(2012-01-31) Gillis Organizations Versus Getting Shit Done

William Gillis: Organizations Versus Getting Shit Done. (Getting Things Done) Organizations have a lot of downsides. Anyone who’s ever attended a meeting recognizes this on some level. And yet most folks persist in an either instinctive or confused idealization of forming and participating in organizations.

“Organization” can stand for literally all modes of human interaction, but in common use “being organized” signifies effective and intentional structures of collaboration. Something anarchists defensively jump to assert we’re capable of! But as such the term is almost meaningless.

The substance of the matter is of course how we chose to arrange and structure our collaboration. It is here that “organization” smuggles in assumptions through double-meanings

Specifically, “an organization” is:

Represented by a discrete concept. An organization is a pact to simplify otherwise complex social dynamics into a single mental touchpoint.

Defined by discrete sets of people. An organization has members

Legitimized by formal processes... Organizations do things, and thus there has to be some kind of specific procedure or conditions by which actions can be certified or accepted as legitimately representative.

In short, more than a shifting passive category like a type of people or group, An Organization is an adopted narrative that conceptually simplifies a set of individual actions (and interactions) into that of a single, albeit mythical, agent. (cf Coalition)

the situational particulars of what constitutes legitimate authorities, majorities or consensus for an organization can be codified formally or informally, implicitly or explicitly to any degree–but they are codified.

So why on earth would anyone do this? There are, after all, many other possible ways to facilitate collective cooperation.

Like proponents of the state, proponents of organizations rarely do more than loosely imply arguments. Those that they do make can be broken into two categories: those appealing to the particulars of human psychology and those appealing to more mathematical realities. (Theory Of The Firm)

The first realm is more abstract, but also highly tangible: Organizations cater to existing intellectual laziness and then direct it to ostensibly positive ends.

Additionally organizations tend to enhance perceptions of strength.

ideally motivating us to act where we otherwise might slack

Organizations can thus be seen as the construction of social environments where it’s psychologically easier to act than not act.

The second realm is more mathematical:

Centralization doesn’t just facilitate raw access through central repositories of contacts, skills, and tools–it can structure that access to be useful.

That same centralization can facilitate resolutions of strategic dissonances that would otherwise be at odds. Different means and different short term goals can conflict and interfere with one another. As such it can behoove those working towards the same ultimate goal to voluntarily surrender their preferred approach in order to maximize the number of people working towards any approach

Finally at least in theory an organization can help suppress the strength of informal power dynamics.

However all of this comes with stark limitations and dangers.

Failure #1: Collective Decision-making

overestimation of the utility and efficiency of resolving decisions as a single unit

flat collective discussions are extremely inefficient at processing information.

Failure #2: Forcing Coherence

all an organization can hope to accomplish is to force or pressure some degree of coherence in the less dramatic situations. However, the price paid for suppressing less intense breaks is the dysfunction attendant to large breaks.

Given that breaks are likely to occur, the focus on preserving organizations and securing coherence inside them comes at the expense of work that might create coherence broader than the ranks of an organization

when it comes to discussion rather than wasting our time building different platforms we should be working to create better protocols–cultural norms predicated on engagement, openmindedness, and vigilance.

Failure #3: Informal Power

Putting all our eggs in one basket makes sabotage and hijacking easier for infiltrators and entryists. But it also has a corrupting influence on the sincere.

Institutional mechanisms designed to suppress informal power ultimately just shift it around

Failure #4: Mental Laziness

We all use conceptual shorthands, but entering into a pact to rigidly use one can be quite dangerous

Anarchism is about embracing our agency.

when internal tensions or dissonances impede our motivation to undertake a task applying blunt external pressure to ourselves is a terrible workaround. It doesn’t resolve the tensions or contradictions leaving them capable of coming to bear later on

what proponent of organizations miss is that these dangers and limitations derive fundamentally from the core concept of an organization. Workarounds are ultimately just not enough.

When such work is all consuming, when mission creep overburdens an organization with a variety of projects—including those that could perfectly well be done outside the framework of the organization

As with the world we’d like to see, we need to build a movement where the overall focus is on discrete projects of limited lifespan–only sometimes augmented or assisted in small, defined ways by persistent groups, themselves with starkly limited license. (adhocracy)

encryption technologies are capable of proving connections between actions and declarations directly. Rather than a bunch of different affinity groups all tagging ELF while an above-ground front office defends and determines what counts as actually an ELF action–get rid of the front offices!

even a single key isn’t requisite, it’s possible to set up schemes with forkable and combinable keys to avoid creating a single high-value object and allow groups a lot of latitude in both association and narrative construction. (cf DAO)

Instead of a single organizational body managing the entirety of a convergence through tons of subcommittees devoted to different tasks, a properly structured web program could act as clearinghouse for separate projects to collaborate, debate and even compete. (open allocation)

communication itself can be improved immeasurably once we free ourselves from the assumption that preserving some collective solidity is paramount.

we can build on voip to create software capable of organically forking conversations, keeping tabs on others, suggesting others take part in one subconversation, recording, even live upvoting/downvoting what being talked about and who talking should be be given attention. (task cloud)

Persistent groups should be confined to janitorial service.

Organizations are basically monsters from a bygone era. Useful in some limited ways once, but cut with a number of vicious streaks and rapidly becoming obsolete. From Tahrir Square to the Port of Oakland, activists are slowly learning through practice that we don’t need them to get shit done.