Holistic Business and Self­Organisation

We can view humanity as being separate from Nature or being an integral part of it. If we choose
the latter view, then we ought to look to Nature to be our teacher. If we do this, we see the
following principles at work:

● holism : where all parts of a system are recognised and the parts together add up to more
than the whole.
● emergence : we can try to plan for every eventuality and control external events (people,
situations and so on) or we can allow ourselves to be led by life and for the path to
emerge in front of us
● rhythms and cycles : Nature follows rhythms and cycles, decay, death and rebirth. Why
not our ideas? Our organisations? Our plans? Our stories that we hold onto so dearly?
● Self­organising : as opposed to entropy, which classical physics points to, where
everything degenerates out of chaos, the opposite seems to happen with the
self­organising principle. A moment is reached when the chaos organises itself into order,
or beauty.

And to bring these principles into your life and work does not require a check­list of things to
repeat each day. It involves being fully present to what is in front of you, giving everything to it and
letting go.

References
Books :
Reinventing the Organisation, Frederic Laloux
Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm, Stephen Harrod Buhner

Submitted by ­ W Graham Stewart, Still Consulting / Wind Harvest International

The challenge

The principles and what to consider when building holism, self­organisation and emergence into
your business or organisation.

“Eventually, we will wake up and realise we have been living in a global village all along…” Anon