Business design inspired by Nature.
We are in a time of significant change.
We’re seeing rapid change brought about by the environmental crisis, globalisation and pervasiveness of technology — but our organisational constructs and business ‘operating systems’ have essentially remained the same - based on 20th century production line principles.
The mechanistic philosophy of modern organisations can no longer deliver the social, economic and political outcomes that we urgently require and desire to survive on this planet we call home.
The system is broken. The old logic no longer works. It is time to redesign.
“In times of turmoil, the danger lies not in the turmoil itself — but in facing it with yesterday’s logic. ” — Peter Drucker
As our collective human society becomes more complex; one of the most difficult challenges facing organisations today is to design operating models that can be flexible and adaptive in such dynamic and volatile business environment.
Now is the time to apply the lessons from Nature. To ‘quieten our human cleverness’ and learn from the most adaptive and sustainable system we know and which we are dependent. An operating system with over 3.8 billion years of R&D.
One of the lessons innovation draws from Nature is that all things are interconnected. Sustainable businesses need to operate as living systems that are interconnected, interdependent and capable of responding to constantly changing environments.
We need to design with a new ‘life-centred’ logic and evolve our organisations with ‘Living Business’ principles.
“The major problems in the world are the result of the difference between how nature works and the way people think” — Gregory Bateson
The majority of organisations today have a dominant logic informed by a Cartesian form of management. Resulting in a mechanistic and linear model prevalent in organisations constantly striving for linear, infinite growth on a finite planet — which we know to be destructive and unsustainable.
Fritjof Capra, in his book ‘The Hidden Connections’ posits that in order to sustain life in the future, the principles underlying our social institutions must be consistent with the organisation that nature has evolved to sustain the ‘web of life.’
Capra applies aspects of complexity theory, particularly the analysis of networks, to global capitalism and the state of the world; and eloquently argues the case that social systems such as organisations and networks are not just like living systems — they are living systems.
From the advent of the industrial revolution to the present, the business class has paid little attention to human nature. The social and physical design of organisations focused on efficiency and cost-savings; resulting in the mismatch between our work environments and human nature.
Organisations of the future will need to designed and built from the ground up. To embrace concepts like resilience, emergence, collective intelligence and self-organisation — all living systems concepts. To become more like living, evolving, learning and resilient organisms or networks — less mechanistic, siloed, operating through command and control with a scarcity mindset.
We are entering an age of abundance. Time to redesign.
Living Business Logic
One of the greatest insights an evolutionary perspective offers to business is this: design the physical and social characteristics of organisations so that they are compatible with our evolved human nature — aligned with the rhythm of life.
This design-led approach involves leveraging the principles of ecosystem design, living systems, platform and network dynamics. Accepting a more complex and dynamic model. We need to view our organisations as the living systems they are — which are impacted by their environment and continually evolve.
Companies are not isolated entities but are embedded in “nested complex adaptive systems”: multi-level, interconnected, dynamic systems in which local interactions can give rise to unpredictable global effects and vice versa. Companies are part of wider industries and business systems embedded in local and national economies, which in turn are interwoven with communities and wider societies.
Understanding organisations as natural systems offers us a seed of inspiration from which to grow a different approach and innovate toward a regenerative society (system). Feed the soil not the plant.
To view an organisation as an ecosystem is to realise that ecosystems achieve stability through change, which is a fundamental characteristic of complex living systems. And most importantly to understand that change cannot be managed.
Change and chaos are an essential part of the adaptive cycle.
If we take a close look at this cycle and marry new shoots/ growth to Spring, conservation to Summer, release to Autumn and renewal/reorganisation to Winter, we have a simple yet profound pattern that allows us to see the interconnectedness of life and to better harmonise our operating systems with a natural flow.
The cycles of creativity, growth, release and renewal can occur over long periods of time — a year, a seven-year cycle or a life-time — or over shorter time periods — a few weeks, a single day, or even a couple of hours.
Former CEO of Mitsubishi, Tachi Kiuchi, and former President of Future 500, Bill Shireman, in their book What We Learned In The Rainforest, explore in detail the application of these ecological phases or ‘seasons’ in business: innovation, growth, improvement and release (reorganisation).
As we know — each state cannot exist without the other. The Summer growth needs the Winter breakdown of Autumnal leaves for the nutritious soil to support Spring shoots. Night needs day, the out-breath is never separate from or competing with the in-breath, neither is yin or yang, merely part of the innate rhythm of life evolving and revolving. All the time different parts of the business will be in different phases.
Imagine if we deliberately designed our organisations to run ‘seasonally’ — as four distinct phases represented by an adaptive cycle — in harmony with our inherent natural cycles. Optimising systems to leverage and ride change, rather than control or resist it.
To operate our business where the Summer months were about growth and prosperity, the Spring was when we brought new products to market and launched new ways of working internally, the Autumn we consolidated our businesses, looked for opportunities of optimisation and during Winter we concentrated on learning our lessons, implementing them and reflecting internally to fix things we know aren’t that great, we spent time healing our organisation, tending to our culture and fixing our broken processes.
Yet we tend to run our organisations in perpetual Summer mode. Always on. Faster and faster. Striving for infinite growth with limited resources. This is simply not sustainable; and we see this flawed machine like logic failing and manifest in breakdown and burn-out.
Biological systems offer valuable lessons on how to develop strategies fit for the adaptive context. Offering a tried and tested process of sensing and responding to changes in the environment by capturing change signals and managing a portfolio of experiments.
The next evolutionary step for human-kind is to connect what we have learned and adapted during the Scientific, Industrial and Technological Revolutions with what we can learn from nature’s wisdom.
Paul Hawken, says the transition from, “immature to mature eco-systems is called ecological succession and that now in business we need commercial succession — to move from a toxic linear shareholder driven system to one that regenerates, is low impact and creates value for all including nature.”
If you are looking to explore ‘Evolutionary Business Design’ — please get in contact to start a conversation via tomorrowconsultancy.com
Inspiration and gratitude to Giles Hutchins, Laura Storm, Daniel Wahl, Sahana Chattopadhyay & all my co-learners at Schumacher College.
