Adaptive Organizations

What if the really big organizations were more like an ecosystem and had many types of organization "types" within? These various organizations could be adapted to a variety of external or environmental conditions, which would increase the likelihood of overall survival if a dramatic, sweeping environmental condition came to pass. Imagine if there was a big economic downturn and your organization was designed as one homogeneous monolith? Your whole company could implode overnight! (Hmmm... it could happen!)

I think if a company, division, or department within a mega corporation like GM or Citibank was structured differently, the larger organization would have a better chance for sustained survival. Interestingly, economist Paul Ormerod (Why Things Fail) has shown that despite our best efforts to build organizations that last, the extinction rate of organizations is very similar to the extinction rate of biologic species.

So, maybe we should have a more diversified portfolio of organization types coexisting to better withstand the environmental shifts we simply can’t predict or control. Some companies achieve this through acquisition or by having a portfolio of diversified businesses (Cisco, GM). I'm talking here about real differences in organizational structure.

If GM had let Saturn be truly different (as it was originally intended) with different leadership, labor, decision-making, reward and recognition, customer relationships, etc. perhaps they'd be in a better position to survive today.

If we really aren't any better at designing organizations that survive than Nature is at designing species, then the lesson for me is that we need to be prepared for evolution by having more diversity in our approach to organizing. There are many signs of new organization types emerging since the Internet has become so powerful. Open source organizations like Mozilla are proving successful, and collaborative systems of independent agents are transforming news and music publishing (can they be monetized to generate profit?).

Let's take this as an opening to really push the boundaries of what constitutes a business.

Who's got some good examples of organizations that represent a new "species" or type that diverges significantly from our mainstream hierarchical designs?