Introduction
The "Titanic syndrome"
How organizations change over time
Succumbing to the "Titanic syndrome"
The roots of the evolutionary organization
Principles of the evolutionary organization
The evolutionary organization-- an operational perspective
The evolutionary organization-- a management perspective
>>The evolutionary organization-- a new science perspective
A practical experience in building an evolutionary organization
Summary

(continued from The evolutionary organizaiton -- a management perspective)

The evolutionary organization—a new science perspective

For completeness, and because the topic will be unfamiliar to many organizational design practitioners, we examine here the consistency between EVO theory and the organizational theory emerging from what has come to be known as "new science". Given the preceding account of the EVO, the relevance and importance of the following review will become obvious.

Readers interested in a less speculative discussion may wish to pass to the last section of this paper, where practical description of a functioning EVO is presented.

Wheatley [85] has been the principal author to draw attention to the business importance of ideas drawn from physics. She describes dissipative structures, similar to an EVO, in which disorder can be a source of order, and growth is found in disequilibrium, not in balance. The very richness of the diverse elements in a complex system, such as an EVO, allows the system as a whole to undergo spontaneous self-organization [69]; such a structure is never resting.

Although is has clear boundaries, the self-organizing system merges with its environment and its history is tied to this environment. Self-organizing systems are adaptive, in that they do not just passively respond to events the way a rock might roll around in an earthquake. They actively try to turn whatever happens to their advantage. Chaos by itself does not explain its structure, the coherence, and the self-organizing cohesiveness of complex systems. Even the most chaotic of systems always stay within certain boundaries called strange attractors [86]. In this way there is order without predictability. They have all somehow acquired the ability to bring order and chaos into a special kind of balance. This balance point is called the edge of chaos –this is where the components of the system never quite lock into place, and yet never dissolve into turbulence either. The edge of chaos is where new ideas and innovative genotypes are in tension with the status quo, and where the most entrenched old guard will eventually be overthrown. Complex systems are constantly revising and rearranging their building blocks as they gain experience. Similarly the EVO exists at the balance point between an organization’s formative and normative phases, riding the turbulent ebb and flow between the organization’s exploratory and exploitive intentions. At some deep level, these processes of learning, evolution and adaptation are the same.

Control in chaotic systems is exercised through dynamic connectedness [87]. Mitroff and Linstone [88] advance the idea that the organization exists on many levels and one of them is the area for diffusion of innovation—independent of hierarchy, etc. creating fields of meaning for action. Wheatley [85] believes that "…what leaders are called upon to do in a chaotic world is shape the organization through concepts, not through elaborate rules and structures". The organizational meaning that is articulated is a strange attractor, and individuals make meaning to produce order from chaos. She adds "…when meaning is in place in an organization, employees can be trusted to move freely, drawn in many directions by their energy and creativity. There is no need to insist, through regimentation or supervision, that any two individuals act in precisely the same way. We know they will be affected and shaped by the attractor, their behaviour never going out of bounds. We trust that they will heed the call of the attractor and stay within its basin. We believe that little else is required except the cohering presence of a purpose, which gives people the capacity for self-reference". According to Wheatley [85], some of the best ways to create continuity are through the use of forces we cannot see, called "fields". Many scientists now work with the concept of fields—invisible forces that structure space or behaviour. Boisot [32] holds similar views, seeing turbulence as a source of new order. To ride this turbulence and absorb uncertainty the organization needs what Boisot calls an "organizing gestalt" which functions much like a field. The EVO’s visionary core is developed at its centre to provide such fields [89, 90].

If vision is a field, "conceptual controls" are the way to create it, says Robert Haas, CEO of Levi Strauss & Co. [91]. These controls are the business ideas which act as fields to give form to work and structure what is happening at the level of the individual. Space is never empty; the EVO seeks to fill business space with coherent messages. Otherwise, dissonant messages will creep in as employees bump into conflicting fields, and it all becomes a jumble. However, by allowing autonomy at the local level, letting individuals or units be directed in their decisions by guideposts for organizational self-reference, the EVO achieves coherence and continuity.

Capra [92], based on studies of self-organizing systems and self-renewal, sees the requirement for development of more ingenious new forms of social organization. According to Capra, an organization like an EVO will display systemic wisdom in its use of small-scale, decentralized, responsive units, designed for increased self-sufficiency and maximum flexibility. It should not be inferred that the organization’s overall size must be small, although all things being equal, a small organization clearly has more opportunity to be agile. Rather, the organization must change its structure to feature such small-scale connected elements.

Based on similar studies, Weik [93] recommends that "…it is only through action and implementation that we create the environment… when we plan we aren’t responding to the environment, we are creating it through our intentions…strategies should be just-in-time, supported by investment in general knowledge, a large skill repertoire, the ability to quick study, trust in intuition, sophistication in cutting losses". This attitude is consistent with EVO philosophy.

Kelly [51] appeals to biological experience to assemble successfully a truly complex system, such as a competitive commercial EVO. He sees benefits in the adaptable, evolving, boundless, novel, inefficient, uncontrollable, unpredictable "swarm model". He concludes that "off-balance" is itself balance, remaining poised in the act of collapsing. His generic recipe for building complexity is to do simple things first, learning to do them flawlessly, then adding new layers of activity without changing the simple things. Then make the new layers flawless, repeat and repeat again. Complexity must be grown from simple systems that already work. There is no way to tell in advance exactly what a complex system will look like—such a system must be set up and run to find out.

In the next section, we ourselves come to grips with the nuts and bolts of putting together an EVO.

Next

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