Navigating Emergence: Non-linearity, Accountability and the Role of the Designer.
Posted on October 26, 2018I rarely post to Facebook, but on the afternoon of October 15th, 2017 I did. I only wrote two words: “Me, too.” After last year’s sexual misconduct allegations against Harvey Weinstein, American actress Alyssa Milano went to Twitter on October 15 to reveal her own experiences around sexual assault, accompanied by the hashtag #metoo, with the hopes that other women might join her, and together expose a deep-seeded, rampant, societal crisis. By the end of the day, the phrase had been tweeted more than 500,000 times, and on Facebook more than 4.7 million people used the hashtag in 12 million posts within the first 24 hours. This was not the first time a group of women has spoken up about these injustices, but the scale and magnitude of this outcry seemed to have an exponential effect on the power of the message and its subsequent impact. No, not enough has changed since this unification, but its gravity can never be erased – it is imprinted in history as a collective promise that we are stronger together, and we will not stay silent any longer.
In the last decade, we’ve undoubtedly entered a new era of emergence. An obsession of sorts. Does this mean it’s actually happening more? Probably not, but notions of decentralization have seeped into the everyday vernacular of corporate management paradigms, governance structures, social movements, entrepreneurship and most notably the Tech industry. This rising interest in decentralization is in part in reaction to the failure of antiquated, centralized, linear, hierarchical organizational structures and paradigms that have been used to organize Western society throughout history, and more formally since the industrial revolution.[1]
Why is the old way of doing things no longer serving us? As our world grows increasingly complex – or rather, as we become more aware of its complexity – we are facing wicked problems: problems that “cannot be solved by the application of standard (or known) methods” and “demand creative solutions”.[2] In the complex systems we are a part of, change and processes don’t adhere to the linear Western mindset based on predictability and order. Instead, the interactions in these wicked systems are non-linear, unpredictable, and change can be “very fast, even abrupt”.[3] These systems require a new approach: one that responds to, and fosters this non-linearity and exponential change. In the words of Margaret Wheatley, we must let go of the belief “that organization only happens through human will and intervention.”[4]
Decoding Emergence
“Emergence” is describing a fundamental phenomenon found in our natural ecosystem. Archetypal examples include slime mold, ant colonies, beehives, and the neural networks of our brains.[5] In all of these communal networks, individual actors do not look to instructions from a central planner from “above”, instead they think and act locally by relating and responding to their neighbors, which collectively, produces global systematic behavior. Change begins as local actions spring up simultaneously in many different areas. A distinctive trait of these emergent systems is that “the behavior of individual agents is less important than the overall system.”[6] The results of the collaboration between relatively unintelligible teammates is mind-blowing.
As evolved humans, how can we learn from and mimic this natural force? Unlike natural systems, there is no “automatic mechanism” (like ants’ pheromones) to organize us and facilitate communication. Instead, we must design structures that unlock emergent behavior.[7] Humans will always need visionaries.
The Emergent Organization
“In the Emergent Era, it’s best for organizations to mimic emergent systems in nature by distributing the decision making process as widely across the network as possible. In effect, to empower individual “cells” to relay signals and respond to their local conditions as they see fit.”[8]
As Rittel and Webber articulate, “the professionalized cognitive and occupational styles that were refined in the first half of this century” have rendered us incapable of adapting “to contemporary conceptions of interacting open systems and to contemporary concerns with equity.”[9] For their own survival, organizations (corporations, non-profits and informal groups alike) are taking active steps to operate more like self-organizing networks. In response to this need, new paradigms and management structures are being developed with the intention of re-designing information flows and increasing connectivity. In order to more quickly surface and act on customer feedback, the online shoe retailer, Zappos, has gotten rid of managers and adopted Holocracy, a self-managing org-design practice. Even Apple is placing value on emergence: just last week, Jony Ive, Apple’s head of design, revealed the plans for the design team in their new headquarters, “Apple Park”. All 9,000 designers will be together in one studio, and the seating chart will be very different this time. Each designer will be seated next to someone of different creative expertise and discipline.[10]
The Internet
The internet unlocked a new capacity for large-scale, decentralized, information exchange and massive network collaboration. In other words, a new breeding ground for emergence. Powerful large-scale decentralized initiatives have risen out of the internet – notably open-source software, like Linux, peer-to-peer networks (remember Napster?), and crowd-sourced databases (think Wikipedia).
However, despite some successes, the internet has drastically failed to live up to its promises. Indeed, many believe it has become a controlling, centralized, and manipulative power of governments and larger-than-government sized corporations. After all, most of the web traffic, and thus data and advertising dollars are owned and controlled by behemoths like Google and Facebook. Facebook, and other centrally owned and operated social media platforms like Twitter raise interesting questions around emergence. After all, the #metoo movement wouldn’t have existed without them. They have built virtual “cities” – spaces that bring minds together and facilitate information sharing. And as in cities, where “cobblers gather near cobblers, and button makers near other button makers”, online, people gather (friend, follow, like and post) in like-minded spaces.[11] On a large, global scale this form of grouping has proven to be very dangerous, creating echo-chambers that curve our biases and understanding of the world. The 2016 election serving as a prime example.
Most recently, internet fundamentalists have turned their attention to blockchain technology and crypto-currencies, with the belief that it can reclaim the original intent of the internet: decentralized and in the hands of the people. In essence, the blockchain is a decentralized open-source database that permanently records transactions, and enforces constraints, on top of which companies, and individuals, can build products and services. There is no simple point of failure, as it is not controlled by one person or entity. In fact, it’s technically managed by no one – the enforcing structure are baked into the code (in “smart contracts”) and negotiated through economic incentives (crypto-currencies). But remember, we can never purely emulate emergence in nature. Yes, even in blockchain, there are boardrooms full of select people (mostly white men) making decisions around how to govern these networks. Alas, humans will always need visionaries…
Accountability and the Role of the Designer
“In a world where causality is systemic, entangled, in flux, and often elusive, we cannot design for absolute outcomes. Instead, we need to design for emergence.”[12]
Even in its purest form in nature, emergent systems don’t always yield positive outcomes. Even ants wage war and keep prisoners. So in human society, this raises an interesting question around accountability. As we continue to unleash the power of collaboration and emergence bad things are bound to happen. Contingencies and unintended consequences arise – and in these circumstances, who is accountable? It is the “visionaries” who enabled the systems? The city planners, the CEOs, the engineers, and the community organizers?
As designers, we are constantly grappling with wicked problems. Our job is often to bring stakeholders together and facilitate emergent spaces around these complex, controversial and uncomfortable topics. What comes up in these spaces is often difficult and sensitive. As facilitators, and the “visionaries” in this setting, we are in a position of power, and therefore we hold a responsibility. We must maintain a sensitivity and an awareness, asking ourselves – who even calls a design project into being? Who is it serving? How do we best design for positive emergence? Radical thinker Donna Harroway suggests that we might best make positive change if we live in the “inter-connectedness” and not just try to create it – if we think of ourselves more as “odd-kin” that are a part of the web of an organism, not individuals separate from nature.[13] In other words, to foster emergent spaces, we need not only understand the natural dynamics of emergence, but perhaps we are better of emulating, and even becoming, them.
-Steph S
[1] Meadows, Donella H., and Diana Wright. Thinking in Systems: A Primer, Chelsea Green Publishing, 2015.
[2] Rittel, Horst W.J., and Melvin M Webber. “Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning.” Policy Sciences, no. 4, 1973.
[3] The Future Center. “Living in nonlinear times.” The Future of Sustainability, 2018
[4] Wheatley, Margaret, and Deborah Frieze. “Using Emergence to Take Social Innovation to Scale.” The Berkana Institute.
[5] Johnson, Stephen. “Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software.” Scribner, New York, 2004.
[6] Johnson, Stephen. “Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software.” Scribner, New York, 2004.
[7] Comstock, Beth. “The Rise of Emergent Organizations.” Published on Medium, Dec 2, 2016.
[8] Comstock, Beth. “The Rise of Emergent Organizations.” Published on Medium, Dec 2, 2016.
[9] Rittel, Horst W.J., and Melvin M Webber. “Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning.” Policy Sciences, no. 4, 1973.
[10] Foulkes, Nicholas. “Jony Ive on the Apple Watch and Big Tech’s responsibilities.” The Financial Times, Oct. 19, 2018.
[11] Johnson, Stephen. “Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software.” New York: Scribner, 2004.
[12] Pendleton-Jullian, Ann M., and John Seely Brown. “Design Unbound: Designing for Emergence in a White Water World, Volume 1: Designing for Emergence.” MIT Press, 2018.
[13] Haraway, Donna. “Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene.” Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2016. Print. (p1-31).