The Biological Reality of Organizing - with Alicia Juarrero

Podcast Notes

Alicia Juarrero is founder and president of VectorAnalytica with a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Miami, where she is also currently a research associate. She is the author of the book Dynamics in Action (2008), and the upcoming Context Changes Everything (2023), both at MIT Press.

We’ve all heard about how organizations are like natural organisms, but is that really true? And if it is, how can we get inspired from nature in designing and understanding them? 

In this episode, we talk to Alicia about her work in complexity theory and how it applies to organizations. Alicia takes from Aristotle the image of the organization as a natural organism and unpacks the biological reality of organizing. 

Parts of a natural organism – for example a cell – are different from just parts of a material mass: a complex organization is a system where members and teams define themselves by their role and through interaction with other parts of the system. This has specific consequences on the hierarchy and management of teams embedded in various contextual layers. In these complex organizations, boundaries and enabling constraints have a role to steer the direction, and managers should act as catalysts, not applying coercive forces.

Key highlights 

• The cellular-based ecosystemic organization is not governed by hierarchy and external forces 
• “Life and death” of the components of an organization makes it dynamic and adaptable
• Boundaries in biological reality are permeable interfaces and not mechanistic edges 

Topics (chapters): 

00:03:04 Organization as “organism”

00:09:45 Hierarchy in social organizations

00:12:25 3 levels we have to consider when we think of a social organization

00:20:29 How to set goals in a complex organization?

00:36:35 The role of the enabling constraints

00:44:38 Alicia’s Breadcrumbs

Recorded on 7 October 2022.

Music 

Music from Liosound / Walter Mobilio. Find his portfolio here: https://blss.io/Podcast-Music