Three Organization Types
Evolving from Static and Dynamic to Adaptive
(Ed: While the following description was primarily written with business organizations in mind, it can be applied to NGOs as well, with a little bit of creative thinking! read on ... )
- Static Organizations
- Fixed practices, fixed size. Like static equations, these organizations have no variables -- time doesn't change them significantly. They persist until some new organization occupies their niche.
- Dynamic Organizations
- Fixed practices, variable size. Like dynamic equations, these organizations vary in size over time, even though their underlying practices don't change much. They go through a single life cycle, each growing rapidly as it occupies its niche, then declining as its competitors implement better practices that steal away its clients.
- Adaptive Organizations
- Variable practices, variable size. Like complex adaptive systems, these organizations vary their practices, seeking the constant improvement that launches life cycle after life cycle, creating new products, services, and processes that hold on to clients generation after generation.
They will soon motivate employees to climb adaptation curves by using ISOPs to fairly share the wealth that each innovation creates. ISOPs ensure that the innovator, the predecessors, and each shareholder in the corporation benefits.
They will displace dynamic and static organizations in economic competition, so that within a generation, most people will have learned to expect continual improvement in their life experience. The fact that their ancestors once worked at the same job in the same way for an entire lifetime will seem almost as incredible as the fact that people used to stay at jobs they didn't thoroughly enjoy.
by Dr. Mark White - white@profmexis.sar.net
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Comments and suggestions:
Hari Srinivas - hsrinivas@gdrc.org
