Neither Hierarchy nor Network - An Argument for Heterarchy

Attachment

HRPS_Heterarchy.pdf

12/99/yv/8r/6-/4h/1/b0bsl79jx59rwtw7lr978psshbdk7tsxlb1w4wlpmfhprmt/HRPS_Heterarchy.pdf

Description

Long ago, when the world was local, trust enabled our primordial ancestors to cooperate and overcome overwhelming odds. As our world became more globally interconnected, technology trumped trust. But as the world continued to shrink, a strange thing happened: Interdependencies began to grow and trust was again recognized as the missing link in free-trade agreements, civic-engagement initiatives and financial markets. Trust has been missing in action because we haven’t been able to build meaningful, collaborative structures and performance metrics to ensure its sustainability. That’s our job today.

No one disputes that the world is shrinking, as more and more people connect with each other through technology. As every connection is made, interdependencies extend from local to global, and so the social fabric or “network” is rewoven. A network is the nonrandom aggregation of these human connections and is both nuanced and nuclear in its collective power. Networks are ancient tribal structures and permeate even the most familiar organizational forms we embrace as markets and hierarchies.

Networks do more than just connect us as individuals to each other. They connect our different institutions together in organic  organizational sprawl. This mega-state of networked or connected hierarchies is known as heterarchy. There is no archeological precedent for heterarchy that we know of, largely because the world and our institutions have never been this interconnected.

Author

Karen Stephenson. 2009