ORGANIZATIONS AS COMPLEX EVOLVING SYSTEMS - Key Characteristics and Strategies

Managing Organizatonal Change: The Wheel of Business Evolution

Three Major Stages of Organizational Evolution¹

Bureaucratic: strategy is not emphasized; hierarchical structures; linear focus; dehumanized
Complex: quantitative strategy; laterally complex structures; bifurcated, conflicting focus; limitations of workforce performance
Adaptive: visionary, human strategy, simpler in context structure; work/family integration systems; capability and efficacy of workforce

Common Characteristics of Complex Evolving Systems¹

Five operational characteristics

Self-organization – enables different possible combinations of ideas and relationships to emerge from the "co-incidences" that happen during informal interactions.
Creativity – emerges from the interaction of the components of a network; at the human level, the collaboration of a group and cross-pollination of ideas produces outcomes that are not possible to predict by simply summing up the behavior of the individuals involved
Non-linearity – small causes produce large effects in human systems
Memory – distributed throughout the system; this history is critical to the behavior of the whole system
Adaptability – can reorganize their internal structure without the intervention of, or in response to the intervention of, an external agent; it is a result of unconscious learning (tacit knowledge) that may enable the system to have a higher probability of survival under changing conditions in its ecosystem and environment.

Four human relationships and organizations' characteristics

Being – the in which people, who have authentic presence and needs, experience themselves in an organization can enable or constrain the potential of what an organization can become.
Identity – is a function of interaction of persons' being and their relationships; is a strong driver of the organization's outcomes. Innovation, for example, is possible only in a collaborative environment that creates the conditions for creative thinking.
Conscious learning – whether knowledge is created and shared in an organization will depend on the quality, number and types of relationships within an organization, and between the organization and its ecosystem.
Coherence – requires an alignment of context, viewpoint, purpose and action that enables further action.² The extent to which organization operates as a network of relationships enables individuals to make sense of their work and their world, and will strongly influence the coherence of the organization and its sense of purpose.

Discover much more!

The Tao of a Winning Organization

New Business Models

Establishing Institutional Excellence

Balanced Organization: 5 Basic Elements

Leadership (Fire):

Corporate vision inspires and energizes all employees... More

Finding the Right Balance Between Structure and Chaos

Chaos is paradoxical; you need a certain amount of chaos to be creative but not to the point that you feel overwhelmed by its amount. Too much uncertainty discourages people from mobilizing their best effort. Direction and purpose and a certain amount of structure create freedom. People feel liberated by goals and guidelines.

Successful organizations must balance structure and bureaucratic processes at one extreme with the fluid creative chaos of relationships, interests and transactions, which enable it to be innovative and alive, at the other... More

Corporate Culture

In six words, corporate culture is "How we do things around here."

Corporate culture is the collective behavior of people using common corporate vision, goals, shared values, beliefs, habits, working language, systems, and symbols. It is interwoven with processes, technologies, learning and significant events. In addition, different individuals bring to the workplace their own uniqueness, knowledge, and ethnic culture. So corporate culture encompasses moral, social, and behavioral norms of your organization based on the values, beliefs, attitudes, and priorities of its members... More

Inspiring Culture

Do you want to encourage extraordinary performance from your people? Do you want them to do great things? If yes, then you must create an inspiring corporate culture to inspire and energize them... More

Systems Thinking

Systems thinking is your ability to things as a whole (or holistically) including the many different types of relationships between the many elements in a complex system. "Systems thinking is a sensibility – for the subtle interconnectedness that gives living systems their unique character."¹¹... More

Role of the Business Architect

Today's companies need business architects who can take a systems view of a business and build synergies.

Business architect is a person who initiates new business ventures or leads business innovation, designs a winning business model, and builds a sustainable balanced business system for a lasting success... More

9 Signs of a Losing Organization

High Bureaucracy: bureaucratic organizational structures with too many layers; high boundaries between management layers; slow decision making; too close monitoring of things and subordinates; too many tools and documents discouraging creative thinking; bureaucracy is tolerated... More

Eliminating Bureaucracy

Bureaucracy makes work and creates climate in which the customer comes third – well after the management and the company's other employees.

How much of your energy is expended on purely internal activities? if you spend less than 20% of your energy on external customers, than bureaucracy has taken hold... More

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