New Agora

One of the topics gaining prominence in the field of KM is the question of how closely organisations mirror human biology.

It is well accepted that there are at least superficial similarities -- both are complex adaptive systems, for example -- but the use of a metaphor which resonates so strongly with our personal experiences as a human is both enlightening and dangerous.

Enlightening because organisations are so complex that they sometimes seem alien -- but by leveraging our personal experience of learning and acting on knowledge, the processes seem much more familiar. Dangerous because the analogy encourages assumptions which may not hold, just as our assumptions of what an organism might be would be dangerous if we ever encountered true extra-terrestrial lifeforms.

Nonetheless, as we gain an understanding of laws that drive emergent adaptive behaviour, it appears likely that humans and organisations will share some common characteristics.

The inimitable John Robb recently linked to several slides from work done by Raphael Sagarin and Terence Taylor called Natural Security: A Darwinian Approach to a Dangerous World.

Here's a key quote from their slides:

“a modular structure of semi-autonomous parts under weak central control provides the most flexible, adaptable, and reliable means of making unpredictable challenges predictable”
- Geerat Vermeij

Vermeij is a biologist, but Sagarin and Taylor treat this quote as applicable to an organisation as well. Following on from this is several key claims (I'm paraphrasing/adapting their words):

• organisms/organisations try to reduce uncertainty for themselves and increase it for their adversary
• by attempting to eliminate risk, human organisations are ignoring the strategies evolved by most organisms to live with risk:
  • understand your risks - you can't avoid what you can't see coming
  • adapt your behaviours - if a certain set of behaviours is risky, change those behaviors
  • allocate your resource - where risk is unavoidable, diversify your resources, prioritising areas with better risk/return ratios
• change has a pattern:
  • birth/origins
  • growth/proliferation
  • senescence/death

There is an important conclusion out of this. Complex adaptive systems have the property that changes in system parameters lead to unpredictable outcomes -- ie cause and effect is weak in the complex space.

However, risks are manageable. This is why evolutionary strategies for organisms promote adaptive traits that reduce risk or diversify exposure to risk.

Organisations should learn the same lesson. The traditional application of Risk Management is an iterative process against a static environment. As each issue is formally recognised and treated, the organisation "evolves" to reduce risk.

However, this is a sequentially stepped, centrally managed process. If the central process breaks down, evolution stops. Instead, organisations should seek to make evolutionary management of risk a continual, dynamic and diversified process.