ORGANIZATIONAL MODELS

There is an approach to organization that has been developed by those researching complex adpative systems and, it is particularly useful for working with issues confronting our corporations today. The research made use of computer simulations in which different relationships between components were created and allowed to run to see what would happen. In order to stay in alignment with the purpose and language of the book, the research will be presented in business terms, rather than the abstract computer terms in which it was conducted. The synthesis was done as follows.

An organization was created in which each element was connected to each of its neighbors with all elements having the same number of connections. Tests were created in which the whole was connected in different ways in order to find the best way for individual elements to interact to solve different problems. Various alternatives emerged.

Let's first look at a model of organising that could be referred to as a socialist organization. Within this model each individual element was instructed to assess the state of all of its neighbors and then, alter its own state only if that would increase the efficiency of the whole system. The results of the research showed that if the problem was easy and the number of elements was small, the system would optimise rapidly. This implied that for simple problems, universal concern for the good of the whole works. However, if the problem was difficult or the number of elements was significant, then the system would get stuck in a sub-optimum loop or simply flip randomly without settling on any solution. This way of organising looks a hierarchy with a single point of authority.

Another model for organising might be called the anarchist organization. Each element was instructed to assess the state of all of its immediate neighbors and then, alter its state to maximize its own efficiency without concern for the alteration's impact on the whole. If the landscape was comprised of many low peaks of uniform height and many solutions were equally acceptable, this system would operate effectively and ignore any challenges made to the whole system or any disturbance in the environment. The system was generally non-adaptive and unstable. This model had the appearance of a total network organization but would break down in ways similar to the socialist organization when complex problems were presented or there were numerous alternatives of varying value. This model would also produce sub-optimum results where a single focus was wanted as in a Fujiama style landscape.

Another model for organising could be referred to as the dialogue organization. Each individual element was instructed to assess the state of all of its neighbors and then, alter its state to maximize the efficiency of its own defined cell. In this model, the individual's concern is for the cell and the cell's concern is for its relationship to other cells. In this way of organising there is no concern for the whole as such, but the whole is effectively managed as a result of the coordinated communication at cell boundaries. The cells were connected separately from the individuals. When applying this method of organization to difficult problems, the system would establish patterns that were complex enough to deal with the challenge.

The optimum size of each cell and number of cells depended on the complexity of the problem. The more difficult the problem, the smaller the cell size required. When the number of cells increased beyond a threshhold point, causing a breakdown in computational and communication ability, a new organization of cells was needed. Interestingly enough, the solution of increasing cell size and decreasing the number of cells didn't work