Over Labor Day weekend an extraordinary event took place in the
world of self organized groups. Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly
Love, hosted the World Convention of one of the largest and most respected
12-Step recovery programs, known as Narcotics
Anonymous. Over 18,000 recovering addicts were in attendance,
from over 100 countries.
Twelve-step
programs are a massive worldwide movement of various,
self-organized groups - each aligned to address a common,
life-threatening problem (alcoholism, addiction, overeating, etc.).
Their power is based on face-to-face meetings in which people identify with
one another and share openly and honestly on a regular basis.
This month, twenty years ago, I began studying Narcotics Anonymous
as a participant observer for my senior thesis in Cultural Anthropology at
the College of William and Mary. Using Victor
Turner’s ideas as a theoretical framework, I titled the thesis
“Betwixt and Between: Communitas as Cure in the Lives of Recovering
Addicts.” I have been privileged to spend time sitting inside the
circle at NA meetings, discovering how principles like “anonymity,”
“humility,” and “surrender” make it possible for men and women whose lives
had been controlled by drugs to live clean one day at a time, with each
other’s help.
Organic openness is the essence of “Communitas”
as outlined by Victor
Turner (an underrated genius! Please read his anthropology
essays if you’re at all interested in contemporary organizational
culture. I have recommended them to many Agile coaches and colleagues
working to improve the workplace.)
Examples of Communitas throughout history:
• the monastic tradition established by St.
Francis
• women in Paris in the 1920s
• performance artists in New York City in the 1970s
(the scene fed by collaborations like Merce
Cunningham/John
Cage)
These groups stepped away from old forms and took for themselves
the freedom to experiment with new ones. Eventually, their ideas fed
back into the mainstream where society as a whole could profit from
them. In the end, everyone had more creative options.
Narcotics Anonymous was founded in 1953 in California. NA
describes iteslf as “a global, community-based organization with a
multi-lingual and multicultural membership.” Its message, often
referred to as the Promise of Freedom is: that
any addict can stop using, lose the desire to use and find a new way to
live.
This message – shared spontaneously in every meeting by members
and read aloud from NA literature – is clear, consistent and reliable.
There is not one single culture for which the message is designed or in which
it can be heard and understood. There is unlimited potential in its
simplicity.
Since NA has been fully self-supporting and growing worldwide as a
multicultural phenomenon of Self-Organization for sixty years, perhaps we
should listen to the wisdom it espouses.
The following is a GAME OF ASSOCIATION. I start with a
principle of Self-Organization, and follow it with a 12-step slogan from
Narcotics Anonymous meetings.
Opting in. “You are a member
when you say you are.”
Collaboration. “I can’t.
We can.”
Simplicity. “KISS – keep it
simple, stupid”
Continuous self-improvement.
“Progress not perfection.” ”The journey continues.”
Incremental development. “It’s a
process.” “One step at a time.”
Faith in the emergent solution.
“Trust the process.” “Act as if.”
Servant-leadership. “Our leaders are
but trusted servants. They do not govern.”
Persistence. “Stay in the
solution.” “Don’t give up five minutes before the miracle.”
In Narcotics Anonymous, the stakes are the highest possible:
people’s lives. In order to have credibility and be able to attract
newcomers as well as retain experienced members, it is essential that the
organization be able to deliver on its Promise of Freedom.
They cannot achieve this through coercion. It is only
through Self-Organization that recovering addicts have been able to adopt
this program of change and incorporate its sustaining habits into their
lives.
There is a joke in NA that goes “How many recovering
addicts does it take to change a lightbulb? None! The lightbulb
has to be willing to change itself.”
Therefore, based on everything I have learned in Cultural
Anthropology and can offer the workplace improvement movement, culture is
more like a liquid than a solid. It cannot be effectively
hacked. Instead, it flows like a river, carrying various messages along
in its fluidity.
Cultural change is driven by those considered to be outsiders or
rebels, individuals driven by courage and/or desperation to admit that
standard ways of doing things simply DO NOT WORK. These
individuals gravitate toward the margins of organized groups, the
interstices, the spaces in-between. There, they have a better
chance of finding each other, learning from one another, and together,
eventually, making creative contributions.
• What is your Self-Organizing group’s primary
purpose?
• How do its members gather and share this
message?
• Have they experienced enough pain to truly want to
change?
For more on self-management in the world of addiction recovery,
San
Francisco's Delancey Street Foundation offers several important
lessons. Contact
the Self-Management Institute for more information.
