Orientation Reconstruction 009

Capacity for Action Without Resolution

Status: 03 September 2026 · 06:30

Since the previous entry, no formal resolution of the observed conflict has become apparent. A joint request for a meeting submitted by several local units still has not received an official response.

At the same time, the situation has changed.

One local unit has begun inviting other local units to exchange experiences, contacts, templates, and other resources directly. Knowledge that had previously existed within individual local units is to be made available to one another. Concrete support is also being offered beyond the boundaries of the unit itself.

In parallel, the intermediate level of the organization has announced, in connection with an event that was taking place anyway, a conversation with a representative of a higher level. This is not intended merely as an opportunity to receive information; experiences, concerns, and challenges from the local units are explicitly to be brought into the conversation as well.

One of those involved welcomes this opportunity for dialogue, but explicitly distinguishes it from the still unanswered joint request for a meeting. At the same time, he asks whether it would be possible to participate in the conversation independently of the rest of the event.

What has changed?

In the previous reconstructions, an essential part of the problem appeared as a vertical communication failure: local and intermediate units were orienting themselves differently, communication did not reliably produce shared orientation, and eventually further communication no longer promised any discernible additional insight.

The current observation expands this picture.

The vertical conflict has not visibly been resolved. Nevertheless, a new capacity for action is emerging.

Local units are beginning to make greater use of their relationships with one another. Information and resources do not necessarily have to pass through the intermediate level. At the same time, a new opportunity for vertical dialogue is emerging without the previously unresolved communication having been formally concluded.

This suggests that an assumption that previously seemed plausible may have been too narrow: the capacity to act does not necessarily have to wait until the original conflict has been resolved.

It can also emerge around an unresolved conflict.

Horizontal and vertical

This distinction changes the orientation.

Vertically, an essential question remains unanswered: How does the organization respond to the joint concern raised by several local units?

Horizontally, however, something is emerging that does not initially require this answer: local units can share experiences, make resources accessible, and learn from one another.

Both are happening at the same time.

The horizontal development therefore need not be understood either as opposition to the intermediate level or as a substitute for vertical clarification. Nor can the new opportunity for dialogue already be taken to mean that vertical communication has fundamentally changed.

For now, all that can be observed is that the available space for action has expanded.

Possible models

The new observations allow for different reconstructions.

Model A – Structural opening

The preceding irritations are beginning to have an effect within the organization. New opportunities for dialogue and increased exchange are early indications of a structural opening. A formal response simply remains outstanding.

Model B – Horizontal self-organization

The vertical communication failure persists. Precisely because clarification has not occurred, local units begin to create capacity for action among themselves. Horizontal networking reduces their dependence on vertical mediation.

Model C – Informal adaptation

The organization is responding in practice without formally addressing the original conflict. New conversations and forms of cooperation enable movement while questions of responsibility, authority, and the outstanding response remain unresolved.

Model D – Independent developments

Temporal proximity may be creating the appearance of a connection that does not exist. Horizontal exchange, the new opportunity for dialogue, and the continuing absence of an official response may be independent developments.

Model E – Change through self-organization

Horizontal self-organization is not merely a response occurring within an unchanged structure. It changes the structure itself. If local units can exchange knowledge and resources directly, their capacity for action changes – regardless of whether the vertical levels change their behavior.

The available observations do not allow a choice between these models. Several may be true at the same time.

New state of orientation

The absence of a formal response has therefore not become irrelevant. On the contrary: precisely because it is still absent, it is possible to establish that the newly observed capacity for action cannot be the result of a formal resolution that has already taken place.

This changes the previous orientation.

An unresolved vertical conflict does not necessarily mean paralysis. Alongside the vertical structure, horizontal relationships can become relevant to action. At the same time, new possibilities for vertical communication can emerge without this already establishing whether the underlying communication failure has actually been addressed.

For further observation, it will therefore be less important whether individual activities can be interpreted as a success or as a response. More interesting is whether the newly visible capacity for action persists – and whether horizontal self-organization and vertical communication remain independent of one another, reinforce each other, or come into conflict again.

Further developments remain open.