The phrase the whole is greater than the sum of its parts has been here for a very long time and it may date as far back as the great Greek thinker Aristotle. Generally, the concept refers to the idea of emergence.
“Emergence, is the context of complex systems, referring to the arising of novel and coherent structures, patterns, and properties during the self-organization of a system that are not predictable from the properties of the individual components alone.”
In more simpler terms, we are here to understand how a whole can be greater than the sum of its parts, with the combined system exhibiting behaviours not seen in its individual components.
The human being is a made of many things that come together to make something more intricate and complex that the individual organs that make the human being.
This is so true to the point that no single organ can claim to be the human being. You can even remove the original heart, given at birth and you install another heart into the same human and the human being continues to live!
Remarkable medical achievement that is. People have had kidney transplants with a massive degree of success. I am sure some of you know where I am heading with this while other are asking what this is all about.
To build a system that works, the parts that come together must agree that what is being built needs must be greater than the individual parts that come together to build it. If in the minds of those who build whatever it is that is being built such agreement fails then a system that is great and laden with longevity will never be built.
What then instead happens is the split meaning that as some work towards building a system that is independent of those who come together to build it, there will then be those who work hard to stop a system from being built and instead themselves the system. These work in the opposite direction.
This is why for instance Steve Jobs has died and been buried but Apple as a cooperation continues to run effortlessly. Steve built something bigger than who he was and accepted that he is a simple, dispensable component that can and should be replaced.
He even worked hard to create a method and ways of stopping himself from being Apple! I am hoping that it is now clear here that the man invested time in building something that has the ability to operate and work without him the founder, important as he may have been!
Age old institutions like the Roman Catholic church have a very powerful office of the Pope. That office, powerful as it may be, is not the institution, because the system wants it that way. Is not, never has been and will never evolve into being the Roman Catholic Church.
They have had many office bearers but the system is crafted in such a way that they cannot be church.
They are simply one component of a system bigger than who they are. Cardinals, bishops, popes, the laity, nuns all are components of a system. Not even the history of the institution is equal to the church. That history is just an important component and one of the parts, the sum of which make an even greater whole.
The monarchy in Buganda is also another example of a very well-crafted system that has components that come together to create something more powerful than the pieces that created it.
The clans have roles, then there is a royal clan, then the royal family and then these together create a very powerful individual the King.
Kings have come and gone including very powerful ones like Kateregga and Mwanga yet the monarchy has remained intact.
The power of that institution is that even when the king was exiled the white man realized that that could not end it. The white man was wrong in his assumption that the Kingdom was its King. Obote tried the send away the King the Kingdom survived!
When you want to build something huge, you needs must make yourself a small component that comes together with other components to make something massive and you work towards that day in day out.
The question I want to ask is whether there is any political party in Uganda that can subject itself to such standards. Which political party in Uganda is whole greater that is greater than the sum of its parts?
It is not true that this is not a question I have no answers for. What I am sure of is that I am not ready for the consequences of giving a very honest, genuine and candid response to this question.
It was never my intention to answer that question. I was hoping that you the readers would find time to deal with that question. I am also hoping that private business owners would take this information very seriously.
I am assuming that they want to take the example of Steve Jobs. Can an organization you started run effortlessly beyond you? How much time do you invest in making your organization you-proof?