Exciting new attributes of this Superstructure include:

• A High Degree of Openness
• Dramatically Increased Agility
• New Levels of Adaptability
• New Organic Degrees of Freedom
• Fully Integrated Operations
• Speed vs. Mass
• Distributed Decision Rights
• Revolutionary Culture
• Self-Organizing Catalytic Sets of Synchronization
• Nonlinear Peer to Peer Relationships
• Anticipatory vs Reactive Decision Making
• Tailored and Precise Responsiveness
• Maximum Flexibility
• Autonomic Functioning

This is accomplished through the design and implementation of a new approach to an organization’s primary system of work, along with the rigorous integration of the business processes that make up an organization’s driver, mainstay and support processes.  Such integration is an important step toward consolidated process controls across platforms and functions. Integrating critical processes is necessary, but more importantly, selecting the appropriate processes for automation and redesigning others based on the functionality requirements of the business owners is a vital step.

Another important step toward achieving an Organic architecture is leveraging advanced technologies that today allow intelligence to be embedded at the very edges of the system.  Through an Organic Superstructure, organizations can now understand and weed through opportunities to construct an efficient portfolio for their businesses. This includes understanding system requirements, as well as constructing detailed designs and selection of appropriate software. Across the information technology space a new generation of tools is emerging. From the latest advancements in network infrastructure to the newest social networking applications, a forward view is called for.

It is important to note, however, that a critical success factor for instituting Organic architectures is an organizational commitment to nothing less then a cultural revolution. The “next generation” characteristics of a truly intelligent operation require an evolution in management and leadership thinking, as new understanding will drive new behaviors. Within the new optimization aim of the organization (i.e. Superperformance)  it is necessary to provoke the change experience from the inside out, and institute new organizational and governance structures that effectively align business, technology and knowledge processes.  Ultimately, the intelligent operation becomes the new definition for operational excellence, as primary value levers are improved and the financial measures of gross margin, cost and asset productivity are positively impacted.

A life science of management and leadership exposes the obsolete industrial age Taylor paradigm that still to this day is limiting so much individual and organizational performance. The Taylor model is based on Descartes’ 400 year old clockwork universe and does not  integrate new science discoveries of the last 100 years, especially quantum mechanics and complexity science. By recasting organizations as  living, complex-adaptive systems, an organization’s full capacity for Superperformance can finally be unleashed.

The traditional view of organization—woven together through a systematic framework of production, decision support,  knowledge, and information systems— is based on the model of a well-oiled machine engineered to deliver maximum performance derived from pre-defined parameters and specifications. This industrial age model considers performance a derivative of external controls defined by the designers of organizational systems. They have given only marginal importance to the self-adaptive and emergent nature of organizational systems and the dynamic environments they inhabit. In other words, they are still far from operating with an immune system of distributed decision rights and with management and leadership capacity distributed everywhere, to the very edge of organizations. These bottom-up, agile characteristics of living, complex adaptive systems are precisely what is needed during times of rapid changing operating and knowledge environments, such as those that exist today.

Nested Hierarchies are Natural

From Organism View the self-referencing fractal pattern of system inside of system is apparent. The parts and their environments are continually co-evolving. From this view there is perfect parallel between organization and organism, which present as a set of nested structures, each inside of the next, like Russian dolls.

Organization                                 Organism

Economy                                             Ecosystem
↓
Industry                                              Species
↓
Organization                                       Organism
↓
Function                                              Organ
↓
Department                                         Tissue
↓
Work Team                                        Cell
↓
Individual                                           Organelle

From Organism View the entire global economy can be seen as a gigantic ecology of interdependent and continually interacting (work) cells, organs, and organizations engaged in the production, buying and selling of goods and services. And like any ecology it is self-organizing, not centrally controlled or coordinated.

Regardless of scale or level of complexity, there is a corresponding compartment at every tier of the organization/organism hierarchy. This is not just a novel coincidence—it is the natural expression of order that pervades all of life, from ecosystem to economy. It is simply the most efficient way to organize.

In fact, throughout the entire text of  Darwin’s Origin of Species, the only illustration called for was the picture of a nested hierarchy.

Nested Hierarchy from Darwin's Origin of Species

Superperformance occurs inside of a context. The classic industrial model of command and control underlying traditional management practice is not sustainable in the 21st century. A new organizational framework is needed.  It must be agile, super focused, operate from simple rules, and clarity of purpose. Advancements in optimization knowledge and information technology—together with a revolution in leadership—provide executives an unprecedented opportunity to put in place a new superstructure and system of support. This new framework must be one that creates the context for Superperformance—and its long-term sustainability. To achieve maximum fitness this system and structure must be agile, innovative, and resilient. It must facilitate the merger of process and culture. It must be based on a dynamic, not static view of organization. This superstructure must be based on a living, complex adaptive systems view of organization—alive and self organizing.  Organism, not Machine.

Goodbye Taylorism, Hello Life Science.