Why Aren't More Organizations More... Organic?

Why Aren’t More OrganizationsMore… Organic?

© 2014 Malcolm Ryder / archestra research

Organic?

Many of us have already been through a decade of thinking and advice regarding the potential advantages of having less prescribed structure in organizational units.

The point of the thinking has been to identify whether interactivity is affected in some way that is more valuable and worthwhile as a result when there is less prescription restraining it.

This idea has come up most often in two main flavors. By analogy, they are biology and chemistry.

The most interesting challenge involved is the potential competitionbetween the prescribed (artificial) interactivity and the un-prescribed (natural) interactivity. The tricky part is, assuming the un-prescribed outcome is desirable, how stable will it be, and how long can it last?

Darwinian (biological):

One of those flavors includes the idea that "back-channels" form "naturally" and often prove to be the way that interaction does actually progress, whereas formal paths will become or remain ineffective.

This situation is largely independent of the size of the organization in question. Often thought of as a "shadow" organization, its scope of purpose may actually be quite specialized.

And it can also have a worse profile: one of a black market.

Emergent (chemical):

The other popular idea is that natural rules of attraction or rejectionpredispose artificial rules of combination and persistence.

Throw some things into a container; stir or heat; and see what happens.

When it turns out that certain reactions are consistent and predictable, then the challenge of having them on demand is mainly in providing the venue for the ingredients, and providing the stirring or the heat -- and the outcome will arise.

Who Cares?

The Roles

For the purpose of this discussion, the ultimate client of group activity is either the Business or its Customer. But the desirable interactivity of the group will involve several other kinds of actors. Let's call them Users, Producers, and Providers.We are the Users when we are the "front line" workers or consumers who are coming together to get something done in a group instead of proceeding solo.We are the Producers when we create the circumstances that support the presumed interactivity of the users.And we are the Providers when we supply producers with the means and opportunity to create interaction circumstances for the Users.

The Requirement

If we start out expecting a prescribed, artificially structured arena of interaction, the point of having something different from that should be a gain that is otherwise beyond our reach.

The question for Producers is whether, at a given time, they should enforce a formality to overcome nature or instead should let nature have its way.

By analogy, a biological type of natural effect differs from a chemical type; likewise, a Darwinian mode differs from an Emergent mode.

The differencesWhether things go Darwinian or Emergent, there is some combination of Users’ demand for it, the supply of it, and their change from the current norm.

As Users, the minimum conditions we should consider are the worst case under demand, the best case of supply, and the critical requirement of making the change from the formal to the natural.

In that case, different conditions are generated from the Darwinian and Emergent development of the group in the interaction environment:

The Usual

The User holds the Producer responsible for making the interaction environment supportive of a group configuration.

This practically means that the Producer also recommends what type of group should be formed in the available environment.

We recognize that Managers are usually in the role of Producer.

The manager will likely be the party that decides whether a “naturally forming” group will be allowed and, if yes, in what way.

Options

The manager-as-producer must consider the “attributes” of the type of group offered.

The Darwinian and Emergent types affect the receiving business Users with differing results of importance:

Development

To say that group formation is “natural” is not to say there is no intervention of any kind.

A Producer goes to a source – a Provider -- to survey the alternatives for generating the creation of the group.

Those alternatives become means and opportunities deliverable to the Producer.

The Producer’s basic intervention in the “natural” approach is to choose what means and opportunity will be taken.

Origination

The Producer’s choice becomes both the catalyst and the constraint for the formation of the group. The “source” used by the Producer can be a pre-existing condition such as a culture, a process, or another actor (such as an agent).

In that case, it is important to recognize that the characteristics of the source itself may be defined with a greater or lesser match to requirements set by the Producer:

Examples

For example, an Actor might be the Producer’s source of means and opportunity to catalyze or constrain the natural formation of a group.

The Producer might select an expert to come stir things up. As a least prescribed option, the expert may not need to provide any details in advance and instead be given “carte blanche” to make things happen.

Or, a group of analysts might be brought in to develop, within limits, some situation-specific options and decide which one to implement along the way within the limits.

A “most prescribed” approach could be use of a known specific method for generating the type of conditions allowing natural group formation. The practitioners of the method come along with its selection.

Opportunity

Choice

If the Provider is not an Actor but instead is a process, a culture, or other influence, there is still a range of difference in how prescribed the selected Provider can be, or needs to be, for the Producer.

For the Producer, using an engineered design is more prescriptive than using a found arrangement. Using an engineered formula is more prescriptive than using a found mix.

The Producer must also decide what level of interaction should be addressed.

Something we have noted is that Darwinian effects will be systemic, while Emergent effects tend to occur as the greater or lesser coherency of a system.

Co-operation

Oversimplifying, we can see that a consistent path of water running down a mountain face is a system in equilibrium; the splitting of rocks, sprouting of plants, and other peripheral effects are systemic.

That is similar to saying that the anatomy of the organization underlies its physiology. Both are involved in any “organic” group seen as an organization.

This shows us that Emergent sources may themselves be the precursor of Darwinian sources.

A Producer, however, may decide to select an Emergent option as a way of getting beyond any current limitations that are prescriptive or Darwinian in origin.

Organic

To see how this choice amounts to an opportunity or constraint, we need to remove the ambiguity that comes with saying “organic”.

The full consideration of the development of an organic group includes three aspects allowing us to classify and recognize its distinction:

The Organ (function) – the defined role-based part

The Organism (structure) – the connections of the parts

The Organization (purpose) – the characteristic intent of the connections (as in, the affect that the organism has on its circumstances)

Production

Those distinctions help to expose what is underlying our notions of “organic”. Just saying the word “organic” does not describe, nor explain, how a group can “form itself” across the spectrum of organ/organism/organization.

More importantly, we could argue that choosing an “organic” option requires deciding how much formation is allowed to be pending, instead of just assuming that some “type” of organic result will be appropriate and timely.

Co-ops

We have an entire vocabulary for things that may be our assumptions or expectations or desire. When we call out that vocabulary, there are more useful indicators of any potential agenda behind our interest.

Namely, we want to believe that self-forming groups can have the value of groups that are not self-forming:

Effectiveness

To support that belief, we try to imagine scenarios in which we can match the value of a self-forming group to the value of one that is not self-forming.

That creates the necessity of reconciling the different forms that come along with the values.

For example, a participant’s occupation (work role) may be realized in a collaboration, but the collaboration may not be capable of serving the purpose of a flock or a clique…

Preferences

Risk

Our interest in a Darwinian or Emergent choice will either way trace back to some presumed value that contrasts with any non-organic alternative. However, current state circumstances have a lot to day about whether an organic option is deemed reasonable.For Users: the biggest problem with Darwinian results is that outcomes may not be tolerated by authorities and they may not be tolerable by consumers. The winner of a Darwinian battle may have unacceptable quality, cost and propriety even while its availability is confidently established. For Producers: the problem with Emergent results is its lack of interest in a predetermined outcome. The energy spent on emergence may take away from resources needed for more conventionally directed outcomes.For Providers: there is no basic problem other than being mis-used.

Constraints

Users are wary of conflict and irrelevance…

Producers are wary of opportunity cost and risk…

Providers are wary of inappropriate expectations.

We sometimes refer to the degree of freedom from prescription as a level of “openness”.

Here we can say that wariness plays a large part in how “open” an organic approach is allowed to be.

Policies and security exist as ways to define the space within which things can be done. Doing things organically most likely requires navigating that space. But in the end, an organic approach may also influence a change of the space as well.

Signoff

Complexity

Why aren’t more organizations more organic?

The question implies that being more organic is something we would expect of an organization and yet are not seeing at our level of expectation.

That is what makes it both fair and necessary to ask how we see and recognize what “organic” is.

A close examination positions our interest in some relief from prescriptionsagainst our expectation of certain kinds of value, and it shows that there is no default or necessary connection between the two.

Instead, there are significant alternatives to consider in how to coordinate the sources, forms and objectives of supporting interactions within groups.

Order

Many of those support considerations seem to be abstractions when written down for discussion.

Yet the discussion mainly catalogs factors that in practice are often dealt with quickly and almost emotionally, whether with awareness or not.

The abstraction is reflecting the simplicity that essential elements often have before becoming parts of more elaborate constructions. In our case, the construction is a form of orderliness.

When we look at a business as an environment and a collection of actors, we generally do not assume that activity will serve the business well without the influence of orderliness. A business requirement will motivate some models of that orderliness, but that does not exhaust the potential variety, value, nor character, of group forms.

Goals

The interest in “organic” groups usually pursues freedom from inhibitions that are attributed to structure.

But the success of an organic approach is largely dependent on the same influences that make a prescriptively structured group into a success or failure.

Ultimately the importance of the form of the group derives from what effects are obtained by the interactivity of the group. The importance must override the prior restraints.

Clearly, this includes issues like crisis or contingency measures; innovation; and transformation. In other words, it is sometimes critical to focus on regenerating the business.

Organizations that have that focus are most likely to need and benefit from cultivating organic forms.

Postscript:

… we can throw people together and just see what happens…

… they can work it out themselves…

… but we can’t be surprised by bad dates now, nor by broken hearts later.

© 2014 Malcolm Ryder / archestra research

[email protected]