruth Gøjsen and Michael Wulff, and we’re currently looking to raise the funding necessary to build a local broad-based citizens’ alliance in Copenhagen. In the long term, our goal is to build a network of local citizens’ alliances to have an influence on national politics in Denmark.

We’ve just launched our website (in Danish, obviously), and I’ve already had my first media appearance as co-founder of Medborgerne in an interview in the Danish online magazine Altinget.

Organisational permaculture design

Essays and other experiments, organisational permaculture, Systems thinking

I’ve just received my copy of the latest issue of the Danish permaculture magazine Tidsskriftet Permakultur. And it’s a little special because it includes an essay I’ve written on what I call organisational permaculture:

tidsskriftet_perma

The essay included in the magazine is an abbreviated version of a somewhat longer essay that goes into a lot more detail. For completeness’ sake, I’ve put up the unabbreviated and uncut version of the essay here on the web for all to read (it is in Danish, obviously).

You can read the full, uncut version of the essay here.

Notes to self

From the life of..., organisational permaculture, Systems thinking, Work

I’ve been involved with the Copenhagen Food Co-op for almost 5 years now. And along the way, I’ve learned a lot about organizing volunteers, building local community and getting people involved. I’ve learned mostly by making a lot of mistakes along the way.

But in the last year [October 2013 to October 2014], the pace and depth of my involvement in the food co-op has reached a whole other level. It’s been really intense. With crisis, change, conflict, action, and oh-so-many meetings. It’s caused me to consider the lessons that the Co-op has taught me. Lessons that I continually have to remind myself to practice and heed as I work in this field.

I’ve been trying to formulate these ‘Notes to Self’ over the past few months. Editing and adding to them along the way. And I will probably continue to do so in the future. I share them here as a work in progress. They are written as notes to myself, and may not make all that much sense to anybody else. But I’m putting them up here as a way of committing myself to remembering, heeding and developing these further. They’re only in Danish for now, as I keep adding to them at the moment and can’t be bothered to translate them just yet.

 

1. Lyt

Lyt til folk omkring dig. Ikke kun deres ord, men også deres handlinger. Læg mærke til hvad de gør. Den måde de agerer på er som oftest udtryk for de interesser og motivationer, der driver dem. Hvert møde de kommer til, hver opgave de påtager sig er et udtryk for engagement. Du må lytte for at forstå, hvad der driver det.

 

2. Spørg

Det er ikke altid du kan lytte dig frem til hvad folk brænder for. Indimellem lægger de deres energi i ting, som de ikke rigtigt føler for. Måske fordi de står alene med dem. Måske fordi det var de opgaver, som de let kunne komme i gang med. Måske fordi de tidligere følte for dem, men nu er blevet fanget af ansvaret og vedligeholdelsen. Måske fordi de i virkeligheden ikke selv ved, hvad de brænder for. Spørg dem. Lad være med at tro, at du kender svarene på forhånd. For det gør du ikke. Vi forandrer os alle sammen hele tiden. Det samme gør vores svar.

 

3. Gå efter energien

Den vigtigste drivkraft er folks egen energi, interesse og begejstring. Du må aldrig tage andres engagement for givet! Din vigtigste opgave er at understøtte og styrke den energi. Give den plads til at udvikle sig og vokse sig større. Energien ligger latent i alle mennesker. Som en kilde, der kan åbnes. Et frø, der kan spire. Lad være med at prøve at lokke folk til at interessere sig for noget andet. Hjælp i stedet med at forløse deres energi. Gå efter de lette sejre, som kan gøde jeres selvtillid og give jer mod på mere.  Fælles handling er den ilt, der får fællesskaber til at blomstre.

 

4. Sæt ord på energien

Menneskelig energi og begejstring er en flygtig størrelse. Vi kan let glemme, hvad der vakte den, når vi sidder til et langt møde eller med en sur tjans og bare bider tænderne sammen for at nå i mål. Derfor er det vigtigt, at minde folk om, hvorfor vi gør det her – hvad der gav os energien til at gå i gang i første omgang. Ved fortælle historien om, hvad det er vi skaber sammen. Om hvilke værdier, vi udlever i fællesskab. Ved at rose og anerkende det arbejde folk lægger, kan du spejle og forstærke deres energi omkring det. Hjælpe dem med at se, hvilken forskel de skaber. Det er meget vigtigere end du tror.

 

5. Sig fra overfor drænerne

I nærmest alle fællesskaber vil der være folk, der tager mere energi end de giver. Det er dem, som bekymrer mere end de begejstrer. Ofte lægger de meget arbejde i fællesskabet, men desværre føler de også, at det berettiger dem til at fremhæve det negative, snarere end at rose og anerkende. Og dermed ender de ofte med at dræne andres energi og lyst til at engagere sig. Derfor er det meget vigtigt sige fra overfor disse drænere. Synligt og tydeligt. De skal ikke have lov til at bestemme over andres lyst til at engagere sig.

 

6. Fokusér på menneskene, ikke på grupperne

Husk, at virkeligheden svarer ikke overens med de fine planer og organisationsdiagrammer, som du udfærdiger. Ansvaret kan aldrig ligge hos en gruppe, for hver gruppe består af en masse mennesker med deres egne motivationer og interesser i et komplekst net af gensidige relationer. I sidste ende vil det altid være mennesker, der tager ansvar, udfører opgaverne og får ting til at ske. Nar ikke dig selv til at tro, at bare fordi en gruppe på papiret har et ansvar, at den så automatisk vil leve op til det. Følg menneskene og relationerne. Det er den eneste måde du kan lære at forstå, hvem, der gør hvad – og hvorfor.

 

7. Stil kærlige krav

Folk giver sjældent mere end de føler er højst nødvendigt for at være med. Hvis de ikke føler, at der er stort behov for deres hjælpe eller indsats, vil de som oftest trække sig og bruge deres energi andetsteds. Denne form for bevaring af energi, satisficing, er en naturlig ting – og som oftest helt ok. Man skal ikke forlange mere end folk ønsker at give. Men pas på, at det ikke bliver en sovepude. For energien kan let blive så lav, at selv de grundlæggende opgaver ikke bliver løst, fordi alle tror, at det er der nok nogen andre, der gør. Derfor er det vigtigt at lave en klar forventningsafstemning og stille krav til folk, så de ved, hvad de har at forholde sig til. Krav er kærlighed. Det minder folk om, at der er brug for dem. At de har en vigtig rolle at spille. At de er en afgørende del af fællesskabet.

 

8. Afpres jer selv

Der kan let gå drift i den, så fokus bliver på at holde det eksisterende ved lige snarere end at kigge fremad og udvikle nyt. Men løbende udvikling på den ene eller den anden led er nødvendigt for at holde visionen i live. Det giver en følelse af fremdrift, der bekræfter folk i, at de med til at skabe noget vigtigt. At vi er på vej et sted hen sammen. En god måde at fastholde denne udvikling er ved at afpresse jer selv gennem ydre krav og muligheder: Fondsmidler, nye samarbejdsmuligheder, medieomtale, offentligt bureaukrati kan alle være med til at sætte deadlines, der kan afpresse jer til at udvikle og levere mere end I ellers ville have gjort.

 

9. Vær ikke bange for pengene

Penge er som gødning. Hvis I har få penge, hæmmer det udviklingen og udførelsen af jeres idéer. Hvis I har for mange penge, bliver I let dovne og vælger de nemme (og dyre) løsninger uden at overveje, om de passer til jer. Det kan også let give anledning til konflikter, fordi den letteste magt ligger i at bestemme, hvordan pengene skal bruges. Men alt dette til trods, må du ikke undervurdere, hvor stor en forskel penge kan gøre i forhold til at frigøre energi og skabe plads til nye projekter. Nogle gange kan lidt ekstra gødning løfte meget mere end du tror.

 

10. Lad være med at køre solo

Lad være med at gå hurtigere frem end folk kan forstå eller følge med. Lad være med at skippe mellemregningerne for at nå hurtigere i mål. Alle andre har brug for at forstå, hvordan du er nået til dine konklusioner. Spørg dem! Invitér dem til at give feedback. Vis, at du respekterer deres holdninger og erfaringer. Det kan godt være, at det kun er de færreste, der tager imod muligheden for at blive hørt. Men de sætter alle pris på det. Og i sidste ende vil det også gøre, at de føler, at de har været med til at forme resultatet.

 

11. Vælg fra

Det du ikke gør er lige så vigtigt, som det du vælger at gøre. Overvej omhyggeligt, hvilke opgaver du påtager dig, og hvilke du overlader til andre. Det er langt bedre at gøre få ting godt, end at gøre mange ting halvt. Du kan ikke tage ansvar for det hele. Fokusér på de ting, som du er særligt godt stillet for at løse. Og gør andre i stand til at løse resten.

 

12. Lad folk finde deres egne løsninger

Det er let at komme til at føle, at du har fundet den store, sande løsning, som alle andre bare skal have hjælp til at indse er den rigtige. At de bare skal reddes fra deres egen misforståede vanetænkning. Men at sætte sig for at redde nogen er blot at begynde at undertrykke dem. Du ændrer ikke folks holdninger eller handlemønstre ved at forelæse om, hvor gammeldags og utidssvarende deres tankegang er. Sådanne erkendelser kommer ikke gennem abstrakt tænkning, men gennem konkret handling. Ved at folk oplever situationer, hvor deres gamle tænkemønstre ikke længere fungerer, og de derfor tvinges til at tænke og handle anderledes. Giv dem redskaberne og lad dem finde deres egne løsninger. Det er den eneste måde at skabe bæredygtige forandringer på.

 

13. Gør aldrig for andre, hvad de kan gøre for sig selv

Når du når en ansvarsposition i et fællesskab, kan du meget let komme til at suge ansvar til dig – uanset om du vil det eller ej, fordi du er gammel og garvet. Men husk, at din vigtigste opgave nu ikke længere at træffe beslutninger, men at gøre andre i stand til at træffe dem uden din hjælp. Du skal lære at udvise den tillid og tålmodighed, der kan gøre andre i stand til at gøre det selv uden din hjælp. De lærer ikke noget, hvis du bliver ved med at våge over dem og gøre ting for dem. “Never do for others what they can do for themselves.” Husk, at ethvert fællesskab er mere en skole end det er en virksomhed. Målet er menneskene, mere end det er arbejdet eller resultaterne. Din opgave at give andre selvtilliden, så de kan gøre det selv.

 

14. Lær fra dig

Du ved mere, end du tror. Der er så mange ting, som du tager for givet. Arbejdsgange, værdier, mødeformer, redskaber. Tag dig tiden til at hjælpe andre. Del dine redskaber. Invitér andre til at lære med og af dig. Alt for ofte tænker de ikke selv på at spørge.

 

15. Sig det vigtige igen – og igen

Alle folk har travlt. Alle folk har gang i hundrede ting ved siden af. De kan ikke huske halvdelen af, hvad du siger til dem, så sørg for at gentage det vigtige igen og igen. Jo flere gange du gentager noget, jo bedre forstår folk, at det er vigtigt. Og det er først, når de ser det som noget vigtigt, som de bør forholde sig til, at de begynder at gøre det til deres eget.

 

16. Vær nær og vedkommende

Folk vil have personlig kommunikation. De vil ikke læse manualer eller forklaringer. De vil ikke komme til møder med folk de ikke kender. De vil mødes og tages ved hånden. De skal føle, at de bliver set og hørt. De vil indgå i en gensidig relation, der er nær, vedkommende og tryg. Det tager ekstra tid, men når du viser, at du er villig til at bruge tid på dem, bekræfter det dem i, at du værdsætter deres tid og hjælp. Og på den måde kan de bedre gøre fællesskabet til deres eget.

 

17. Anerkend dine fejl – og fortæl om dem

Du kommer til at begå en masse fejl undervejs. Det er uundgåeligt. Men husk, at ingen dømmer dig hårdere end dig selv. Lad være med at krympe dig, vrænge eller ærgre dig. Tag i stedet og bred armene ud. Giv et lille hop og et smil og råb “How fascinating!” til dig selv. Hver fejl er endnu en anledning til at lære. Endnu en anledning til at blive klogere. Derfor er det også vigtigt, at du fortæller om de fejl, som du begår. Vær ærlig om svaghederne, dumhederne og forvirringen. Lad være med at sætte dig selv op på en piedestal. Vær åben, ærlig og ydmyg – det vil gøre det nemmere for andre at se, hvordan de kan lære af dine fejl og gøre det endnu bedre.

 

18. Giv Plads

Du fylder mere end du tror. Tænk over, hvilken rolle du kommer til at indtage i fællesskabet i kraft af, at du har været med længe, at du har mange erfaringer, at du har en fremtrædende rolle til møderne, at du er den, der har været på TV og fortælle om projektet. Det er altsammen med til at gøre, at folk forventer, at du har svarene – også selvom du selv er usikker og ikke føler, at du har styr på noget. Andre kan opfatte dig meget anderledes end du ser dig selv. Husk, at du siger en masse – også i kraft af det du ikke siger. At folk måske føler, at de har ikke ret til at udfordre dine holdninger, fordi du har været med så længe. Så hold din kæft lidt oftere og giv plads til dem.

 

19. Sørg for, at ingen føler for meget ansvar

Ofte er det dem med størst ansvarsfølelse, der ender med at påtage sig mere, end godt er. Når du kan se, at nogen har det svært og er på nippet til at gå ned med stress, så er det ikke nok at sige det til dem. Den bedste måde at passe på hinanden er ikke gennem ord, men gennem handling. I stedet for at sige “pas på dig selv”, er det langt bedre at vise omsorg ved at tage nogle af opgaverne og noget af ansvaret, som de ikke selv kan give fra sig. For selvom man egentlig godt ved, man skal passe på sig selv, er man som regel også netop dér, hvor det er allersværest at give slip.

 

20. Gør det til en fest

Der vil uundgåeligt opstå kriser og konflikter. Situationer, hvor energien er lav og modet synker. I disse situationer er det afgørende at finde den rette tone.  Undgå, at det bliver en downer. Vær modig og upbeat. Du kan ikke smile, når du er sammenbidt. Brug mere tid på at udfolde løsningerne end at analysere problemerne. Folk kender som oftest problemerne, men ved ikke, hvordan de kan løse dem. Vis vejen og gør løsningen til en fest, som alle kan være en del af – som de vil være kede af at gå glip af. Jo mere, folk føler, at de har mulighed for at være med til at løse krisen, jo mere vil de have lyst til at hjælpe.

 

 

21. Hør flere sider af den samme sag

Alt efter hvem du spørger om en given sag vil du få forskellige svar. Dine vurderinger er kun så gode som den viden du baserer den på. Så sørg for at få flere perspektiver på den samme historie. Folk kan lægge vægt på meget forskellige dele af en historie, alt efter hvilken kæphest de vil hyppe. For at forstå detaljerne i en sag er du nødt til at høre flere forskellige perspektiver på den (“doveryai, no proveryai“, som russerne siger).

 

22. Stå fast

Du skal ikke være bange for konflikterne. Der vil altid være konflikter. De opstår som regel, når nogen ikke føler sig hørt, spurgt eller anerkendt. Måske er der nogen, der ikke har lyttet, eller har handlet for hurtigt. Stå fast på dine egne værdier og hav tiltro til, at du kan spørge, lytte og forstå, hvor konflikten kommer fra. Det er som oftest nøglen til at løse den.

 

23. Skub

Nogle gange er det ikke nok bare at stå fast og lytte. Nogle gange må du række ud og give folk et lille skub, for at de kan komme videre. Skubbet er ofte det sværeste. For det er dér, hvor du med fuldt overlæg overtræder folks grænser for at hjælpe dem videre. De kærligste skub kommer i de sværeste samtaler. Dér hvor du ikke bare lytter til hvad de siger, men siger, hvad de har brug for at høre. Og som oftest vil de være meget taknemmelige for, at du havde modet til at give dem det lille skub, de havde brug for.

 

24. Vælg dine kampe

Prioritér dine ambitioner omhyggeligt. Du kan ikke udfordre folk på alle fronter på samme tid. Hvis alt er i bevægelse, under forandring og i udvikling, så har de ingen faste holdepunkter. Så bliver det for svært. Du kan ikke både udvikle fællesskabets logistik, infrastruktur, beslutningsprocesser, værdier, kommunikationsveje og selvforståelse samtidigt med at der strømmer masser af nye medlemmer ind. Fællesskabet kan ikke både vokse i størrelse og i dybde på samme tid. Det kræver en løbende afvejning. Vælg dine kampe med omhu og fokusér på dem, der vil frigive mest energi og mod på mere.

 

25. Vær tålmodig

Det tager meget længere tid end du tror. Alle har brug for at nå til deres egne erkendelser. Du kan ikke tænke for dem. Og du kan ikke handle for dem. Det bedste du kan gøre er at gøre det lettere for dem, men tempoet bestemmer de altid selv.

 

26. Husk, at verden er større end jeres organisation

Når du er dybt inde i en organisation er det let at udvikle en form for organisationsblindhed, der gør, at du ender med at tro, at I er så særlige, at I skal udvikle alle løsninger selv fra bunden af. Jo større jeres organisation er, jo lettere er det at være blind på denne måde. Men der er så mange andre projekter og organisationer, der står med nærmest de samme udfordringer: Om møder, om organisering, om motivation, om lederskab, om begejstring. Find dem. Lær af dem. Samarbejd med dem. Sammen kan I lave nogle meget bedre løsninger, der kan komme jer alle til gavn.

27. Forvent ikke tillid fra folk, der ikke kender dig
Det kan godt være, at du kun har de bedste hensigter, men det ved alle andre ikke. Så når du møder nye folk og præsenterer dem for dine tanker og projekter, så vil de ofte være skeptiske og bekymrede for, at du har bagtanker på den ene eller den anden måde. Lad være med at være skuffet over det. Tænk på, at du ville være mindst lige så skeptisk, hvis du var i samme situation. Giv dem tid til at lære dig at kende. Du skal vinde deres tillid med handling og ikke med ord.

28. Pas på dig selv

Håb er en stærk drivkraft. Håb er en økse, som du kan bryde døre ned med. Håb kalder på handling. Men husk, at håb forblænder. Du kan nemt komme til at overse og overhøre det helt åbenlyse fordi det ikke passer med dine forhåbninger. Det er så let at strække sig for langt, kæmpe for hårdt og tilsidesætte sig selv i håbet om at nå et mål. Men du når aldrig i mål. Der vil altid være mere at gøre. Mere at give. Og virkeligheden tager ikke hensyn til dine håb og drømme. Sørg for, at du får mindst lige så meget energi ud af det du gør, som du lægger i det. Du kan ikke leve på håb alene.

 

29. Lad være med at have ondt af dig selv

Nogengange er det hårdt. Nogengange har du mest lyst til at give op og trække dig, men du bliver ved alligevel. Og du har ondt af dig selv, fordi du er så vedholdende, også selvom det er hårdt. Men lad være med at have ondt af dig selv. Hvis du har ondt af dig selv, vil du hurtigt bruge alle dine kræfter på at fortælle dig selv historien om, hvor meget du kæmper, og hvor synd det er for dig. Og du kan ikke være noget for andre eller støtte andre, hvis du bruger din energi på at have ondt af dig selv.

 

30. Husk, at privilegier er usynlige.

Vi tænker aldrig over alle de fordele, som vi har fået med os. Og vi omgiver os ofte med folk, som minder meget om os selv. Derfor er det nemt at tro, at alle andre kommer fra ligeså gode kår og har ligeså gode muligheder som du selv. Husk, at dine privilegier er usynlige. Det er alt for nemt at glemme hvor meget andre skal overkomme og tilsidesætte for at gøre, som de gør, og være hvor de er. Tag aldrig for givet, at det er eller har været lige så let for dem som det har været for dig.

 

31. Bevar modet

I virkeligheden er der ingen, der rigtigt bekymrer sig om, hvorfor du gør det. Hvorfor du er håbefuld eller opgivende eller begejstret. Du skal ikke kun gøre det for andres skyld. Du skal gøre det for din egen. Den bedste måde at få anerkendelse på er ved ikke at behøve den. Gør det for at bevare dit eget mod og handlekraft. Gør det fordi det er sjovt og giver dig energi. Gør det fordi alle de andre muligheder er så utilfredsstillende. Gør det fordi det giver dig modet til at stå op om morgenen, tage din rustning på, og få ting til at ske. Hver dag.

 

32. Kend dine allierede

Du får brug for masser af hjælp undervejs. Støtte, råd, begejstring og overbærenhed. Derfor er det vigtigt, at du ved, hvem der er dine allierede. Det er de folk, der giver dig mere energi, end de tager. Dem, som du kan trække på, sparre med og støtte dig til, når du har brug for det. Dem, som også er der, når det går dårligt. Dem, som sørger for at minde dig om, at du kan ikke gøre alting selv. Lyt til dem. Giv dem lov til at hjælpe dig!

 

33. Det er aldrig slut.

At være en leder er ikke en titel, du opnår, men en praksis. Det er noget, som andre gør dig til, i kraft af hvad du gør for dem. Du bestemmer ikke selv, hvornår du stopper. Det kan ikke bare lade være og forvente, at andre træder til og overtager. Det sker ikke af sig selv. Så længe du er der – formelt eller uformelt – må du lede – eller være klar til det. Det er aldrig slut.

 

Obtain a yield

organisational permaculture, Systems thinking

This is my attempt at rewriting permaculture principle no 3 — “Obtain a yield” in terms of Organisational Permaculture. It is part of a project initiated by Dan Mezick to map all 12 permaculture principles to cultivating groups and teams.

The idea is that the members of the Organisational Permaculture group each pick one of the permaculture principles and rewrite it. And we’ll end up with a complete draft of the 12 principles of organisational permaculture.

The only guidelines were that the posts describing each principle should be at least 500 but not more than 1000 words, and include at least one picture or diagram/sketch. But since there has been very little coordination, I have no idea if what I have written matches any other expectations than that.

Oh, well. It is a first draft, after all…

Obtain a yield

Whatever work you do together as a group should provide some concrete value to you. You need to ensure that you are getting truly useful rewards as part of the work that you are doing. That you obtain a yield.

A yield in this regard can be any number of different things. But generally it is something that leaves you better off than you were before. Such a yield is not just about money or food. It is about all the things that will enable you to sustain and improve your shared work.

Therefore, through your work you should strive to gain
• more connections
• more energy
• more joy
• more fun
• more community
• more courage
• more confidence
• more resources
• more beauty
• better understanding
than you had before. As permaculturist Bill Mollison says, “the yield of a system is theoretically unlimited, or, limited only by the information and imagination of the designer.” In other words, obtaining a yield is not just something we do at harvest or when we collect our paycheck. It is a continuous creative process, a flow of energy that helps us to sustain us in the work we do together.

As the community organiser Marshall Ganz has stated again and again: Collective action is what builds community. Doing things together is the one thing that will turn a group of people into a cohesive whole. And in order for collective action to be successful, it needs to obtain a yield.

Joy, fun and beauty are just as important yields as money, information and influence. And they are often a lot easier to harvest early on. It’s kind of cliché to say that we should focus on picking the low-hanging fruit. But that doesn’t make it any less true.

Having easy successes early on builds the confidence, ability and energy necessary to tackle bigger challenges later on. And as Ganz’ mentor, Saul Alinsky, put it, “the organizer’s job is to build confidence and hope in the idea of organization and thus in the people themselves: to win limited victories, each of which will build confidence and the feeling that ‘if we can do so much with what we have now just think what we will be able to do when we get big and strong.'”

Permaculturist David Holmgren remarks that any changes we make or elements we introduce in a system ought to be productive. It should increase the number of beneficial connections, increase the energy in the system, increase the yield. So it is with collective action. With each successful collective action that a group makes, the group as a whole grows stronger. It is the law of increasing returns. Just like how each time you use an idea, a language, or a skill you strengthen it, reinforce it, and make it more likely to be used again. The group grows stronger the more it works together and the more success it achieves. Success breeds success. Or as it is written in the Gospels: “To those who have, more will be given.”

Confidence builds confidence. Generosity begets generosity. Trust begets trust. Obtaining these yields is the prerequisite to build and store the resources that will prove vital when unexpected challenges and difficulties arise.
But one word of warning when it comes to obtaining a yield: Don’t optimise too soon. Don’t let yourselves be seduced to focus solely on one or a few kinds of yield to the exclusion of the others. Forget about the small efficiencies. For, as the computer scientist Donald Knuth wisely noted, “about 97% of the time, premature optimization is the root of all evil.”

Optimisation comes at the cost of flexibility. You may not notice at first, but such a loss of flexibility can prove critical when a crisis occurs. It is a constant trade-off between exploiting a known path of success (optimising a current strategy), or diverting resources to exploring new paths (thereby wasting energy trying less efficient methods). Therefore, have many goals that can provide many different yields. Stay flexible, and forget elegance. Instead, remember: If it works, it’s beautiful.

Small, open, local and connected

Ecology, organisational permaculture, Systems thinking

Ezio Manzini, a Italian design professor and expert on social innvoation (whatever that is) argues that we are moving towards a new model of organizing society, production and consumption. He uses the words small, open, local and connected to describe this new model.

He says:

It’s a way to imagine the way in which the social services are delivered in society and the way in which we can imagine economies that are at the same time rooted in a place and partially self-sufficient but connected to the others and open to the others. This is a very interesting relationship between being local, being related to a certain context and at the same time being open and connected, not provincial or one closed community that risks being against the others.

This is an idea that is clear and strong if you talk about the arena where people are dealing with networks, open source and peer to peer. But it can become a very general metaphor, and embed itself in some realities to become a powerful way to organize a sustainable society.

Manzini is applying these notions in practice in Nutrire Milano —  a network that works to redefine the food chain of the city and develop innovative and sustainable urban farming. In a way, it is rather similar to the Copenhagen Food Coop that I’m involved in.

He goes on to describe the challenges that the project faces:

We have to recognize that to promote the small and local perspective can also be very dangerous. In fact, it can bring people to jail themselves in closed communities. To isolate themselves. And moving from here, to create a fake identity of who is inside his/hers “gated community”, against all the others. That is what, unfortunately, today is happening in many places in the world.

Vice versa, what we have to search for is to be local and open, at the same time. To create permeable interfaces between communities and places. To cultivate diversity to permit, at the same time, the free flow of people and ideas.

All this, of course, is very difficult: to blend the local and the open could appear to be a quasi-oxymoron. But maybe, it is exactly from dealing with this kind of quasi-oxymoron that a sustainable society will find the ground to emerge. A society that is based on a multiplicity of interconnected communities and places will appear as a large ecology of people, animals, plants, places and products.

This is exactly the same challenge that we face with the food coop here in Copenhagen: To create and strengthen our local community, and at the same time be open and connect to other projects, share our experiences, learn from theirs, and help new projects get started.

It’s easy to be small and local. It’s easy to be open and connected. It’s even easy to be small, open and local or small, connected and open. But we have to find out how to be small, open, local and connected all at once.

One thing that is small, open, local and connected at the same time is an ecology, as Manzini says. And that is what we’re going to have to create. A fundamental characteristic of an ecology is that we can’t control it. Instead, we have to learn from how other eco-systems work, and adapt accordingly.

That is also what I the core of what I mean by the notion of organisational permaculture.

On political leadership

organisational permaculture, Politics, Systems thinking

I think our great failure to find good political leaders today is a deeper issue. I just read a quote by Laurens Van Der Post in which he said: the reason we don’t have leaders is because we don’t want them, that we’ve entered the era of wanting to be self-led and self-directed. I think he would credit this to a rise in human consciousness.

I don’t think we will ever find a heroic leader that will satisfy us again. So we’re in this transition time of wanting a different politics.

I would say that what we want, as it’s clear in a lot of surveys that Yankelovich and others have done, is for our institutions to give us back the authority and the means for taking care of the major issues of our day in our communities, in our schools, in our local health-care facilities, whatever.

I also think that we still have a lot of politicians, as well-intentioned as they are, who just get swept into the dynamics of our political system which turns them very quickly into self-serving, difficult-to-take-a-stand leaders.

– Margaret Wheatley

Anything but ‘business as usual’

Ecology, organisational permaculture, Systems thinking

Talking about something so vaguely defined as “organisational permaculture” can easily become fluffy and buzz-wordy. So I thought it would help to give a very concrete example of an organisation that embodies some of the principles that I think are at the core of organisational permaculture.

It’s called Københavns Fødevarefællesskab, which translates as “Copenhagen Food Coop”. I’ve been very involved in the food coop for the past three years. Here’s a short video of me explaining the basics of what the food coop is all about:

Last year, we were asked by the Danish news site Modkraft to share our experiences and insights in building the food coop as a commmunity. So, I co-wrote an article with my two good friends Mette Hansen and Carsten Lunding. And it was published on the site just before Christmas.

Now I’ve translated the article into English because I think it does a good job of explaining the values and ideas behind the food coop — values that I find align very well with organisational permaculture. I’d love to hear your feedback on this.

Anything but ‘business as usual’

Copenhagen Food Coop is not like most businesses or even voluntary organisations. We want to to challenge the way things usually are done. We want it all: Local, sustainable, seasonal, organic produce at a fair price distributed by a working community in an open and transparent way. And it works. In three years, the coop has grown from 30 to more than 5.000 members.

Copenhagen Food Coop (“Københavns Fødevarefællesskab” in Danish with the acronym KBHFF) started with a simple idea: An organic supermarket where the members are not just customers but also co-workers and co-owners. It was modelled on Park Slope Food Coop in New York: By chipping in with a few hours of work each month, coop members can cut costs and buy organic foods at prices that are remarkably lower compared to ordinary supermarkets. And as co-owners, members take part in decisions on which products the coop should keep in stock.

Since KBHFF started proper in the Nørrebro neighbourhood of Copenhagen in August of 2009, it has grown to be much more than just a grocery store with a funny ownership scheme. It has become a grand experiment. A learning space. Not only do we work together to distribute fresh fruit and vegetables every week — but we are also working together to figure out how to create an organisation that is truly sustainable. Not just economically or environmentally but also socially.

Here are some of the insights that we’ve learned along the way:

Positive thinking makes a difference

In our statement of purpose, we write that KBHFF wants to be part of a sustainable future. And from the beginning it’s been central for us that KBHFF is built on positive rather than negative values. We believe in the power of the good example. It’s too easy to point fingers at all the things that the big supermarket chains and conventional farms are doing wrong. Instead, we want to focus on building an alternative that fits in the future that we want to live in.

Defining our values so clearly in this way focuses our energy and our courage. It gives the coop a purity and a sense of purpose that many find incredibly appealing. But it is also difficult because we refuse to compromise our values. We want it all: Local, sustainable, seasonal, organic produce at a fair price distributed by a working community in an open and transparent way. And then we’l have to figure out how we can make that happen.

Collective action builds community

KBHFF is built on the fundamental truth that communities are created and sustained through the things you do together. Our community is very much focused on the day-to-day — we have bags of veggie to distribute every Wednesday. Meaning we have some very concrete tasks that we have to do together. This is both a strength and a weakness.

It is a strength because we do things together every Wednesday. There are concrete, practical things to do every week, and that keeps us engaged with one another. The pleasant and friendly atmosphere in the shops and the weekly vegetables provide an immediate payoff that makes it easy for all of us to remember why it is great to be part of KBHFF.

It is a weakness because our organisation is still so young, loose and impulsive that a lot of Wednesdays end up as small fires to be put out where only the bare essentials are done, leaving a lot of people frustrated after a unsatisfying shift that they didn’t feel properly prepared for. And this only makes it harder to look ahead and develop our organisation to fix these problems.

We’re building the jumbo jet in mid-flight

Even though we have clear and strong values, we still don’t have a well-defined strategy. We avoid defining grand visions and strategies. We have no idea where we might be ind 5 years time. But we know we’re on the right track as long as we’re making good on our purpose every Wednesday. We want to ensure that there’s room for everyone to get involved and take part in shaping the coop, and let the organisation grow organically from there. We grow in small bursts, like buds on a tree. We make mistakes and correct them as we go along.

This has led to KBHFF having a distributed organisation with a lot of small local shops all over Copenhagen (eleven so far), instead of just one big supermarket. This approach has made us reconsider whether our goal really should be to build a big supermarket, since the way supermarkets work at present are remarkably unsustainable.

Even so, this kind of growth presents a lot of challenges as well: It’s a lot harder to keep track of a lot of small, independent shops than one big one. And it’s equally difficult to ensure that all of the members in all of the shops understand what the food coop is all about. As a result, we’re working hard just to keep the jumbo jet in the air, not worrying too much about where we’re heading.

We can’t avoid making mistakes

We are fully aware that we are making mistakes all the time. There is simply no way for us to avoid them. Particularly so when it comes to matters of opinion. We have no way of knowing in advance what kind of issues people feel strongly about. We have taken the very pragmatic approach of simply trying to take these issues as they arise. Though that may mean that we won’t decide whether to buy avocados from Israel or peas from a prison farm until after we’ve actually bought them. So it goes. We can’t define a policy that will cover all of such issues in advance. If that was the case we would never get anything done. Instead we have to be good at resolving these issues when they arise.

Our differences makes the project as a whole more open and accessible

The members of KBHFF are a very mixed crowd. It is a community that connects people across age, gender, languages, education, social status. We all share an interest in getting better and more sustainable foods. But apart from that there are a wide range of reasons that have brought us to KBHFF. For instance, some members rarely buy any vegetables but enjoy being part of a vibrant local community.

Another shared trait might be that we tend to have more time than money (even though it in no way is true for all of us). And that we have made the life style choice of spending some time together in a food coop rather than working more hours at our day job in order to buy our food in a conventional supermarket.
Our differences do spark the occasional conflict as with the avocados or the peas. But most of the time we manage to resolve these conflicts by being as open and inclusive as possible. This helps to ensure that we don’t become self-absorbed and secterian because we’re continually reminded of how different we are.

We don’t have to have an opinion on everything

Thus, it is equally important for us that you can be a member of KBHFF without being forced to subscribe to all sorts of opinions that have nothing to do with the distribution of food. That is why KBHFF is not a traditional political project. We’re not right wing nor left wing. Our purpose and the work we do transcends political boundaries.

Because of this we abstain from supporting political campaigns and legislation — even if it appears to be in line with our values and principles. This makes us pretty difficult to collaborate with. But that is a premise that we have chosen to accept in order to be able to things our own way, and remain open and accessible for as many different kinds of people as possible.

We are part of a bigger community

KBHFF is not just a community of people living in Copenhagen with a penchant for organic foods. We are also part of a bigger community that encompasses the organic farmers that produce the fruits and vegetables that we distribute. We don’t see the farmers as anonymous suppliers to be compelled to lower their prices. They’re just as much a part of the sustainable community that we’re trying to bring to life.

The welfare of the farmers is at least as important to us as the fact the produce that we buy from them has been grown in a sustainable manner. That is why we sell the produce at prices that are fair for the farmers and for the members of the coop both. And that is why we have regular meetings with the farmers to coordinate our purchases in relation to their production schedule.

We see KBHFF as a platform where our suppliers can meet — not as competitors but as colleagues — and work with us to create new solutions for our common good. Put another way, we see relationship with the farmers as a mutually dependent symbiosis rather than as a simple marketplace relation. This approach has also led to our decision to buy produce from farmers who are in the process of converting their farms to organic food production. Partly to help minimise their losses as they convert to a more sustainable way of farming. Partly to inspire and motivate other farmers to convert as well.

It’s a school for all of us

It’s a new, strange and often difficult thing for us to work together in an organisation like KBHFF. We all have the opportunity to be part of building this organisation and no answers are given in advance. We celebrate initiative and believe that is easier to receive forgiveness than permission. We challenge ourselves to create a safe atmosphere where everybody feels comfortable taking the initiative and the responsibility for the things they want to improve.

Our loose, distributed structure offers plenty of opportunities for members and local shops to decide how they want to organise their work. And we work hard to take all of our decisions through a facilitated consensus process where decisions are made by the people they affect.

Making KBHFF sustainable is a big challenge. Especially when you consider that is an organisation that self-assembles every Wednesday solely through the members’ volunteer effort. A lot of people are having a hard time finding their way in such an organisation without a clear hierarchical structure to tell them what to do and who’s in charge. It’s hard to take charge. It’s hard to delegate and share responsibility. It’s hard to help others take charge. It’s hard to develop a form of leadership where no one takes on too much and everybody feels empowered to act.

KBHFF is a school for all of us in that way. It is a shared space for learning to act, to take initiative and for self-determination. All of us learn all the time by being part of it. Yes, it is often difficult. But the only way that we’ll get better at it is to keep doing it.

Nobody’s indispensable

KBHFF has grown a lot over the past three years. And now, our organisation is slowly maturing as well. We can’t keep on going on the eager start-up energy that drove us all in the beginning. Now, KBHFF is a part of everyday life and it’s important that it can function without anybody taking on too much or burning out. Nobody’s indispensable in a sustainable organisation. And that’s how we want it to be in KBHFF.

We are trying to build an organisation where it is just as easy to reduce your involvement as it is to increase it. But that requires us to let others know when we no longer have the time or the energy to remain in the role that we have taken. Doing so will make it easier for others to step up and continue the work we have started. We have now reached a point where none of the people who helped start the first local shop i Nørrebro in 2009 are active in KBHFF’s coordinating body, the collective group. Instead, the group has been energised by new members with fresh ideas and lots of drive. So now, we old “members emeritus” can drop by our local shops on Wednesdays, take our monthly shifts, and take pride in how the seeds that we have helped to plant are sprouting and flourishing.

***

In the past three years, KBHFF has grown from 30 to 5000 members. It has been an unexpected success in a lot of ways. Not the least because we started out by challenging what a food distribution business could be. We have made a lot of mistakes along the way. But we have always been very conscious of the fact that all of our work would make it easier for those to come. We have always had an open source approach to the food coop, sharing our knowledge as openly as possible so that others don’t have to start from scratch if they want to start a similar project.

We want to continue doing so. And we hope that KBHFF can be an inspiration to other, new, exciting, alternative forms of organisation. Not just in the foodstuff sector, but also in other completely different sectors such as telecommunications services, restaurants, childcare, transportation or something else that we haven’t even thought of yet. And we want to share what we know, so please just ask.

Inspiration for an organisational permaculture

organisational permaculture, Systems thinking

Permaculture sprung from a diverse set of influences such as ecology, systems thinking, local horticultural practices and ethnobotany (as permaculturist Elaine Solowey puts it, “Permaculture is a modern, codified system of traditional knowledge”).

So when we begin talking about what organisational permaculture might be, there is a similar set of influences to draw upon. Even though they do not use the term permaculture, a lot of people have thought and written about organisations as whole, living systems that can be designed but not controlled.

Here, in no particular order, is a list of the ones that I’ve come across so far:

Chaordic organizations
“Chaordic” is a term coined by Dee Hock, the founder of VISA International, to describe organizations that exist at “the edge of chaos”, and thus combine chaos and order in a way similar to how life and complex adaptive systems work. Dee Hock has explores these ideas in the book One From Many, which also describes how the VISA corporation came to be and how it is inspired by these concepts.

Sociocracy
Sociocracy is mode of organisational governance developed by the Dutch educator Kees Boeke inspired by Quaker consensus decision-making processes. These ideas were further developed by Boeke’s student Gerald Endenburg who combined them with systems thinking in the electrical engineering company he took over from his parents in the 1970s. The book We The People by John Buck and Sharon Villines gives a good overview of the basics of sociocratic organisation.

Learning organisations
Learning organisations is often attributed to management researcher Peter Senge, whose book The Fifth Discipline uses systems thinking to integrate individual, team and organisational learning. The core point being that an organisation is never static, but must continually develop and learn in order to respond to external pressures.

Communities of Practice
A term coined by educational theorists Etienne Wenger and Jean Lave, a Community of Practice is a group of people who share a craft and/or a profession and use that group to share information and experiences to develop personally and communally. I used this theoretical framework a fair bit in my Master’s Thesis on the Ubuntu Linux community.

Cooperative Systems Design
Cooperative systems design is new term invented by Harvard law professor Yochai Benkler in his book The Penguin and the Leviathan. He describes it as “a new area of research at the intersection of experimental economics, organizational sociology, political science, and evolutionary biology.”

Viable Systems
The Viable Systems Model (VSM) was developed by the british systems thinker Stafford Beer in the 1970s. A viable system is any system organised in such a way as to meet the demands of surviving in the changing environment. An accessible introduction to the VSM is available here.

Resilient organizations
“Resilience” is the new, hot term following “sustainability”. The group of ecologists and systems thinkers that collaborate through the Resilience Alliance defines resilience as “the capacity of an ecosystem to tolerate disturbance without collapsing into a qualitatively different state that is controlled by a different set of processes”. They apply this notion to organisations in their book Resilience Thinking.

Living companies
Life-long Royal Shell employee Arie De Geus explored what makes businesses thrive in the long term in his book The Living Company. The core notion being that you should perceive the company as a living, learning being that is intimately connected to and dependent on the surrounding environment.

Community Organizing
“Organizing” is the oft-used shorthand for the community organizing model developed by Saul Alinsky and described in his book Rules For Radicals. It has been an effective tool in political organizing for elections, labour struggles and in local communities since the 1930s. It has since been expanded by Marshall Ganz.

The Cynefin framework
Cynefin (pronounced Ky-nev-in) is a Welsh word meaning something like “a habitat that influences us in more ways than we can understand”. It is used to describe a decision making framework developed by management thinker Dave Snowden. Building on the notion that organizations as Complex Adaptive Systems, Cynefin provides a framework to help leaders understand the nature of a given situation (simple, complicated, complex or chaotic) and how best to make decisions under those circumstances. A good introduction to Cynefin can be found in this Harvard Business Review article.

Organizing without organizations
“Organizing without organizations” is the tagline from internet theorist Clay Shirky‘s book Here Comes Everybody. In it he describes how the Internet is challenging the way organisations work simply by allowing for what Shirky calls “ridiculously easy group-forming”. Now that any web page is a potentially community, the transaction costs of bringing together a group of people have plummeted. Shirky is a good source for exploring the consequences of that change.

That’s my list so far. I’m sure there’s a lot more interesting perspectives out there in this field. So if you know of any, please share them in the comments below.

Organisational permaculture

Ecology, organisational permaculture, Systems thinking

I recently joined a new group on Facebook called Organizational Permaculture. Dan Mezick, who started the group, defines organisational permaculture as

… a permaculture approach to elevating levels of team and group learning in organisations. It’s taking advantage of what is already there, and using it. It leverages the often ignored, underutilized, undervalued, abandoned, or otherwise unleveraged human cognition that is readily available to power a task at the group level.

So far, the Facebook group has been in a state of incubation, bringing together a lot of interesting people but with no active discussion. So, I thought I’d get the ball rolling by sharing my thoughts on what organisational permaculture promises to be.

I first came across the term permaculture on the blog of Euan Semple, a consultant specialising in the social web. In a post he linked to a documentary called “A farm for the future” by the British filmmaker Rebecca Hosking. The film introduces some of the environmental challenges that modern farming faces, and permaculture as an approach to solve these challenges:

Linking to the film, Semple remarked:

What struck me watching this wonderful film was the degree to which arrogance and fixation for imposed order was what got us into trouble in the first place and how much humility and willingness to learn from apparent chaos is what will get us out of it. Any parallels you may draw with organisational life are totally intended.

Those words stayed with me: How can the ideas of permaculture be applied to our organisations?

I’ve been ruminating on that question on and off since then. And I am excited to find that others are struggling with the same question.

See, the thing is, just as modern farming is proving to be unsustainable, so are our organisations. They aren’t helping to solve the problems we face. Instead, they allow these problems to grow bigger and more difficult to solve. Governments, banks, schools, NGOs, corporations. All of these organisations are as much part of the problem as they are part of the solution when it comes to the global challenges we face such as climate change, financial crisis, education reform, poverty and inequality, healthcare and security.

But this is not because these organisations are broken. As the American organisational researchers Heifetz, Grashow, and Linsky have observed, “the reality is that any social system (including an organisation or a country or a family) is the way it is because the people in that system (at least those individuals and factions with the most leverage) want it that way.” Or as their colleague Jeff Lawrence puts it, “There is no such thing as a dysfunctional organisation, because every organisation is perfectly aligned to achieve the results it gets.”

This is amply obvious if we draw the parallels between our organisations and modern agriculture as Semple suggests:

1. Both focus on measurable short-term gains
Just as our farmers only tend to consider this year’s harvest, most organisations don’t plan more than a few years ahead. Companies are expected to deliver profits every quarter. Public sector organisations are expected to show increased efficiency. In all cases, the focus are on short-term metrics that can be measured easily, while disregarding intangible factors (as organisational expert W. E. Deming said, “You can only measure 3% of what matters”).

2. Both disregard long-term sustainability
This focus on the short term means that both farmers and organisations ignore the stock of the resources on which they depend. Farmers don’t recycle nutrients in the soil, ignoring the fact that gradually this will make the it poorer and poorer. Similarly, organisations tend to consider their employees as “human resources” that can be expended, ignoring the mental and physical illnesses that such exhaustion leads to.

3. Both believe that control is prerequisite for efficiency
The central task of farmers and managers is to achieve compliance. Farmers seek to dominate their fields and crops through plowing, artificial fertilisers, pesticides. Managers seek to control the work of their employees through various tools such as Management by Objectives, quotas and incentive pay. The fundamental notion is that all desired actions are the results of such control. And that control is the only way to achieve the predictability and efficiency necessary to secure production and profits despite varying circumstances.

4. Both prefer a single way of doing things
In order to make it easier to obtain and maintain such control, both farmers and organisation opt for simple one-size-fits-all solutions. Diversity is considered a problem to be solved. Farmers prefer huge fields of a single crop such as wheat and corn in order to make it easier to manage, no matter what the local landscape or environmental context might look like. Organisations prefer to use the same processes throughout in order to make it easier to optimize, no matter what the local culture and customs might dictate. Such optimization for one-size-fits-all not only tends to be a bad fit, it also leaves the whole much more vulnerable to disruption.

5. Both believe that all problems can be solved by adding more energy
Farmers and managers emphasize technical or mechanical problem solving, as if their farms and organisations were machines to be fixed. The simpler the machine is, the easier it is to fix. And fixing it usually means adding more external energy. Energy usually means more money. For farms, this would be money for buying bigger machines and using more fertilizer. For organisations, it would be more funds for new employees, new projects and new technology. Unfortunately, just as adding more artificial fertilizer just exacerbates the problem of under-nourished soil, adding more money to an organisation rarely solves the problem but often just reinforces the structures that created the problem in the first place.

I find that organisational permaculture promises a different approach. A way to build organisations that enable people learn, develop and flourish together. Organisations that allow people to be autonomous, purposeful and self-assured. Organisations that make people healthier and happier by their being part of it. Organizations that are resilient and which will be able to help solve rather than exacerbate the challenges that we face.

I hope that this group will provide a fertile space to share ideas on how to develop such an approach.