The soup and the balls

I have a weird tendency to link unrelated things. Whether it is a video or an image I frequently see a “direct” link (or so I think!) between this and a book I am reading, an article dome friends and I are discussing or during a heated conversation with clients in a workshop.

I have this powerful epiphany, a strong and intense “aha!” moment and then I get excited and try to convey what I “see” as a message or lesson! I fail most of the time.

But then I learned to stop trying and I now let my clients try to decipher the message. And since we remember mostly what we say instead of what we heard, THEIR message stick. And most of the time, after a few seconds or minutes of reflection, they get it. And express the “message” in a better fashion than I would ever have hoped to accomplish.

When I stared to say that my practice is organizational biology in 2014 I was most of the time met with eyes that said it all: dilated pupils, subtle frowns, timid smile and a comment similar to “ Oh, interesting.” Notice the lack of an exclamation point.

Whenever adults are faced with a work or concept, they do not understand they will fake understanding in a polite but diffusive way. I have read somewhere (no data…so beware of fake news!) that 5% of adults will admit they do not understand something. This fits with my experience in a classroom. During my workshop of the conference, I frequently challenge my audience. I do not ask specifically the answer to a question but rather who does not know the answer. People are generally shy to raise their hands. The funny part is when I then ask what IS the answer and, although I should expect everybody eats to arise their hands based on the first question, only a few people raise hand hands, proving that most people simply cannot admit they do not know. At least in public.

And, also based on my experience, this is also valid for a management committee discussing crucial decisions for an organization.

But let us go back to these bizarre associations…

When I thought about organizational biology for the first time, it seemed self-evident. Biology: study of life. Organizational biology the study of life in organizations. Another fancy name for things like organization development or organizational health. I felt justified in using this because of my academic background in molecular biology. I am truly a biologist! And I have been a manager in large pharmaceutical companies for more than 10 years.

Hence, organizational biology.

I also thought that some many situations in organization life were kin to what happens in a living cell that organizational biology was bound to happen! 

I was a bit surprised at first to see my client’s reactions to the term. From bewilderment to surprise, from simple acknowledgement to utter lack of understanding. 

It seems too obvious to me!

Most interactions in a cell are spontaneous and random but all geared toward the health of the cell. 

Most interactions in an organization are also spontaneous and random (forget about those detailed 5-year strategic plan by the way) and most of them are also aimed at making sure the organization survives in a competitive market.

The cellular soup is functional and healthy when you let individual components freely interact with all the others.

The organizational dynamic is likewise functional and efficient if everybody is allowed to interact with anybody in order to accomplish the annual goals.

The whole pour-we of the concepts and models I sue when I teach indirectly what I call organization biology is to make people aware of the invisible links between all the components. Adam Smith in his famous book the Wealth of nations mentions the invisible hand of the market as the driving force of the capitalistic economy. Similarly I see an invisible hand allowing the interactions of metabolites in a cell or the interactions between the individual in an organization.

This randomness is key to the success of the organization.

Not the strategic plan,

not the deparmental silos,

not the formal organizational chart or hierarchical levels.

The random acts of kindness and intelligent actions from one individual towards another irrespective of their position or department. The joyous soup of the organization.

Whenever you sip a spoonful of soup, you enjoy silly the results of the preparation, the multiple ingredients, the long cooking time and the random association of all the tastes contained in the cooked ingredients. Random physical and chemical reactions at their best.

How can anybody not see the similarities between a good soup and a healthy and profitable organization?

I a similar way I recently discover this mesmerizing video

I immediately saw this a a potent reminder of all the organizations processes each department try to implement in an organization. Individually, each process is designed and executed in a straight line. The organization will fail, however, if all those processed are not designed to function together in a well-coordinated fashion.

The mesmerizing beauty of this video is the coordination of the 10 balls going in a trashy line but producing the illusion of a circle.

The global effect of all of them has to be coordinated in order for the mesmerizing effect to be felt. All of my clients saw the same thing rapidly. Wow then discussed how the multiple processes involved in their organization also had to be well coordinated.

How often a great project was implemented in your organization to eventually fall apart because it was not integrated in the rest of the organization’s other processes?

How frequently for example was your training budget reduced to save cost only to be increased whenever the cost of human errors became to high?
How often di you loosen your selection criteria for new hires whenever it became urgent to find a replacement only to find this new hire unfit to work or disillusioned about your working conditions?

How frequently did your IT department divide to change the current software for a new one without completely study the user requirement for the sake of “efficiency” only to realize 2 years down the road that insufficient training and lack of power users in the organization doomed the wheel project?

The organizational soup I dependent on the random interactions but well-designed and interrelated processes. The illusion of the circular motion of the video is possible only if those processes are designed from the start to be interrelated.

In clear terms: the study of life in organizations taught me that it is rarely the case. Most initiatives are well intentioned but we rarely take the time that is required to talk to everybody concerned by them…and most of the time, everybody concerned is…everybody!

Going back to a biological metaphor, a very simple one. Whenever you gobble up a whole bag of salted chips (and yes, in 2024, these bags of chips are getting smaller and smaller) for a few days in a row your body will react in maddening fashion: you might gain a lot more weight than the actual weight of the chips (remember…smaller bags!) your body will not only digest those excess amounts of fat partially and store a few grams just in case but your circulatory system, kidneys and heart will react strongly to the input of salt and store enough water to restore the homeostatic concentration of sodium chloride in your body (150 mM or 0.09%) to stabilize your blood pressure. The extra weight is therefore water (do not worry, it will go away once the salt is processes and excreted). 

Taking blood pressure -reducing medication and continuing to eat tons of excess salt at the same time becomes ridiculous. Taking cholesterol-reducing statins and eating a lot of fat meats is a similar ridiculous behaviour.

Take a look at your organization and make a list of current counterproductive processes.

A quick example in 2024 is the RTO mandates (Return to Office) for the sake of productivity (many studies confirm that the net effect is 0%) or organizational culture (especially when most of the day of some worker is spent on remote meeting anyway!)

Again, take a hard look at your organization and make a list of current counterproductive processes and have soup.

Enjoy your soup and envision a spoonful of your organization…what does it taste like?

 

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