Learning by Subtraction

Was reading Chris Allen's Life with Alacrity blog concerning overwhelm that occurs when you are connected to too many people.

The human brain has on half the number of synapses at age six as it had at age two. It learns by subtraction. So do computer based neural nets.

This principle could well be applied to organizations to increase the size of the Dunbar number that could work effectively without drowning in bureaucracy.

Consider three ways to bring order in a human organization. The chain of command, community spirit and marketplace choice.

The chain of command tends to keep demanding ever more connections. You must get permission from all these people before taking action. The free intraprise systems we set up (see The Intelligent Organization by Gifford & Elizabeth Pinchot) allow people to connect and disconnect at the end of each contract at will. Teams contract with line officers and each other to get the work done, much like a virtual organization except that key competencies and trade secrets remain in the organization.

Relationships that create value are maintained; those that consume value are terminated by either party. This provides a powerful advantage over the innane connections that are often maintained in highly time consuming ways in a bureaucracy.

The force of community also has a self-organizing quality that allows people to volunteer for what has juice and walk away from relationships that consume purpose and meaning. Community and the Gift Economy provide a necessary balance to free enterprise or free intraprise. Both should be used in place of the chain of command in many of the situations where the chain of command is used today.