Living System
The Organization as a Living System
There are many different metaphorical models that have been used to describe organizations, from ships to machines to human brains. Another perspective views organizations as equivalent to living organisms or really to any complex living system, where reactions happen both on an immediate and reactionary basis and as a matter of planning and decision making. This perspective can be especially useful when viewing organizations during volatile times and in a host of other conditions; though this metaphor is not necessarily better or more complete than other symbolic ways of viewing organizations, it certainly has benefits in certain applications and situations. Viewing the organization as a living organism can help one to determine how the organization makes its decisions, where the powerful and weak points of the system are, and even predict its behavior as an entity that above all wants to survive in a wolrd that threatens to kill it through competition.
The business world is not really as lie or death as the natural world in most instances, of course, but there are organizations where decision making and organizational direction truly are matters of life and death. There are also situations where the stakes are much less extreme, but the results of moving and thinking like a living system are no less profound. This paper will examine two very different examples of human organizations, noting their differences but most especially noting the ways in which both of these organizations act like living systems, generating decisions and movements as units rather than individuals.
First, however, a little bit of background is necessary. Joe Flower (1995) describes the organization-as-living-system model in a very detailed manner, noting...
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