Chapter 2: Organic Thinking

“The bigger we got, the colder we became” – Steven Adler, Guns ’n roses

We have thus quickly drawn a sort of timeline: Fordism, Toyotism, and therefore Lean, then Agile. Each responding to the constraints and expectations of its era. What are the characteristics of the era opening before us?

Undeniably, the complexity of recent years is part of its characteristics. This complexity is expanding, propagated by the acceleration of discoveries, and especially means of communication, and the globalization it has spawned, some say.

These means of communication are probably the second characteristic of our times: instantaneity, global village, immateriality: relationships and wealth are changing.

Third point and not the least: old wealth is declining: not only because it is diminishing, but because it is disappearing. We have worn it out along with our planet. Without falling into demagogy, it seems essential to understand that we will need to optimize, economize, our resources of all types. We are entering an era of frugality.

Complexity, immateriality, resource economies: this is the framework of our new organizations.

I defend an old, fairly common idea: our organizations should not be thought of as a rational Cartesian assembly, but as an organic, moving whole. This is neither original nor new. It’s the organic and complex approach defended by many for years. However, if the idea is not new, the situation has become so. We are there: this moment when the concept has become reality, we need to (re)think our organizations according to this idea. I hope to explain to you what a living organization is and how to transform our organizations to move toward these new organizations.

An organic organization?

But first, what is an organization?

Organization designates the action, but also the result of the action of the one who delimits, structures, arranges, distributes, articulates¹.

It translates, at the level of means, the expression of a will through:

• The way in which the different elements of a complex whole, of a society, of a living being are structured and articulated; or

• A hierarchy and/or a concrete arrangement of the organs or means required.

Structure

A non-Cartesian thought pattern

Thus, it’s too easy to think of our organizations only as simple, clear geometric structures, implicitly rectilinear, square. It’s a facility of the mind, a denial of reality. Naturally for the management in place, the direction, the hierarchy, the decision-makers, at least those who persist in this simplistic vision, it’s comfortable. We describe our organizations like the drawing on the right, well ordered, nobody is fooled, it’s a denial of reality.

Pine Tree - Twitter image, @organizedthings

The neatly arranged pine tree in the box on the right is simply dead, therefore inert, it no longer produces anything. Look up at the stars, here’s a large-scale organization! There too, it’s useless to look for any organizational chart or diagram that could correspond to one of our organizations. What is neatly arranged, on the right in the drawing, is science fiction.

Space - Twitter image, @organizedthings

Don’t look for life, evolution, in static, inert elements. Even among us, humans, all life and de facto all organization don’t burden themselves with comfortable patterns based on rectilinear layouts. In the box on the right, this child seems quite unhappy.

Child - Twitter image, @organizedthings

Pool - Twitter image, @organizedthings

To approach our organizations as machines is madness that awaits us.

We should not approach our organizations with a classic structure, organizational chart in hand, but with a thought pattern. But if this pattern is not based on our Cartesian drifts, what can it possibly be based on?

The patterns we take as reference are obviously not the right ones. But where to find the right patterns? Simply by opening our eyes and observing what works around us, in nature, as we have just done on some of the previous images (space, the pine tree, for example).

If nature, the organic, because it responds to the current complex world, must again serve as our example, where to look? Nature itself teaches us that there is no solution, at least no good solution, it teaches us adaptation. And, it proposes very different things, at opposite ends from each other.

Let’s look at two extremes to evoke metaphors of living organizations: on one side the crystal, probably one of the most organized elements (for the Cartesian mind that inhabits us), and on the other the termite mound which holds some surprises.

The crystal

We evoke the crystal as an organized natural structure, because its characteristic is to be periodic, that is to say it builds on the same combination that it repeats, periodically². There we find an old ambition of our organizations: to reproduce the same pattern, almost infinitely, to grow, get bigger, and facilitate its management (reproduction of the same gestures).

In fact, the crystal is used as an efficient conductor of energy because the periodicity of its structure causes a substantial economy. By encountering the same patterns, we save an energy cost of communication that avoids constant adaptation. Nature, in the crystal, teaches us that by repeating identical structures we save or optimize the energy cost of communication.

Beyond this periodicity that makes it so Cartesian, the crystal remains a complex element, unpredictable in its form.

“Crystallization is the passage from a disordered liquid, gaseous or solid state to an ordered solid state, controlled by complex laws. The manufacture of a crystal takes place under the control of different factors such as temperature, pressure, evaporation time.” – Geowiki³

The crystal is lazy

“To better understand the reason for the shape of a crystal, we must not ignore that nature is lazy and that when given the choice and time, it always chooses the solutions that cost it the least energy. Thus, the shape of a crystal testifies to the physical conditions that prevailed during its growth, because it is the shape that cost the least energy.” – Geowiki

Thus, if the crystal repeats a structure infinitely, this structure is defined by its context. It’s not a predetermined form. Laziness is a boon, there too, in terms of energy cost. Nature, in the crystal, teaches us that the structure will take the most economical form in energy terms. Frugality is key.

Crystal stability

“After this reasoning outline, we should know that things are not always that simple. A crystalline face is also a discontinuity, a surface where atoms are not chemically bonded like the atoms in the mineral’s core. This amounts somewhat to breaking bonds (the approximation is a bit brutal, but correct). However, in the growth medium, soluble species are capable of absorbing to the surface by binding weakly with surface atoms. We can stabilize planes that normally cost very dearly, and destabilize others that are normally easy to pay for. Thus, we modify the final shape of the crystal this time without modifying the physical conditions. These stabilization phenomena can thus induce crystalline morphologies that should not usually be observed. When chemical species absorb on the surface and thus stabilize the presented planes, these surfaces are less accessible to continue growth along these planes. Thus, it is the least stable planes, those that have few, if any, molecules on the surface, that grow the fastest. Since these planes are unstable, they will end up no longer being represented during growth, thus favoring the slow growth of the most stable planes.” – Geowiki⁴

If we continue our analogy, we will be surprised by the ease of stabilizing certain parts of the organization, and conversely destabilizing some—though thought to be stable—in an unexpected way. Scaling is easier with elements that have not yet been stabilized in the organization. The dynamics of scaling necessarily slow down when all parts are stabilized. Should we therefore almost encourage destabilization at times?⁵ Nature, in the crystal, teaches us that what is stabilized requires a stronger energy cost to be changed, and therefore that the unstable parts will evolve the fastest, and most probably.

Crystal truncation

Truncation is one of the sources of crystal modification.

“A truncation is the replacement of a vertex or edge of a crystal by a face.” – Geowiki⁶

“One of the causes modifying the initial shape of crystals is truncation.” – Geowiki⁷

Is this a metaphor indicating that it is by changing the head, the summit, that the organization will take a new form? Should we see the idea that it is by giving back the power of self-organization to each group, by removing the head, that we allow it to organize itself, in a complex way, to crystallize best with the rest of the company’s parts?

Dependency management: twins?

“According to the position of the crystals, we distinguish twins by contact and twins by penetration (or interpenetration - more or less complete). We speak of simple twins when two crystals are associated, and multiple twins when more than two sub-individuals compose the twin, we sometimes arrive, by multiplication of the sub-individuals involved, at cyclic twins, while when twin formation repeats within a group, we obtain polysynthetic (repeated) twins.” —- Geowiki⁸

If we amuse ourselves by pushing the analogy far, twins would be these clusters of associated teams…The vocabulary used by crystal science furiously recalls lived situations.

Crystal lessons

By reproducing the same pattern, we reduce the energy cost of communication. But this pattern is determined by context, and especially by its cost: it’s the pattern that costs the least in energy that is favored by nature. Evolutions and improvements of the crystal structure are simpler in the unfinished parts, still disordered.

The analogy with our organizations seems clear and realistic.

The termite mound

On the other side of the Cartesian crystal, of our imagination about the forms of nature, let’s observe the termite mound. Why at the other end? Because if the crystal could seem naturally organized (all these beautiful structures, these fractal approaches), the termite mound seems completely empirical. And it is: its construction begins…at random. But as nature does things well, termite mounds are the largest constructions that are not human. The crystal is a material, the termite mound is a construction. Putting them on the same scale may be daring.

See the termite mound as a very interesting construction. One of the most interesting if we observe it with J. Scott Turner’s reflection in mind:

“I actually wish to explore an idea: that the edifices constructed by animals are properly external organs of physiology.” “A termite mound is like a living organism, dynamic and constantly maintained”⁹.

For what purpose do termites fabricate these physiological extensions that are their termite mounds? Always for energy questions, to save energy, store energy, offset energy effort.

Can we make an analogy with our organizations? Probably. What would be the energies evoked? First, of course, the value created by the organization, first energy flow. But also the optimization of incoming energies: those of its collaborators (involvement, engagement), those of the raw material it uses (electricity, etc.). An incoming energy, an outgoing value. We only talk about flows, transformation.

Opportunity makes the thief

Just as the crystal was lazy, the termite mound is born from an opportunity. Opportunity makes the thief. Termites make piles, and when an opportunity presents itself to build the termite mound (piles that can be assembled), it’s the termite mound that is built. Nature, there too with the termite mound, teaches us that form and structure aim for energy optimization (here it’s about temperature).