DEN Management

[lifemap <lifemap@ix.netcom.com>]

John David Kromkowski wrote, in part, about improvement of the DEN:
""...  there is no actual management or leadership (at best, we are "a
letters to the editor" society.) -- without which it seems to me that
improvement is really impossible.""


My question: in a network of individuals who are attempting to clarify
their world views and sharpen their thought processes, why do we need a
single individual to manage the system?  Isn't the management of the
system inherent in the participants themselves? Isn't the DEN
essentially a self managed system?  Why do we have to adhere to a
traditional, organizational, hierarchical (suboptimizing) view that
tells us that management of the system must come from the outside. Jim
has provided a convening place and has taken on the administrative
burdens, but otherwise, we are unconstrained (except for the requirement
to be polite) in our conversation. Only each individual can assess what
that person has learned, and that will occur through one's own
application of ideas, feedback, and consequences (i.e., PDSA). If one is
serious about examining how and what one thinks, why shouldn't
improvement occur? However, it may take years before one makes the
quantum leaps of thought that represent deep change.

Ed Baker