CREATING AGAINST ALL ODDS

I’ve been writing about former CEO of VISA, Dee Hock and his wild and crazy ideas about creating “a new kind of organization”— one that today we in Neuro-Semantics would call a Self- Actualizing Company. Yet back in the early 1970s he didn’t know what to call the new kind of organization, so he came up with a term that he derived from combining the two critical dynamics for companies: chaos and order. From those two words he created the term chaordic and a chaordic organization. Never heard of that? No wonder! The term never really caught on. Thank God.

In last week’s post I pulled from the book Birth of the Chaordic Age quotations from him in which he wrote about the mistakes he made along the way. In seeking to create an entirely new kind of organization, his genius was in business structure, not in psychology. So years later he recognized that the “deep cultural change” required much more attention and methodology than he had. Yet what he lacked in terms of understanding Self-Actualization Psychology, he made up with his courageous willingness to experiment with the ideas that he had been entertaining.

“There was a problem” he said after he had discovered that he had both the permission and authority the National Bank of Commerce to pursue the idea of creating a new kind of organization that could handle the challenges of a worldwide credit card. What was the problem? In his own words: “No bank could do it. No hierarchal stock corporation could do it. No nation-state could do it. In fact, no existing form of organization we could think of could do it. On a hunch I made an estimate of the financial resources of all the banks in the world. It dwarfed the resources of most nations. Jointly, they could do it, but how? It would require a transcendental organization linking together in wholly new ways an unimaginable complex of diverse institutions and individuals. “At the time, did I think it could be done? No! It was impossible! Did I think the Bank of American would give up ownership of the program? No! Did I think banks worldwide could be brought together in such an effort? No! Did I think laws would allow it? No! Did I think anyone would seriously listen to such notions or allow them the light of day if they did? No! But did I believe it was what ought to be? Ah, that was another question indeed! Powerful enough to draw me on. “Absurd as it seemed, might this be an undreamed-of opportunity to experiment with my beliefs about organizations and management? It seemed beyond imagining. But what could be lost by the attempt?” (pp. 125-126)

What an ideal context for collaboration! The impossibility of something being created and coming into existence by all of the separate resources of what’s currently possible and the far-off impossibility of everybody coming together to create it. If only those who had invested in him and the years of preparation were willing to not claim ownership, if only every other key

individual and group be willing to equally share, if only all would set aside all of the old ways and old paradigms— then it could work. Such was that state of things. What were the probabilities? One percent? Less than that? Whatever it was, against all odds, he plowed ahead inspired by a vision of collaboration and what that collaboration could potentially do.

Pretty incredible, right? So how does one just plow ahead? Dee Hock began by gathering his executive team, asking for a commitment to set aside a week, isolate themselves, and see what they could create. To facilitate the group thinking and learning together he put forth an evocative question and a distinction of four ways to look at things: “If anything imaginable was possible, if there were no constraints whatever, what would be the nature of an ideal organization to create the world’s premier system for the exchange of value?” (p. 132) “As they were, as they are, as they might become, and as they ought to be. Let’s synthesize these and hold them in mind as a single perspective.”

That elicited storming in the executive group: “we argued, frustration increased, tempers flared.” From what I can tell he essentially “coached” the group by using his insights which he presented as process instructions. In that way the group was enabled to think together, learn together, and finally decide together. Here are some of those insights: “Since the past can never be more than preparatory and the present no more than a point of departure, it is the future that should have our best thoughts and energy...” (p. 134) “The problem is never to get new ideas in, the problem is to get old ideas out. Every mind is filled with old furniture.” (p. 135) “What if we quit arguing about the structure of a new institution and tried to think of it as having some sort of genetic code? How does genetic code in individual cells create recognizable patterns? ... If institutions have no reality save in the mind, might their genetic code have something to do with purpose and principles?” (p. 136)

In the end they succeeded. In hindsight, VISA was brought into being through the power of relying on the power of ideas (p. 140). Yet these ideas didn’t fit well with others who were required to make the whole plan succeed. And it especially didn’t fit as the team approached success, then “bitter opposition emerged.” Then others in places of influence decided against the new organization, instead they wanted the power of command-and-control. Hock even said that there were dozens of times when he longed to quit. So what kept him going?

“All that is clear was stubborn conviction that the ideas ... were sound. They had to be tried. ... Attempting the impossible is not rational ... It is a matter of hope, faith, and determination.” (p. 142)

This is often the way with creating something against all odds. It has often seemed this way with Neuro-Semantics— creating a voluntary Association of highly qualified, professional, ethical, and collaborative people all working to a single end as if they were a single company. It’s not rational. Reason alone would say that people will not give of their time, effort, intelligence, intellectual property, and money to promote a shared value. And like VISA, it has been certain ideas that have kept us going— the realization that we can do so much more together than alone or apart. The realization that self-actualizing people live at the Being-level and have a need to contribute, give back, and make a difference in the world.