Christopher Alexander is well known for his work on "pattern languages". His pattern-based approach to design has influenced software development, organisational design, and strategy.
But Alexander's most well known work "A Pattern Language" was actually early in his career. He continued to develop his ideas. While not rejecting his former work on patterns, he certainly viewed it as inadequate for understanding design processes. He shifted his emphases to "generative processes", "unfolding", and "wholeness".
To understand how we think at Sense of Work it is helpful to understand subjectivity and "wholeness" in the way Alexander speaks of it.
Alexander (who passed away in 2022) asked people to look at buildings, comparing two buildings, and answer the question: which of these most increases your sense of "wholeness"? Wholeness itself was left largely undefined. But Alexander persisted until they answered.
The somewhat surprising result was the consistency in the responses. People would overwhelming agree on which building increased their sense of "wholeness". There was a double-subjectivity in the question with both the definition of "wholeness" being undefined as well as the explicit call to subjectivity in inquiring about how the buildings made people feel.
Alexander argued that this feeling correlated to other characteristics of good architecture and therefore appeals to subjectively assess various design options for a building had value. This lead to iterative, and "generative" processes that presented proposed changes to an architecture and then repeat the question to see if the proposed change had improved the sense of wholeness or reduced it.
Further, it was possible to understand the types of changes that might positively influence wholes as "structure-preserving transformations". This created a way to understand change based on overall impact, rather than only the local benefits of the intervention.
So a sense of wholeness is something that can be subjectively felt. In our organisations our employees can feel when something isn't right. This sense of wholeness can also be felt in the products and services the organisation delivers.
Within a particular system in focus, where sufficient contextual awareness is available, this feeling has structural value. We can cultivate our ability to sense this feeling, and balance awareness of this feeling with more evidence-based decision-making.
I often look at disciplines that adopted Alexander's work to created pattern-based approaches and map their progress against Alexander's own progress of thought. We can actually see some of this progression in our organisations when we see how human-centred design has been embraced over the last decade or so.
As our organisations incorporate more automation, autonomous agents, and shifting workforce expectations we need to evolve our thinking to further incorporate systems and wholeness. In short, we need a better Sense of Work.
By focusing on the Sense of Work we can understand our organisations as systems of value creation that are evaluated subjectively as they are observed - and they are observed when they are experienced by customers, employees, partners, and eco-systems.
Developing your Sense of Work can become a life-long endeavour and you can leave as a legacy an organisation that enhances the sense of wholeness in everybody it touches.