Helical organization of knowledge

Engaging with Questions of Higher Order: cognitive vigilance required for higher degrees of twistedness (Part #8)

Attempts have been made at various times to provide a helical organization of knowledge. One example was a particular model of the periodic table of chemical elements. Helical boring has long been of importance to ballistics, just as twist has been essential to strength of ropes and cables. Modern technology, notably in relation to electronics, has led to the discovery of products requring helical organization:

Dual helical antenna for variable beam width coverage for use in emitting signals in times of conflict to overcome jamming.[more]
Hot cathode emitters may be coiled, coiled coil, triple coil, etc. filaments for use as hot cathode emmitters

The fundamental status of the helical structure of DNA has given further legitimacy to attempts to organize insight in a helical manner:

Helical pathway in therapy: J O Prochaska and J C Norcross (Stages of Change. Psychotherapy, 38, 443- 448). have produced a model of stages of change model (see Figure 3-4), which is a helical structure representing phases of change, repeatedly connected over a temporal course. Inspired by that model, Stephen Christopher Shaw (The Client's Helical Path: a grounded theory of unsuccessful therapy esxperiences, 2003) has articulated a model from interviews with clients who have had unsuccessful therapy experiences (and provided a powerful visual representation, his Fig 4-1). The model interrelates:

Three cyclically-related subcategories, Embarking, Evaluating, and Ending, and one further subcategory, Familiarity, which provides a temporal and experiential dimension, cutting across the relationship among the first three subcategories, represent this core category. The three cyclically-related subcategories represent processes in which clients engage, and which they revisit as they move along their experiential path, as they become increasingly familiar with the enterprise of therapy. Thus, there is a reciprocally deterministic relationship between the three cyclically-related subcategories and the linear subcategory: As clients pass, or cycle, through the former, they advance with respect to the latter; similarly, as clients advance with respect to the linear dimension, they necessarily cycle through the former processes.

Conflict helix: Proposals have been made to consider onflict resolution as a helical process, rather than a linear process -- are rarely resolved in one interaction. Rather, participants return to the spiral, readdress issues at a higher level, and sometimes regress before reaching a resolution (see R.J. Rummel. The Conflict Helix and Conflict As A Process And The Conflict Helix)

Helix model of leadership: The UK Defence Academy, through its Defence Leadership Centre, has articulated a Leadership Helix Model (2004). It is explained as follows:

In a leadership model conceived and developed by the Defence Leadership Centre the DNA helix has been harnessed as an analogy for both the philosophical ideal of leadership and the composite of attributes required of a leader in Defence. The transcription of DNA for a leader in Defence identifies eight leadership attributes represented by the first eight strands in the helix model. A final strand has not been identified and is represented by a question mark. This last strand represents the attribute(s) unique to the individual, for in defence there is no absolute prescription for a leader as there is no prescribed style of leadership. Only the individual can complete this last strand/s and thereby identify his or her own unique leadership DNA. In the model, self-awareness is the hydrogen bond or glue that holds everything together. The complete transcription of leadership DNA, sustained by self-awareness, defines the leader. The leadership behaviour or style, the medium by which leadership is delivered, should be appropriate to the situation and the needs of stakeholders and the team. [more]

Organizational evolution: George Pór (The Value of Emergent Value Creation Models in the Knowledge Economy, 2000) uses helical principles of organization to explore organizational capabilities co-evolve with advances in symbol manipulation technologies. Specificlly he distinguishes a "double helix of human intelligence co-evolving with symbol manipulation" and a "double helix of co-evolving individual and collective intelligences".

Triple Helix: There is a regular "Triple Helix Conference on university-industry-government relations" (see Loet Leydesdorff. The Mutual Information of University-Industry-Government Relations: An Indicator of the Triple Helix Dynamics Scientometrics ) [more | more]. The Triple Helix model takes the traditional forms of institutional differentiation among universities, industries, and government as the starting point for institutional interaction in the production of knowledge. It implies the emergence of new hybrid institutional structures between the three sectors of academia, industry, and government as all participate in the commercialization of the knowledge base within the contemporary innovation system. This might however also be understood as an analogue, complexified, of the "military-industrial complex"

Narrative organization: Making metaphorical use of the DNA helix, David Boje (Antenarrative Double Spiral Theory, 2004) has explored the pssibility that understanding of organizations can usefully be achieved through helically intertwined narratives. Each spiral is the storylife of the enterprise. I am basing the theory (metaphorically) on the double helix in physicsIn sum, I hypothesize two spirals in dialogical interplay. They move closer and further from one another in time-space. They have disputed beginning, or no tracable origin. They absorb and reject context impressions, they shift in scope and orientation.The theory has the following features:

it contains two antenarrative strands wound around each other.
strands are series of narratives and antenarratives.
antenarrative strands are rehistoricized and otherwise restoried over time.
the two strands are "anti-parallel"; that is, they run in opposite directions (past restorying present; present restorying past).
the two strands can have discontinuities, gaps in the strand, followed by continuities.
the double antenarrative strands revolve around the axis of the helix.
the double antenarrative helix is the carrier of organization's collective memory.
there are major and minor spirals; minor spirals are quickly forgotten, but major ones are long-remembered.

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Helical organization of knowledge