The Living Organization

Over the weekend, I read another analogy to what an organization means.

The analogy of an organization as a ‘living organism’ or more precisely as a human body is not something new but has taken on a new meaning in today’s knowledge economy. Basically, the analogy that the organization is a like a human body describes the organization as having a head (the leadership), a heart (the strategy), the arms and legs (the employees). The head needs to figure out the right strategy and find the needed resources to fire the heart which will then be acted upon by the arms and legs.

I have no qualms with this analogy except that do you notice the underlying assumption being made here? The assumption is that the entire success factor of the organization moves from top-down. The leadership creates the strategy then energizes the employees who will in turn deliver on the strategies. I have a problem with this simply because it sounds so 20th century!

Now, what is the 'blood' of the organization? Most of the analogies that I have come across fail to equate 'blood' to any part of the organization. Blood is what that carries all the oxygen and nutrients. In organizations, I would equate that to knowledge. So, where is knowledge situated in today’s organization? They used be situated at the head in yesterday’s organizations but today, they are situated throughout the organization. Just like the human body where the blood permeates The entire organizational body is glowing with this knowledge and not just at the head. The head may be in a position to develop the strategies and the directions with a certain amount of knowledge but by the time this knowledge hits the heart, arms and legs, the environment would have changed so much that the original knowledge structure would need extensive re-interpretation, re-modification and re-fortification to make it work at the most fundamental levels.

So, any analogy to make sense of the organization will be fine I guess, as long as it is not a linear top-down one. That's just too simplistic for my taste. Countless researches have shown that most organizations fail not due to poor strategy but due to weak implementation. In my experience, organizations that are weak in implementation also have a weak knowledge sharing structure. In these organizations, knowledge becomes a source of power rather than as a competitive advantage. Knowledge is hoarded and moves down on a need-to-know basis. Critical knowledge is often not available to those on the ground who are entrusted to execute strategies.

So, if the organization is like a living body than it is time pay a little more attention to the all too important blood of the organization....knowledge.

Cheers and have a great week ahead everybody.