Why Interdependence Unlocks Emergence

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“If you don’t develop interdependency, you will never succeed.”

The most meaningful things you’ve done, and the most important things you ever will, depend on others. Your success is never yours alone; it rests on the shoulders of people doing their part with care, skill, and commitment. As parents or spouses, we cannot succeed without our better half. In the workplace, our accomplishments are built on the contributions of colleagues. In the army, soldiers call their comrades “brothers” because survival depends on mutual protection. And in the Kibbutz community, nothing was ever achieved alone. We may resist the feeling of dependence, but our greatest achievements, every one of them, emerge from interdependence.

From Pressure to Possibility

In every domain of life, from families and communities to armies and organizations, we depend on others. And when pressure enters the system, that dependence is no longer just a matter of trust or emotion. It becomes a structural reality. Our ability to function, to respond, and to move forward depends on how well the system holds together. In previous columns, we saw that pressure itself is not the problem. It is a signal that something within the system is trying to evolve. But whether that pressure leads to collapse or to transformation depends entirely on design. Only when people are connected through structure, guided by a shared direction, and committed to a common fate can pressure be held long enough to become a force for emergence. That is the purpose of this column. To explore how interdependence, when designed with care and intention, unlocks not just survival, but new capabilities that no individual could create alone.

The Joy of Work and the Puzzle of Prosperity

When I was still a member of the Kibbutz, my primary responsibility was managing crop protection and leading the harvest in the orchards. Although I was involved in other areas, this was my highest priority, and I quickly developed a deep passion for it. I did not receive the role through assignment or obligation. I stepped into it willingly, because I loved the work. I often stayed long hours, not out of duty, but because I wanted to. I was driven by interest, by pride, and by a sense of joy that came from doing something I cared deeply about. Over time, I became an expert in the field, and that early passion became the foundation for my academic studies, eventually leading to the creation of Biofeed, a company focused on crop protection. What stayed with me most, though, was not the ambition or even the achievement, but the feeling that my work truly mattered. I was doing what I loved, in a way that allowed me to contribute fully to the life of the community.

Still, even then, a quiet question remained in the back of my mind. How could something that felt so natural and fulfilling also result in such material security and collective well-being? How could I, doing what felt like a personal hobby, live in such a prosperous, safe, and thriving environment, while outside the Kibbutz, so many people seemed to work harder, worry more, and often have less?

Only years later, after I left the Kibbutz and experienced life from the outside, did I begin to appreciate the contrast. And only much later did I start to understand the reason behind it. What made our life work was not just the people or their values. It was the structure of interdependence in which we lived.

When Everything Is Shared, Everyone Matters

In the early days of the Kibbutz movement, including the Kibbutz where I was raised, no member was allowed to own personal belongings. You could not bring in money from the outside, and you could not keep anything for yourself. Everything you had belonged to the community. In other words, members owned nothing. My father, for example, joined the Kibbutz with only one personal item: a blanket for the cold, snowy winters. Upon arrival, the blanket was taken from him and given to someone who needed it more. This act was not about punishment or control; it was about order and clarity. If you joined the Kibbutz, you gave all you had to the collective, and in return, you received everything you needed from it.

Looking back now, I understand that what they created was not merely a system of shared ownership. It was a structure of designed interdependence. The moment you entered the Kibbutz, your personal fate became inseparable from the fate of everyone else. There were no partial members. You could not belong halfway. Your survival, prosperity, and sense of purpose were all tied to the health and success of the community as a whole. And remarkably, across more than a century of Kibbutz history, there was not a single case of hunger or poverty among its members. Not one.

This may seem self-evident to Israelis, but it deserves a wider lens. Consider that during those first hundred years, the Kibbutz existed within the context of a developing economy, first under the Ottoman Empire, then under the British Mandate, and later within a young and resource-scarce State of Israel. Meanwhile, most smallholder farmers in other developing economies remained trapped in cycles of poverty and food insecurity. Yet the Kibbutz, under those same external conditions, never experienced the same hardships.

What made this possible, in the language of the Universal Law of Increasing Complexity, was the way the Kibbutz established a structure that channeled its energy with remarkable precision. There were no diversions. There were no competing agendas, and no effort was wasted on misalignment or personal detours. Every member, every task, and every resource was aligned toward shared missions. That coherence, both structural and directional, allowed the system to transform limited resources into sustained prosperity. And most importantly, this was done willingly. No one was forced into it. No one was threatened or punished for not participating. People gave themselves entirely to the system because they believed in it, and because the structure made that belief actionable.

This was not a triumph of ideology, but rather a triumph of organizational design. The system removed conflicting interests and eliminated the option to pursue self-interest at the expense of the collective. It created a structure in which the only path to personal fulfillment was through collective success, and where every person lived with a clear stake in the outcome, every single day.

Burning Plan B

There is an old story of the Spanish general Hernán Cortés, who in 1519 landed with a small army on the shores of Mexico. Facing a vastly larger force of the Aztec Empire, he made a radical decision. He ordered his men to burn the ships that had brought them across the ocean. With no retreat possible, he turned to his soldiers and said, “Either we win, or we die.” That single act transformed a group of soldiers into a unified and wholly committed force. With no alternative path and no personal exit, they became even more tightly bound, both to one another and to the mission that now defined their survival. What had previously been a matter of orders became a matter of destiny. Their purpose sharpened, their discipline intensified, and against all expectations, they not only won the battle but went on to dismantle an empire.

We see this principle echoed in many of the most successful systems throughout history. It is not size or wealth that gives these systems their advantage, but the depth of shared commitment made possible through interdependence. The structure binds people together and fuses their futures. That is why the Kibbutz succeeded in channeling the full energy of its members, and why it never suffered from hunger or poverty. That is why small startups, with few resources, can outcompete much larger corporations. In each case, those involved are not merely aligned in interest; they are inseparable in consequence. If the system fails, everyone suffers, and when it succeeds, they all rise.

This pattern holds not only in legend and theory, but in lived experience. I remember sitting with solonist farmers, smallholders in developing economies, discussing whether they should work with me or continue on their own. They were hesitant, shaped by past experiences where outsiders made promises and disappeared when challenges emerged. But when I explained that I would invest more than they did, and that I would only make money if and when they did, the atmosphere changed. They relaxed, listened, trusted, and were ready to cooperate and be entirely committed. The interdependence was not just verbal; it was structural. Imprinted in our DNA from the dawn of time, they intuitively sensed the interdependency that told them, “Our futures are tied together. If we win, he wins; if we lose, so does he. He is fully committed and invested in it; we can trust him. We are ready to work with him shoulder to shoulder.”

If you are searching for a single indicator of whether a system is built for success, look closely at the structure of commitment. Ask whether each participant has something to lose if things go wrong, and something to gain only if the others succeed. And just as importantly, ask whether anyone has a backup plan that insulates them from the consequences of failure. In systems where some hold a Plan B while others do not, trust erodes and alignment becomes frayed. But in systems where no one can walk away untouched, where everyone’s future is tied to the collective outcome, there, focus sharpens, energy concentrates, and emergence becomes possible. It is in those conditions, where there is no exit and no safety net, that people find the strength and clarity to achieve what once seemed impossible.

Still, it is worth remembering that not all collaboration leads to emergence. Across the world, many ambitious initiatives, spanning governments, universities, and industries, aspire to solve complex challenges by bringing people together, combining talent, genuine intent, and often substantial funding. Yet despite these efforts, the outcomes frequently fall short of expectations. What is missing is not intelligence or commitment, but structure. Without deep interdependency, collaboration becomes coordination. Participants remain separate in budgets, timelines, and incentives. When failure carries no real cost and success brings no shared reward, trust does not grow, and energy does not converge. These systems may produce motion, but not momentum. They may activate participation, but not transformation. For emergence to occur, something more is required: a structure that fuses destinies, a direction that channels meaning, and a design in which no one succeeds unless all do.

Two Types of Direction: Design and Purpose

Thanks to the Universal Law of Increasing Complexity, we understand that systems do not evolve simply by accumulating energy, but by channeling it through coherent design and direction. In every successful system I have studied, direction is never singular. It comes in two distinct but inseparable forms, each critical on its own, and essential in combination. One form pushes from behind, through the visible structure of the system; the other pulls from ahead, through an invisible sense of purpose. Only when both are present and aligned, when Push and Pull operate together, can energy become focused, trust become anchored, and emergence become possible.

If interdependence is the condition that binds people together, then direction is the force that carries them forward. The first form is structural direction, the kind that arises from architecture, from the visible and deliberate design of a system that channels energy, constrains dispersion, and holds people in functional alignment. In Cortés’s army, it was the unit and command structure that embedded every soldier within a shared hierarchy, a clear chain of responsibility, and a singular military objective. In the Kibbutz, it was the daily rituals, customs, and roles and responsibilities that synchronized individual work with the collective's needs. In a startup, the structure is found in the equity structures, legal frameworks, and operating agreements that bind each individual’s future to the venture's performance. Structural direction answers the question of how things are done. It creates clarity of role, continuity of action, and freedom from constant renegotiation. By defining boundaries and distributing responsibilities, it enables people to act together without chaos, hesitation, or drift.

Yet structure alone cannot give life to a system. Without purpose, even the most beautifully designed structures grow cold and mechanical. Over time, they lose vitality, and eventually, they stagnate. That is why every system that achieves lasting emergence is also guided by a second form of direction, one that does not arise from rules, but from deeply held beliefs. Purpose-based direction does not tell people how to act; it reminds them why their actions matter. It is rooted in shared core values and brought to life through a common vision, a collective mission, and the deep belief that one’s work contributes to something greater than oneself. It does not need to be imposed; when it is real, it is embraced, and it propels the organization toward its goals and mission with a force greater than obligation.

In the Kibbutz, this form of direction was expressed in the belief that members were cultivating not only land, but also justice, community, and a future for an entire people. In the startup, it begins with the founder’s vision, spoken, lived, and reinforced until it becomes the heartbeat of the team. In Cortés’s campaign, it was not just the command to march that moved his soldiers, but the promise that victory would transform their lives, that the prize ahead was not merely gold, but something greater than any one of them could achieve alone. These are not structural orders; they are emotional alignments. They transform obligation into devotion.

Purpose-based direction creates the shared imagination that makes sacrifice feel worthwhile and success feel collective. It binds people across differences and distance. It shapes behavior not through enforcement, but through belief. And when it works in harmony with structural direction, when Push and Pull are aligned, it generates a system where energy does not scatter, trust does not erode, and people find the will to persevere even through pressure, fear, and doubt.

This is the condition that enables emergence, not structure alone, and not purpose alone, but the alignment of both within a system that pushes with coherence and pulls with meaning, allowing something entirely new to arise, something no part could create on its own, without the help of others.

Designing Emergence

Think of the cases of Cortés, the Kibbutz, and a startup. Systems that achieve emergence are not always the strongest, wealthiest, or most talented, but they are always the most aligned. They connect people through structure, lift them through purpose, and bind their futures so tightly that individual success becomes inseparable from collective achievement.

These systems do not endure pressure by chance; they are designed to transform energy, which creates pressure, into coherence, to convert trust into commitment, and to turn shared stakes into extraordinary outcomes. Their strength comes not from slogans or charismatic leaders, but from a deeper design: a structure where no one can succeed unless all do, and no one is protected unless everyone is.

In the Kibbutz, members did not work out of obligation, but because their lives were interwoven, and their joy arose from the deep satisfaction of contributing to a mission larger than themselves. In a startup, people commit not because they are told to, but because there is no fallback, no insulation, no room for disengagement. And Cortés’s army advanced not by command alone, but because retreat was eliminated, and shared success became the only path forward.

The Universal Law of Increasing Complexity reminds us that emergence does not arise from energy alone, but from energy that is aligned, directed, and made coherent through structure that fosters interdependence and channels purpose. When this happens, people no longer act in parallel, but move as one part of a greater whole.

Our task is not merely to connect individuals, but to weave them into a shared destiny. We must create systems held together by structure and drawn forward by purpose, where trust is not assumed, but earned by design.

A system built for emergence must do all three: accumulate energy, align it through interdependence, and give it direction through a structure that pushes and a purpose that pulls, like a magnet drawing scattered particles into a single, focused stream.

Emergence is not a gift. It is an outcome of thoughtful design.

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Special Note

The question of why more than 550 million smallholder farmers remain trapped in poverty, despite working hard, increasing yields, and embracing new technologies, sits at the heart of my upcoming book, Designed to Prosper. I recently explored this theme in a new article published on Wikifarmer, as part of an international writing competition aimed at expanding important conversations in agriculture.

If the ideas in this column resonated with you, I invite you to read the article, share it with others, and help bring this message to a broader audience. The article also introduces several of the core insights developed more fully in the book, which will be published later this year.Read the article here: https://wikifarmer.com/library/en/article/whats-the-structural-pattern-behind-thriving-rural-communities

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See you soon,

Nimrod

Dr. Nimrod Israely is the CEO and Founder of Dream Valley and Biofeed companies and the Chairman and Co-founder of the IBMA conference. +972-54-2523425 (WhatsApp), or email nisraely@biofeed.co.il

P.S.

If you missed it, here is a link to last week's blog, “Why Organizational Prosperity Begins With Trust and Interdependency “.

P.P.S.

Here are ways we can work together to help your agro sector and rural communities step forward and shift from poverty into ongoing prosperity:

* Nova Kibbutz and consultancy on rural communities' models.

* Local & National programs related to agro-produce export models - Dream Valley global vertical value and supply chain business model and concept connects (a) input suppliers with farmers in developing economies and (b) those farmers with consumers in premium markets.

* Crop protection: Biofeed, an eco-friendly zero-spray control technology and protocol.

You can follow me on LinkedIn, YouTube, and Facebook. 

*This article addresses general phenomena. The mention of a country/continent is used for illustration purposes only.