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Organic Immersion is a process of mental and physical integration which takes place during the initiation process into a new organizational social structure. Organic Immersion is named for the organic nature that we, as human beings, begin the process of immersing ourselves and relating to the world around us therefore uniquely adapting when challenged to change our habits, ideas or conceptual baseline applications of behavior. Furthermore, the immersion process develops in three stages which is supported by an interdisciplinary application of cognitive behavior theories, psychological studies and innovative applications of development processes in technology.Much like Agile process development, it is the in depth process of introducing alternative ways of thinking,acting and conceptualizing to more traditional ways of organizational behaviour.

Concept

Validation/Externalization

The first stage of Organic Immersion is the validation phase, where the individual is introduced to a new organizational team or role that is beyond a previously established defined role. For many individuals, this stage happens on their first day of work, school or other important socially similarly occurring event. However, for practitioners, this stage happens whenever an adaptation cycle has been completed. Adaptation cycles occur as we change behaviors within ourselves or there is a change in the organizational environment with careful note that these are mutually exclusive events. This stage is driven by our inherent need to connect with others and find empowerment within our connective nature. In a recent study on solitary confinement, it was demonstrated how isolation and solitary confinement, in specific, activate the same portions of our brain as actual physical pain. With this in mind, the first step in the Organic Immersion process begins with our natural, accepted need to seek out others and form interpersonal bonds.

When discussing how this type of discourse is necessary, James Keeley and Ian Scoones examined how these bonds and activities have been demonstrated to frame or contextualize our view of reality as individuals and organizations. In one of their examples of the basic units of language in policy making – such as ‘gender’ – are constructed through our social interactions and our own discourse. These units become organic to us and "second nature". Even though the text of their research and findings were strictly limited to gender, we can apply the same ideas and methodologies to how we understand the unconscious drive to speak and understand our environment in the same realistic perspectives which are congruent to the people we encounter. The emphasis remains firmly on the exploration of the unknown, sometimes unquantifiable boundaries of collaborative behavior and not on the generation of sameness.

In order to achieve this, a recent trend in technology utilizes externalization. In fact, one of the nine principles of Lean UX is to "Externalize" which essentially means to seek outside one's own organization or individual role to understand the product or process you are designing from the user's perspective. This is captured within the validation stage of Organic Immersion wherein the theory begins with externalizing who we are and what we do to relate, form bonds and deeply explore the new experiences, organizational structures and role identifications around us. This exploration's purpose is to help us validate that our realities and adaptive behaviors correlate to the organizational adaptations or, in cases where they do no correlate, this stage helps to begin the process of critical evaluations and synchronicity. When, in cases there is a congruent behavior that develops which is not currently advantageous to the organization or individual, it is simply recognized as a previously unknown awareness.

Verification/Instinct

The second stage of Organic Immersion is verify that our evaluations and synchronous behaviors create the desired outcome by integrating them further into our psyche. This could comprise an organizations mission statement, values or other outwardly facing policy statements. This stage is driven by our instincts and creating instinctual reactions to changing environmental realities. This stage is speaking specifically to the perception of the organizational environment as a whole and is not issue specific to a single organizational or interpersonal modifier. Within this context, an interpersonal modifier is a specific habit, thought or other methodology that we apply in order to get a direct, equal response. It is not enough to build interpersonal skills between people, there must be a relationship with the role, work and function of the individual with respect to each of these organizational elements.

Nikolaas Tinbergen , studied instinct as it relates to stimuli and in his research on Supernomal Stimuli Nikolaas explained how when there is a certain condition that we are already naturally trained to respond to, there is an exaggerated version of that condition which creates a larger response than to the normal condition or stimulus. We can apply these terms and theories to the verification stage because it explains how we not only begin to modify our behavior to what we feel would be advantageous, but an exaggerated version of what we idealize within the organization. Performance reviews, metrics and even quantifying the our iteration velocity within a technology company are all examples of the Supernormal Stimuli phenomenon within the context of the Organic Immersion processes.

Redeployment/Structure

The third and final stage of Organic Immersion is redeployment of the verified and validated learning experience we shared within the organizational unit. Many practitioners would interpret that the primary goal of this stage would be to drive a single modifier such as efficiency. However, this stage is driven by our intrinsic desire for order and structure and creates a paradigm shift in the overall perception of the tasks or collaborative behaviors we share in an organization. While it is true that single factor modifiers such as, efficiency or symbiosis are created, the underlying generation of organizational structures and identification within our role is the primary benefactor during this stage. In the practical application of this stage, the practitioners has shifted from simply reacting to any single causal element in their organization to connecting all of the causal elements in their organization in order to produce the desired result. These connections, rooted in role identification drive behavioral and progressively more complex organizational structures.

A recent study in team cognition development found that as cognitive structures emerge from role identification behaviors, these organically driven structures improve the team’s decision making abilities when faced with rapidly evolving demands. Additionally, these structures enable teams to dynamically adjust their unverified or unvalidated behaviors when handling changes to their organizational environment. The conclusion of this stage, is signified by change completed in the organizational environment and reciprocal adaptation created in the individual role within the organization. Specifically, the individual will seek out the exaggerated version of themselves within their assigned role and, through developing their instinctual know how, creatively address the shifting priorities and reality with methodologies already reflected within the organization.

History

Organic Immersion processes originally developed by Dellaena Maliszewski beginning in 2009, found roots in theories produced by William James in his approach of understanding our perception of truth. James, in his [theory of truth] stated that thoughts and statements correspond, we and reality relate to one another and create truth which is in turn verified by the observed results of the application of an idea to our core practices and processes. Essentially, that truth lies heavily in the observed results of our thoughts and reality.Organic Immersion draws from this theory in how the exchange and adaptation occurs on a mutually exclusive inter-relational level within the organization and individual.

Other influences include Carl Jung, who theorized that the depth of human knowledge is in the constant adaptation This adaptation is characterized within Organic Immersion as our ability to adapt as an individual, role and organization. It is also characterized by the awareness we develop through the process of deeply immersing ourselves into collaborative behavior such as crowdsourcing, interactive based gaming or other highly socialized project management. While Immersion is the side of the entire process that we commit to action, the organic nature of this process was developed with the idea of how it should feel or flow.

See Also

Agile processes Organizational psychology Adaptive learning

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