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environment if it is to deal with the challenges posed by that environment. Or to put the matter slightly differently, any control system must be as varied and complex as the environment being controlled. In the context of holographic design, this means that all elements of an organization should embody critical dimensions of the environment with which they have to deal, so that they can self-organize to cope with the demands they are likely to face. The principle of requisite variety thus gives clear guidelines as to how the principle of redundant functions would be applied. It suggests that redundancy (variety) should always be built into a system where it is directly needed, rather than at a distance. This means that close attention must be paid to the boundary relations between organizational units and their environments, to ensure that requisite variety always falls within the unit in question. What is the nature of the environment being faced? Can all the skills for dealing with this environment be possessed by every individual? If so, then build around multifunctioned people, as in the model of the autonomous work group discussed earlier. If not, then build around multifunctioned teams that collectively possess the requisite skills and abilities and where each individual member is as generalized as possible, creating a pattern of overlapping skills and knowledge bases in the team overall. It is here that we find a means of coping with the problem that everybody can’t be skilled in everything. Organization can be developed in a cellular manner around self-organizing, multidisciplined groups that have the requisite skills and abilities to deal with the environment in a holistic and integrated way. The principle of requisite variety has important implications for the design of almost every aspect of organization. Whether we are talking about the creation of a corporate planning group, a research department, or a work group in a factory, it argues in favor of a proactive embracing of the environment in all its diversity. Very often managers do the reverse, reducing variety in order to achieve greater internal consensus. For example, corporate planning teams are often built around people who think along the same lines, rather than around a diverse set of stakeholders who can actually represent the complexity of the problems with which the team ultimately has to deal. The principles of redundant functions and requisite variety create systems that have a capacity for self-organization. For this capacity to be realized and to assume coherent direction, however, two further organizing principles also have to be kept in mind: the principles of minimum critical specification and of learning to learn.

The first of these principles reverses the bureaucratic principle that organizational arrangements need to be defined as clearly and as precisely as possible. For in attempting to organize in this way one eliminates the capacity for self-organization. The principle of minimum critical specification suggests that managers and organizational designers should primarily adopt a facilitating or orchestrating role, creating “enabling conditions” that allow a system to find its own form. It thus has close links with the idea of “inquiry-driven action,” discussed earlier. One of the advantages of the principle of redundant functions is that it creates a great deal of internal flexibility. The more one attempts to specify or predesign what should occur, the more one erodes this flexibility. The principle of minimum critical specification attempts to preserve flexibility by suggesting that, in general, one should specify no more than is absolutely necessary for a particular activity to occur. For example, in running a meeting it may be necessary to have someone to chair the meeting and to take notes, but it is not necessary to institutionalize the process and have a chairperson and a secretary. Roles can be allowed to change and evolve according to circumstances. In a group or project bureaucratic patterns of fixed hierarchical leadership can be replaced by a heterarchical pattern, where the dominant element at any given time depends on the total situation. Different people can take the initiative on different occasions according to the contribution they are able to make. Instead of making roles clear and separate, roles can be left deliberately ambiguous and overlapping, so that they can be clarified through practice and inquiry. The basic idea is to create a situation where inquiry rather than predesign provides the main driving force. This helps to keep organization flexible and diversified, while capable of evolving structure sufficient and appropriate to deal with the problems that arise. The principle of minimum critical specification thus helps preserve the capacities for self-organization that bureaucratic principles usually erode. The danger of such flexibility, however, is that it has the potential to become chaotic. This is why the principle of learning to learn must be developed as a fourth element of holographic design. As will be recalled from earlier discussion, a system’s capacity for coherent self-regulation and control depends on its ability to engage in processes of single- and double-loop learning. These allow a system to guide itself with reference to a set of coherent values or norms, while questioning whether these norms provide an appropriate basis for guiding behavior. For a holographic system to acquire integration and coherence and to evolve in response to changing demands, these learning capacities must be actively encouraged. In an autonomous work group, for example, members must both value the activities in which they are engaged and the products that they produce, and remain open to the kinds of learning that allow them to question, challenge, and change the design of these activities and products. Given that there are so few predetermined rules for



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