The Berkana Community of Conversations: A Study of Leadership Skill Development and Organizational Leadership Practices in a Self-Organizing Online

Marilyn Hamilton

may 2006 · Universal-Publishers

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This research used the online experiment, the Berkana Community of Conversations (BCC), as a case study to explore learning and leadership in a self-organizing online microworld (an internet small world with rules of engagement simulating complex adaptive organization(s)). Based on theories of learning (Papert, 1996), biology of consciousness (Maturana and Varela, 1992), and integral models (Wilber, 1996), an integral methodological design, analyzed languaging and relationships as key data sources. Leadership was mapped as a continuum of behaviors that created effective processes for meaning making, action/direction and accomplishment. Meaning making was tracked in: four directions; three types of connections (exploratory, transformative and linking) and six plus levels. Self-organizing leaders: 1) initiated patterns; 2) developed patterns; and 3) created connections. The same mapping revealed the ontogeny of community learning within organization(s). System-wide order emerged through learning, tracked on four quadrant developmental scales: intentional, behavioral, cultural and social (Wilber, 1996). The microworld demonstrated: connections create meanings (patterns), create relationships, create identity. As a self-organizing microworld, BCC survived seven months; structurally coupled with its environment; and replicated itself within and outside experiment boundaries. Such a microworld can realistically replicate action-based learning situations where leaders learn new ways of leading and organizing.