corprewland » emergent behavior http://www.corprew.org (dis)information organization Wed, 19 Nov 2008 04:39:10 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3.3 en Management, BM style http://www.corprew.org/blog/2008/04/17/management-bm-style/ http://www.corprew.org/blog/2008/04/17/management-bm-style/#comments Thu, 17 Apr 2008 07:06:49 +0000 corprew http://www.corprew.org/blog/2008/04/17/management-bm-style/ Although, as the trainers noted, it sounds like the set up to a joke, Burning Man takes providing management training to its senior volunteers and staff members very seriously. As part of my Quinfecta of Frenetic Activity down in SFO, I went to the 2008 version of said training.

Because of BM’s nature as a largely community-driven and volunteer-based organization, their management priorities are a little different than other organizations. It’s very simple, really, and I can sum up the difference in three words:

RESPECT EMERGENT BEHAVIOR

This shows up in a number of ways, in respecting the ideas that volunteers come up with, in coping with what emerges from chaos every year, and in generally planning from middle-up or bottom-up instead of top-down when possible. The respect emergent behavior is a spin of mine on it, but it’s something that I’ve had as a part of my core management philosophy for a while, so I was suprised and pleased to hear burning man talking about it.

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