Pyramids, Paradigms and Productivity

Assume for a moment that you are in charge of a tree. You are the president of the tree and a major stockholder in it. Your task is to make the tree successful and productive. Let’s further assume that you are well trained in business. You have an advanced degree in marketing and special training in management, planning and system design.

Now, the first thing you’ll want to do is get organized. You apply all your training and soon conclude that this tree needs to be re-engineered. In a meeting with your top branches, a plan is generated with the following steps.

1. Assess current productivity of all branches. (Finding: stagnant growth and minimal fruitfulness.)
2. Define your mission and vision. (To be abundantly fruitful and optimize our growth while contributing to our environment. To spawn a great forest.)
3. Clarify the organization’s values. ("We believe in being fruitful, growing constantly, making a contribution to society and fostering the growth of others who have integrity.")
4. Define your organization’s structure. (You select a pyramid structure, as you were trained to, and chart all the players within it. Since roots and limbs look virtually the same they can be charted together.)

President

Executive team

----------------------Branch Officers--------------------

[Leaves] [Seeds] [Limbs] [Roots] [Trunk]

-New Growth -Acorns -Left -Tap Root -Bark

-Mature -Shells -Right -Divisions: -Growth Rings

-Seasonal -Blossoms -Upward Left, Right, Down

5. Re-engineer the organization. (Lay off unproductive branches, leaves and roots. Marshall resources into the most productive areas. Trade some of your ancillary divisions to another tree for its high potential limbs and roots.)

By this point I hope it’s becoming clear that this plan won’t work. But the vital question is "Why?" With all your training and the wisdom of the popular technology called "re-engineering" what is wrong with this picture?

• Is the organization itself faulty?
• Are you not well enough trained?
• Are your co-leaders a bunch of losers?
• Do you need to recruit from another tree?
• Do you need better policies and operating systems?

I think the problem is even more fundamental. I think our underlying assumptions were faulty. A tree is not a machine, it is an organism. It has life in all its parts. Every cell of the tree is interconnected. So is a business.

The paradigm, or mode of viewing, used to deal with businesses has traditionally been the military-based model of seeing business as a mechanism. Hence the terms, "productivity, output, strategy, tactics, feedback, work units, profit centers, etc." We even de-humanize people into the category of "human resources." This leads to a series of predictable conclusions as to why business exists, how it operates, and how to control it. If your assumption is that your business is a machine, it makes sense to call in an engineer if it is broken. When a machine ceases to meet our needs we simply sell it or scrap it. After all, it is just a thing.

However, when you change your paradigm, then all your assumptions and conclusions must be re-examined. For example; I believe that organizations are alive, they behave as organisms, not mechanisms. It has a life comprised of the elements that make it up. Each person is like a cell in the organism, with a life of their own but at the same time connected with and affected by the rest of the organism. Each new customer and each new employee changes the business in surprising ways. Every cell in an organism contains its genetic code (its values, vision, mission and philosophy). You can’t truly "own" a living thing. You must on some level care about it and its feelings. When organizations are dysfunctional they need care, treatment, or nurturing, much like a plant, animal or person. Don’t call an engineer, call a doctor, gardener or parent.

This is not simply word-play. It is a difference in philosophy. "So what?" you ask. So everything! Your philosophy toward organizations shows up in everything you do. Here is a short list of things which are affected by your philosophy and beliefs.

Category/Mechanistic View/Organic View

Purpose/Output/Growth

Structure/Pyramid/Tree

Management/Top-down/Collaboration

Decision-Making/At the top/At the needs

Controls/By-the-numbers/By-the-people

Planning/By managers/By everyone

Motivation/Reward/Punishment/Intrinsic/Individual

Success/Profits/Making Life Better

Sales Goal/A Purchase/An ongoing client

Discipline/Physics/Biology

Models/Military & Sports/Farming/Fitness

Hiring Skills, not People/People with skills

Re-examine your own organization and see if this organic metaphor fits. Ask these questions about it.

• Does it change day to day in unpredictable ways?
• Does it seem to have a life of its own?

• Does it go through seasons and cycles?

• Does it bear fruit?
• Are all of its parts interconnected?
• Is it hard to accurately describe it using an organizational chart?
• Has it developed a root system of suppliers, resources, etc.?
• Does it drop off unproductive parts and grow new ones where the needs are greatest?
• Does each new employee seem out-of-place until they embrace the purpose, philosophy and mission of the organization?
• If the people didn’t show up for work would there be an organization at all?

Food for thought, food for growth, food for a new era in "organic" thinking. May you grow thousands of acorns.