The South Dunedin Community Probation Service Centre is responsible for the administration and enactment of community based sentences imposed by the courts on people living in our area. It also provides of reports to enable the courts and prison board to make decisions about people who could be given a community based sentence. The Community Probation Service is commonly known as CPS.
The principles of chaos and complexity can be seen within the operation of the organisation where around fifty employees work.
DESCRIPTION OF THE SERVICE
Working Teams
The service is divided into three working teams, each with specialised tasks and a large degree of autonomy. In spite of this each unit needs to interact continually with the others to fulfil their tasks. In this way we see a fractal structure of groups within groups which as complex adaptive systems have internal links and external links to the greater fractal of which they are a part. Although not competing directly, these teams are somewhat reminiscent of patches proposed by Stuart Kauffmann (Lipsack,1996). He suggested that efficient organisations would be broken into non-overlapping, competing groups, which nevertheless communicate freely with each other. The working teams at CPS are:
Community Work: This team oversees people sentenced to a given number of hours of work in the community. This may involve working directly in a community organisation or being supervised by Probation Service work party supervisors.
Provision of information: This team provides reports to the court to help judges determine appropriate sentences.
Intervention Team: This team works with people sentenced to Supervision or Parole from prison. Those sentenced must report regularly to their assigned Probation Officer and attend any counselling, programmes or treatment programmes as directed.
The Intervention team also works with people released from prison to serve their sentence on Home Detention, where their movements are monitored by an electronic anklet.
There is one Service Centre Manager and a Service Manager for each team. All Probation Officers, Administration Officers and Work Team Supervisors are responsible to their respective Service Managers and the Service Centre Manager is responsible to the Area Manager.
CONNECTIVITY
Connectivity relates to the inter-relationships between each of the agents in a complex adaptive system such as the CPS. Wheatley (1999) states that power in an organisation is generated by its capacity to generate relationships. The more workers can co-operate and support each other, the more effective the Service will be. There are many factors which increase the connectivity of the system.
Internal Connectivity
A high level of co-operation is required between individuals within each work team. Sharing knowledge and assisting each other reduces feelings of isolation. Without feeling connected workers will tend to hide difficulties and any perceived inadequacies, rather than being supportive and open.
Horizontal Connectivity
Even though each team has distinct tasks and procedures, they cannot work in isolation. For example, the Intervention team often works with clients on a concurrent Community Work sentence, so a Community Work Probation officer will often have useful advice or information. The Provision of Information team will have prepared the initial report to the court and discussion with the original report writer is helpful.
Hierarchical Connectivity
As in any organisation I have ever known, the Head Office is generally seen as remote and out of touch with the workers at the ‘coal face’. Stacey (1996) suggests that hierarchies and the tension between levels in the hierarchy may be inherent in organisational dynamics. My experience is that even in groups working very hard to keep everybody equal, everybody still knows clearly who the unspoken leaders are. There are six levels of hierarchy between the CPS Head Office in Wellington and the front-line workers. Information must flow effectively between all levels for effective connectivity.
External Connectivity
CPS, the Prison Service and the Courts together form the Department of Corrections. Over the past two years, these Services have been integrating their operations through a system called IOM (Integrated Offender Management), which allows a higher degree of consistency, and thus connectivity between the services.
CPS also has links with the Police, Child Youth and Family Service, Psychiatric Services, many counselling services, Maori programmes, and a multitude of other groups. They are all necessary for the good operation of the Service. Protocols are developed which enable efficient connectivity while maintaining the autonomy of each organisation.
Training
Training is a vital factor in maintaining connectivity. All workers need to know the organisational values and culture and the procedures for undertaking assigned tasks. This builds coherence that increases efficiency.
Time taken for training, often unfortunately clashes with the ongoing work and can be difficult to work around. Having staff away adds stress to other workers and creates a backlog of work when the worker returns. The difficulty of organising regular training also often means workers are ‘thrown in the deep end’ and learn on the job until training becomes available. This is very stressful for workers and leaves the service vulnerable to catastrophic events caused by a lack of training.
Technology
There is a nationally co-ordinated computer network named IOMS (Integrated Offender Management System), which is designed to ensure any worker can quickly access the information needed to do their work.
Maintaining records on our clients requires precision and order. Any instability or inaccuracy can result in major disruptions to the Service or injustices to our clients. Clients could be either subjected to unjust punishments, or dangerous criminals could be released back into the community.
IOMS has added many improvements in connectivity, but sometimes at the expense of autonomy. The software has taken away some of the flexibility that Probation Officers previously had. The software has canalysed procedures and taken away some of the decision making for Probation Officers.
The implementation of the new computer system has created tensions that reduce connectivity. When staff feel stressed or overwhelmed by the amount of new information to be learned, or working with a system which continues to have glitches, feelings of anger and frustration can arise.
Telephones, fax machines, vehicles and many other forms of technology are also used at the CPS.
Job Rotation
Over time, workers are encouraged to spend time in the different teams. This builds a better appreciation of how the various teams fit together and the types of problems each team has. Job rotation is very helpful at times when staff are away. It becomes much easier for those remaining to fill in and undertake the tasks of those who are not present. Care must be taken not to rotate staff too quickly as each area requires a significant amount of new learning.
Trust
Trust is an extremely crucial component of the connectivity of an organisation. If workers know they can rely on their co-workers, they will co-operate more effectively. Team building and building relationships is an extremely important part of developing efficient work teams.
Some staff feel that we do not have sufficient trust to be really honest with each other. We are afraid of causing conflict, because we lack the trust that we could resolve the issues.
Team Issues
Weekly team meetings allow for the co-ordination of the team’s work, and discussion of any issues that have arisen. It is also a time of training.
Narratology
Because the work of the Probation Service is specialised and the Service has been significantly modified in recent years, a new style of language, concepts, and words have been coined to describe the work undertaken. This language has been a major part of redefining and repositioning the service and its philosophy.
It has been determined that the most effective approach to working with offenders is through cognitive behavioural approaches. Work with offenders is based around a cycle of re-offending including key points such as the SID (Seemingly Irrelevant Decision) and HRS (High Risk Situation). The Service is fond of using acronyms. They hope that the simplified naming will make the concepts more accessible and be integrated more easily into the meaning making structures of the workers and clients.
The use of language is a major component in the formation of an identity for the Service. The more the introduced language of those in control are integrated and used by all the staff, the more a cohesive identity formed increasing connectivity. Workers do not have the same ability to affect the language used or generate an alternative story, so they are less able to influence the identity of the service (Suen, 2002).
AUTONOMY
Autonomy is the other side of the coin of connectivity. Connectivity focuses on the operation of the whole and the inter-relations. Autonomy focuses on developing each individual agent.
Specialisation
This generalisation of skills does not exclude the specialisation of workers who have a particular interest or skill on one area. This allows individuals to make the most of their talents and abilities and become enthused by working in their area of choice. It also allows the development of expertise that would not otherwise be possible.
Promotion
The possibility of being promoted to a higher position is an incentive for workers to improve their individual capabilities. Leadership is a skill that can be expressed at any fractal level and may help a worker gain promotion.
Building a Personal Style
I have always been impressed with the encouragement at all levels for employees to find their own style. New workers in particular are encouraged to spend time with a range of other workers to get a sense of the differing styles people have developed. This experience then helps the individual use their unique talents and develop their own way of working.
Training
Training is also a component of autonomy. Each new training programme attended increases the skill level of the individual and their ability to excel amongst their peers.
Trust
Similarly, trust is an important component of autonomy as well as connectivity. With trust workers feel able to be an individual and find their own style. They will be more willing to take a risk that might lead to innovation. The perceived gap between staff and management, the level of change and recent staff turnover have all had a negative impact on the level of trust at the Centre.
AUTONOMY v CONNECTIVITY
An organisation requires both autonomy of individual agents and connectivity between agents in order to be effective. Autonomy allows each agent to diversify and develop their own individual abilities. Connectivity requires giving up some individual diversity to align within a shared understanding necessary for the organisation to work towards common goals. This is a paradoxical situation because an increase in autonomy tends to decrease connectivity, while an increase in connectivity tends to decrease autonomy.
Competition, being linked to autonomy, is important because it increases diversity and opens the possibility of novelty as each agent searches the phase space for more potential ways of being. Competition only becomes destructive when an agent seeks to harm others for their own benefit.
Co-operation, being linked to connectivity, enables the skills and abilities of each person to be accessed by the whole group. A group can assist an individual member having difficulty. This could avoid the loss of a member and all the contributions they would have been able to offer in the future. On the other hand, co-operation can develop into a sameness among members, causing a loss of diversity.
Too much competition leads to deep chaos as people lose their connectivity. Co-operation is then required to bring the group back to effective functioning. Too much co-operation leads to competition as people feel a loss of individuality and a need to reassert themselves.
Paradoxically, both surplus and scarcity are required for the functioning of an organisation. It is not until there is a surplus in any system that it can move beyond mere survival, because all the energy is devoted to survival. Evolution and development require a surplus of energy. If however there is too great a surplus then there is insufficient motivation to improve and the agents become complacent. Without scarcity, competition decreases and the dynamics of self organisation collapse.
Therefore, as in all organisations, we in the CPS often complain about not having sufficient money and resources to do our work. Having too much money breeds inefficiencies. Only the most effective programmes and ways of working can be financed when funding is restricted.
If too much time is spent on either connectivity or autonomy, the stability of the system is altered. If there is too much focus on connectivity, on training, on group process, technology etc. the work fails to get completed on time, but more importantly workers lose the individual incentive to excel. Too much focus on autonomy creates dissension as workers become less willing to co-operate.
FRACTALITY
Fractality is observed through the Service whereby each worker is a part of the CPS and the CPS becomes a part of each worker. The values of the Service is absorbed into the values of the individual. When a member of staff goes out into the community, they represent (and are) the Service.
Just as a fractal never reproduces itself perfectly within itself, so too each worker builds up their own identity of the Service within themselves in their own way. Different aspects of the Service will be seen as more crucial than others as they build their own working style.
EDGE OF CHAOS
The Edge of Chaos is a key concept in chaos and complexity. If a system is too unstable it lacks the ability to work as a coherent whole and lapses into deep chaos. If a system is too stable, it becomes rigid and unable to adapt to a changing environment. There is a critical balance point called the Edge of Chaos, just before the point of lapsing into deep chaos, where the system is not only stable enough to maintain coherence, but can self organise such that new levels of organisation and stability can emerge. The Edge of Chaos is not a static equilibrium, but rather a dynamic balance, like the balance of a tightrope walker, who is constantly using feedback loops of balance to stay on the rope.
There are many feedback loops within the work of CPS. Probation officer are constantly discussing cases, amongst themselves, with managers and with counsellors and other professionals as well as formal ‘PARMA’ checks to ensure procedures are followed.
When humans work together in groups we generally organise ourselves as autopoietic systems. We self organises in such a way that the group maintains its structure over a length of time. The individual parts co-operate effectively to maintain the overall integrity and identity of the system, while being flexible enough to modify themselves when environmental circumstances change.
We constantly alter environmental parameters to bring us closer to the Edge of Chaos and allow maximum productivity levels. Workers are continually finding ways to regulate the balance between autonomy and connectivity and thus the balance of stability and instability. While informal time chatting is necessary, too much would result in inefficiency and take the Service away from the Edge of Chaos. The office has an open plan design. One probation officer sits within the work group, but with her back to the other workers. This reduces the level of contact with other workers to a level that it is not too intrusive and moves her back towards the Edge of Chaos.
COPING WITH CHANGE
To be at the Edge of Chaos requires constant instability and change. Peters (1992) says the role of a manager should be tipping people out of complacency, towards the Edge of Chaos, and Kiel (1994) proposes that real qualitative changes occur through symmetry breaks. He says that to be really effective we need to make dramatic paradigm shifts, not just make modifications to existing structures. Stacey (1996) supports the view that organisations will be most effective remaining at the Edge of Chaos.
However, there is much debate as to whether humans can actually sustain the levels of stress at the Edge of Chaos (Complexity Theory and Management Practice in Faculty of Social Enquiry, 2000). Rosenhead (1998) is critical of Ralph Stacey’s conclusions that organisations should remain at the Edge of Chaos for optimal functioning. Rosenhead points out that in nature the Edge of Chaos is often a point only reached for short periods of time, but that this is sufficient to allow innovation and creativity to emerge. He claims that remaining at the Edge of Chaos would be too stressful.
This is borne out by the views of CPS staff as expressed in the Climate Survey (2001). There was a strong feeling that the relentless change that has marked the last three years or more, was disruptive and impacted negatively on productivity. Occasional movement to the Edge of Chaos would allow for inspiration and innovation to emerge. Moving away from the Edge of Chaos might then be necessary to integrate the implications of the new emergent wisdom.
The risk of total disintegration of the organisation, which is a very real prospect at the Edge of Chaos, is not a viable option for the CPS, given the social disruption that would occur if this were to happen. The balance must lie more towards stability and control, with flashes of insight and self-organisation only emerging as often as the organisation is reasonably able to cope with them.
While Complexity Theory has a strong scientific validity in areas such as chemical systems or mathematical modelling, describing human behaviour is necessarily more complex and difficult to validate. Social complexity is often predicated on an analogy with simpler complex systems. While this produces very useful insights and exploitable information and concepts, we must remember that they are analogies and not necessarily validated by scientific data. Some conclusions may prove to be invalid (Ortegon Monroy, 1999).
FLOWS
Autopoietic systems such as the Dunedin CPS require a constant flow of energy running through them forming a vortex. A water funnel is a vortex that has a flow of water constantly entering the vortex, which then swirls and interacts allowing the vortex to maintain its same basic shape. The water then leaves and returns to the environment from which it came.
CPS Dunedin has many different flows of energy running through it that allow it to take on its identity and functions. These flows include clients sent from the courts, information from various sources, and even staff members. Flows also includes money to buy resources such as stationery, tools for work gangs, cleaning equipment, and staff salaries.
Some flows move very fast such as stationery supplies, while others such as staff members flow through the organisation far more slowly. None of these items remain permanently in the organisation, but the flow ensures that at any time there is a recognisable, functioning entity called CPS Dunedin.
The flow of clients through the Service forms a strange attractor. Although the exact number of clients entering or leaving the Service is not known and is unpredictable, fluctuations fall within given boundaries with a fuzzy edge. This is similar to strange attractor investigated by Kiel (1994: P 84). He examined the number of telephone calls to the Police Department in Dallas, Texas. There were highs and lows, with some patterns such as times of year when higher numbers of telephone calls could be expected. Overall the number of calls was unpredictable but fell within the attractor’s limits.
Buchanan (2002) shows that fluctuations within the flows of complex adaptive systems exhibit power law distributions. Simply put, there is a small number of large fluctuation and a large number of small fluctuations. A ‘rule of thumb’ guideline told to staff at CPS is that 20% of our clients will generate 80% of our work and 80% of our clients will generate the other 20% of our work. This is consistent with the mathematics of Power Law Distributions. While there are times when extreme situations occur, they are not so frequent as to cause levels of instability that cannot be sustained.
Buchanan (2002) also discusses the importance of weak links in organisations. While the greatest number of links are strong links to close people, it is often the weak links that are more critical. For example, one good contact in the Police, who might only be contacted two or three times a year, can nevertheless open the gateway to the whole Police network. In this way even a small number of weak links greatly enhance the connectivity of the entire network.
LEADERSHIP
Good leadership is crucial to any organisation. The leader holds and expresses the vision of the organisation. It does not necessarily remain with one person, but can shift around the organisation depending on the tasks. The leader holds a greater share of the organisation’s anxiety and instils a desire to co-operate inspiring the development of organisational coherence. Youngblood (1997) correctly states that leadership is not a position, it is a process.
Service Managers at CPS generally work along side workers rather than ‘rule from above’. A supportive approach is more effective because of the trust that is engendered. If such a horizontal approach fails to bring about the desired level of productivity, often the response is to regress to a hierarchical and more directive method.
LEGITIMATE AND SHADOW NETWORK
Ralph Stacey (1996), distinguishes between the legitimate network and the shadow network. The legitimate network is that part of the organisation that holds the official vision of the organisation. Those with the power to make the decisions about the vision, direction and functioning of the organisation direct the legitimate network. In the Community Probation Service, most of the legitimate structure is imposed from the Head Office. The legitimate structure is clearly operating from a controlling paradigm, assuming that instabilities can be controlled, if only the correct means are employed.
The shadow network, on the other hand, is all the unofficial network, including all those informal structures and procedures employed by the workers. As in most organisations, it is the shadow network that carries the legitimate network, which would be totally incapable of functioning on its own.
An organisation creates stories as vehicles to carry the narratives that form an important part of its meaning making structure. The legitimate network expresses the official view, with stories around the required performance of workers and encouraging the acceptance and integration of the value system as presented by those in power. The recessive network has its own stories of the organisation, often revolving around the difficulties encountered when trying to put the official views into practice.
The shadow network can support the legitimate network, but more commonly it has elements working against the legitimate network. This might be to initiate positive change for the future, to regress to former states, or to be misappropriated for individual gain.
Dominant and recessive stories vie for acceptance amongst workers. The legitimate network has the advantage of being in control of the official communication lines and the ability to censure unofficial stories, while the recessive story lines are more flexible and mobile. A dynamic interplay with positive and negative feedback loops can develop as the stories seek to assert themselves. Which ever story is internalised by the worker will drive his or her perceptions and behaviours.
There is a yin-yang movement between the two networks. If the legitimate network becomes too strong, those of the shadow network will feel too regulated and build strength to reintroduce instability. If the shadow network is too strong, the legitimate network will work harder to restore stability. These forces tend to keep pushing the overall organisation towards the area of the Edge of Chaos.
ANXIETY CONTAINMENT
Stacey (1996) introduced the concept of anxiety containment. He proposes that anxiety is an inherent property emerging from within any creature with self awareness. We become anxious that we may not have enough food to eat, that we may not be safe, that we may not be able to pay our mortgage and probably more than anything, we are anxious because we know we will die one day.
If our lives are too chaotic the level of instability increases and so does our anxiety. We create strategies to contain our anxiety so we can continue to function effectively.
On the other hand, If our lives are too ordered, we have low levels of anxiety. and cease being able to generate innovation and creativity. The level of anxiety must fit between limits if the organisation is to avoid falling into deep chaos or dying through rigidity.
According to Stacey, we build organisations because they create order and reduce our anxiety. We gain a sense of control, either real or imagined.
In society a range of different organisations are formed, each vicariously containing some of our anxiety. For example, hospitals help contain our anxiety over our health, funeral directors over our fear of our mortality. We fear violence, burglary, fraud and a raft of others dangers. CPS is one of the organisations containing this anxiety over our safety.
The anxiety generated by the creation of the organisation must be less than the anxiety generated by the problem it is set up to contain.
Because an organisation is made up of people, each member must be willing take on a share of the organisational anxiety. People need to have reasons for taking on extra levels of anxiety. In animal groups the rewards are often status and access to female members. In our modern world they are more likely to be a desire to help people, to further the aims of the organisation, to gain status, or to acquire a monetary or similar reward.
We each have differing abilities to contain anxiety and particular types of anxiety we are more able to contain. Those of us that can contain more anxiety are more likely to take on positions of greater responsibility. The greater responsibility generates higher levels of anxiety, requiring greater reasons or rewards for performing those duties.
It is more efficient for those people who have a greater capacity for anxiety containment to take on a greater load of the group anxiety, because those whose capabilities are less are not required to take on anxiety beyond the limits of their abilities of containment. The consequence of this dynamic is, however, the stratification of individuals into different status levels.
If the stratification becomes too marked, and especially if the disparity of rewards attached to the status levels is too great, conflict will ensue. The disparity can be reduced if all workers can contain a greater share of the anxiety, thus flattening the structure.
Two key strategies to achieve this are improved communications and training. The more efficiently a person can access the information and resources to do their work, the less pressured they feel and the more anxiety they can contain. Increasing a person’s education and skill level similarly allows greater anxiety containment. Other means of increasing the connectivity such as increasing trust and co-operation, upgrading technology and resources available have already been discussed. Increasing rewards will not reduce anxiety, but workers may still be more willing to accept the greater level of anxiety.
If, as Stacey (1996) suggests, our role is containing anxiety, convincing the public that we are reducing the problem of crime can be as critical as whether or not we are actually reducing crime. An unfortunate result of this is the Service’s extreme wariness of any situation that may cause it embarrassment, such as an offender committing a serious offence while a client of the Service. Probation Officers have become wary of risk taking and innovation because of the personal consequences of such a catastrophe.
Uncontained anxiety is passed from higher fractal levels to lower levels. The uncontained societal anxiety drops to organisations, and eventually to individuals. What an individual cannot contain passes into their unconscious realms to become a part of the shadow psyche of the individual. Unresolved shadow aspects of our being must have expression and manifest again at all levels as dysfunction. In our physical body it may appear as illness and in society it may result in criminal activity.
Staff who leave the Service take their ability to contain anxiety with them. New staff typically arrive with a higher level of anxiety. The CPS must continually increasing the ability of staff to contain anxiety merely to maintain the same level of anxiety containment in the overall organisation.
CONCLUSION
Like any organisation, the Dunedin CPS is seen as effectively demonstrating the principles of chaos and complexity in some respects, but not others. The greatest area of practical improvement would appear to be in increasing levels of trust. Over recent years the level of trust has suffered due to overwhelming amounts of new information and procedures to be learned, staff changes and staff/management conflict.
The new procedures are almost all implemented now and the next two years are seen as times of consolidation. New staff will increasingly gain skills to replace experienced people who left. Staff/management conflicts can be worked on, and meetings are planned to resolve those issues, so the potential certainly exists to raise the level of trust and make the emergence of self organisation within the service more likely.
WORDS 4,849
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Boje, David M, Storytelling Organisations, http://cbae.nmsu.edu/~dboje/storytellingorg.html, accessed 7/9/02
Faculty of Social Enquiry, (2000), Complexity Organisations Fuzziness, University of Western Sydney
Buchanan Mark, (2002), Small World, Uncovering Nature’s Hidden Networks, Weidenfield & Nicholson, London
Goerner Sally J, (1995), Chaos and the Evolving Ecological Universe, Gordon and Breach Publishers, Luxembourg
Kiel L. Douglas, (1994), Managing Chaos and Complexity in Government, A New Paradigm for Managing Change and Organizational Renewal, Jossey Bass Publishers, San Fransisco
Lissack Michael R, (1996), http://www.lissack.com/writings/chaos.htm accessed 07/07/02, Chaos and Complexity -- What does that have to do with management? A look at Practical Applications.
Ortegon Monroy Maria Carolina, (1999), Chaos and Complexity Theory: A Review of its Status, Perspectives and Implications for Management, working paper for Faculty of Business & Management, No 36/October 1999, reprinted in Complexity Organisations Fuzziness, Faculty of Social Enquiry, University of Western Sydney, (2000)
Peters Tom, (1992), Liberation Management, Necessary Disorganization for the Nanosecond Nineties, Macmillan, London
Peters Tom, (1997), The Circle of Innovation: You can’t Shrink your Way to Greatness, Hodder and Staughton, London
Rosenhead Jonathon,(1998), Complexity Theory and managment Practice, http://www.human-nature.com/science-as-culture/rosenhead.html, accessed 7/9/02
School of Social Ecology and Lifelong Learning, (2002), Complexity Thinking: A Catalyst for Creativity, School of Social Ecology and Lifelong Learning, University of Western Sydney
Sifonis John G, and Goldberg Beverly, (1996), Corporation on a Tightrope, Balancing Leadership, Governance and Technology in an Age of Complexity, Oxford University Press, New York
Stacey Ralph and Parker David, (1995), Chaos, Management and Economics, The Implications of Non-Linear Thinking, The Centre for Independent Studies, Printed by Alken Press Ltd, Smithfield, NSW, Australia
Stacey Ralph D., (1996), Complexity and Creativity in Organizations, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, San Francisco
Suen Brian, (2002), Corporate Strategy: The Narrative of an Organisation, a chapter from Complexity Thinking, A Catalyst for Creativity (2002)
Wheatley Margaret J, (1999), Leadership and the New Science, Discovering Order in a Chaotic World, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, San Francisco
Youngblood Mark, (1997), Leadership at the Edge of Chaos, http://www.parshift.com/Speakers/Speak006.htm, Originally published in Strategy & Leadership Magazine, Sept. 1997
This essay was written with the permission of the Community Probation Service.