Lots of us are talking about the future of Extension and the larger public university, but it seems to me that we are "fiddling while Rome is burning." We maintain the old structures (with some superficial changes), have the old conversations, and continue with the old ways of working, while the old system is in decline. We make a few changes "around the edges", but we are not dealing with the underlying causes of our problems. Many of us don't even believe that our system is in decline. And maybe we're not! I may be wrong. I hope so! Personally, I think we are in trouble.
I think that nothing less than a radical transformation of the public land grant university system and its subsystems such as Cooperative Extension will allow us to serve our mission and thrive in the next century. Many of the leaders in Extension disagree with me. That's okay, because we need lots of dialogue and debate. Many of the Extension staff in Massachusetts probably disagree with me too. That's okay, because at least we have entered the debate. One of my concerns is that we are not, as a national Extension community, facing the continuing decline in public support with boldness and creativity. We have fought defensive battles with some success over the past few years and I'm particularly thankful for those leaders in the system who have led this effort. But with all of our strategic planning and visioning, we have failed in general to act in creative ways. I think our failure is not due to lack of courage, but due to the difficulty of understanding the complex nature of what is happening.
I believe that we are prevented from effectively addressing problems (such as the decline of the university and Extension) by our traditional view of the world. Most of us look at organizations as simple machines. When something goes wrong, the machines simply need repair. We replace a cog or weld a spoke, create a new task force or restructure a committee, and we expect the machine to continue to function -- and sometimes it works. However, our mechanistic understanding of relationships among component parts of these systems limits our ability to address complex problems that span boundaries. Even the act of repairing the machine helps re- enforce the vision of a machine-like universe and prevents us from dealing with underlying causes. Committees, task forces, and work groups set up to "solve problems" create the impression of action while maintaining the status quo and preventing breakthrough creative thought and experimentation. This will always be so as long as we hang on to our dominant, mechanistic worldview of how organizations work.
The function of organizations are defined largely by its communication systems. Communication or the flow of information is both a tool and an expression of power. Our accepted understanding of the world is one in which information flows in unidirectional ways. This allows those in power to control the flow (and thus maintain the status quo). Our systems are built on the assumption that information flows predominantly "down and up" an organization. Traditional university hierarchies are examples of structures in which assignments are "sent down" and reports and recommendations are "sent up." In an attempt to share power, cross-cutting linkages are built and vertical task forces are formed, but old hierarchical relationships always prevent significant change as old power relationships are maintained on these "new"committees. Its all about communication and power.
Power is the ability to influence decisions and actions. Hierarchies support "power over" relationships based on rank, titles, gender, age and position in the hierarchy, rather than abilities and ideas. In current hierarchical relationships; someone speaks and someone listens, someone decides and someone acts, and someone wins and someone loses, based on hierarchical power relationships. If we want to change these relationships from "power over" to "power with" relationships based on shared vision and values, we must look to a world view other than the mechanistic hierarchy.
Today, we like to talk about partnerships. We like to think we believe in shared decision- making. But to put the talk and the new thinking into action, we must reject the hierarchical view of organizations that will always prevent true partnerships from working. Partnership is based on a common vision and shared responsibility for decisions and action. This will require new types of organizational structures with new types of decision-making processes, and new ways of working. Today's organizations are designed after the Prussian military, the first successful large organization of the 19th century. I think its time to explore new models.
Tomorrow's organization must be flatter, more fluid, and able to act more quickly, with multiple linkages in which information flows in all directions. Decisions must be made following broad discussion including those individuals most likely to be impacted (internal and external stakeholders). While it is unnecessary to achieve consensus, it is necessary to achieve broad understanding. Decision making in this organization will be based on "power with" or shared power relationships in which decisions are made at the most appropriate place in the organization, which is not always "near the top." While I don't know (yet) how this will work, I am confident the model for this organization is not a machine, but an ecosystem. While some would argue that ecosystems are also rigidly hierarchical (consisting of a hierarchy of atoms, cells, organelles, organs, organisms, communities, ecosystems), this is a misinterpretation of ecological relationships. Ecological hierarchies are nested systems within systems" based on interdependent relationships, quite unlike the social constructs of human hierarchies based on domination and control. At UMASS Extension, we have begun to experiment with a new way of working based on an ecosystem model for the organization.
UMASS Extension has evolved from a rigid hierarchy with a strong command and control style middle management structure to a team-based organization of connected networks modeled after a living ecosystem. Since it has a human-defined purpose, it is more properly a managed- ecosystem (like a farm). As an organization based on an ecosystem, it is alive, it changes, itgrows. Like a living system it's parts are connected with other parts in a network of interdependent relationships. Like all living systems, UMASS Extension is an open system in which energy is captured and channeled into 1) productive work, 2) maintenance of the system, and 3) creation of new parts of itself. This is the pattern that should be sustained even as the structure of the organization changes. The entire network is continually making and remaking itself by creating new relationships within and without. This pattern based on an ecosystem is the necessary model which we need to sustain as the foundation of our shared vision for the future. If the pattern is sustained, the organization can change, grow, mature, give birth and die, yet live on.
Some of us don't understand the new organization or the new ecosystem model. We are confused by the language and perhaps even cynical about the proposed new working relationships. This is normal as the new structure and new model represents a radical change from the past and we are only beginning to learn how to work in a shared leadership mode and a structure based on teams. While we continue to evolve, we must guard against reverting to a more familiar structure and the "comfortable" hierarchical working relationships we know and understand so well.
I don't believe that Extension (or the university for that matter) can survive as a traditional human hierarchy. The societal problems we must address are too complex and the rate of social change is too fast for a traditional hierarchy to be effective any longer. The social, economic and environmental problems of our time are all "ecological" in that they are interconnected and cannot be understood or solved in isolation. Poverty, substance abuse, excessive human population, loss of biodiversity, natural ecosystem destruction, ozone loss, hunger, unemployment, imperialism, militarism, racism, mental illness and corrupt political systems are all part of a global ecological illness. These are symptoms that grow out of an underlying problem of our perception of the earth as a machine and humans as separate from (and more important than) the other parts of the system. Political, business and scientific leaders do not generally understand that our "big" problems will continue until our perception changes from hierarchical and mechanistic to networked and ecological. As long as we view our organizations as mechanistic hierarchies, we will just rename the old structures without changing the power relationships that maintain the status quo. An exploration of what it means to work as an ecological network might allow us to really invent something new at UMASS Extension.
Who knows? I think its worth a try.
John M. Gerber
February, 1997