By David M. Boje, Jan 9 2007
it is said that a story requires storylisteners to fill in the blanks. A tersely told story, such as 'you know the story' can leave the listeners to retell to themselves what story particulars to fill in. Add to this the idea that one story is intertextual to another, references another, is part of a whole network of stories, being told throughout Tamara, and you get a sense of the hologrpahic aspect of storytelling. In fact, hologrpahic inquiry is called for.
Holographic inquiry is defined as interrelationships of storytelling-sensemaking and complexity-properties in any order, with from one to 13 or more dimensions (facets) reflecting one another [chapter 1, Storytelling Organization book].
Complexity Properties in Kenneth Boulding’s (1956) model: frameworks, mechanistic, control, open [system], organic, image, symbol, network, transcendental. For Boulding properties were sequential, and hieararchical. At lower order system complexity, you are not supposed to find the higher order onces.
In a holographic model, all elements are possible in realation to any other, and can even be seen as facets.
This means that an organization canbe looked at multidimensionally.
Table 1 Holographic Complexity Chart |
Monogon – 1 dimension |
Digon – 2 dimensions |
Trigon – 3 dimensions |
Tetragon – 4 dimensions |
Pentagon – 5 dimensions |
Hexagon – 6 dimensions |
Septagon - 7 dimensions |
Octagon – 8 dimensions |
Nonagon – 9 dimensions |
Decagon – 10 dimensions |
Hendecagon – 11 dimensions |
Dodecagon – 12 dimensions |
Tridecagon – 13 dimensions |
In a monogon, the strategy story and every other kind of story has one dimension, one voice, one logic. Even in a dialogue, peopel harboring the same voice, speak with the same voice. In a polyphonic storytelling organization many more dimensions are reflected in any particular telling.
The implication is that a given organizaiton can have an operations story that has its mechanistic property of complexity, a surveillance scheme that is all about control property, yet be part of an organization with ore open system mentailty that is aware of adapting to changes in many environments, and still be infolfed in image stylistics, and revisions to the chrnotopes (time & space relativity) of history, and be palying with ethics in architectonic ways, or be part of some kind of transcendental approach. A complex organizaiton can have many different complexity properties, and not be engaged in a kind of complexity ordering that Boulding envisioned.