Aggregation Promotes Simplification?

Posted by Parks, Raymond on Jun 07, 2004; 9:46am
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/Aggregation-Promotes-Simplification-tp519402p519405.html

Owen Densmore wrote:
> Thinking about how organizations appear to be more error prone (read
> idiotic) as they grow in size

   Here's where we disagree - I believe that organizations of any size
become more error prone with age.  As organizations age, the behaviours
that provided enough success to allow the birth of the organization
become more and more inappropriate to the changing environment.
Eventually, if the organization does not adapt, it will die.  A very few
organizations are capable of evolutionary adaptation to changes in the
environment, gradually changing without major trauma to the organization
or the individuals that form it.  Some organizations manage to achieve
revolutionary adaptation to changes in the environment, following a
cycle of gradually increasing inappropriate behaviour, a major
reorganization and adoption of new behaviours and then starting the
cycle again.  This type of organization is more traumatic to itself and
its component individuals and may, eventually, die in one of the
revolutions.  Many organizations never adapt and eventually either cause
enough irritation of the environment so as to be terminated or become
irrelevant and ignored.  Organizations can change from one type to
another over time and the line between the types is blurred.
   An example of the first type of organization is the United States'
Federal government as specified in the Constitution.  The initial
behaviour of that organization would not be appropriate to its current
environment and has evolved over the last 215 years.  One might argue
that the current behaviour is inappropriate, but that would be mistaking
  the immediate with the overall behaviour.  Evolutionarily adapting
organizations also follow a cycle of increasingly inappropriate
behaviour ending with the evolutionary adaptation.  The level of
dissonance with the environment is smaller at its peak than the cycle of
revolutionary adapting organizations.  The US slipped briefly into
revolutionary adaptation during the War Between the States and Prohibition.
   For an example of a revolutionary adapting organization that seems to
have achieved evolutionary adaptation, look at the governments of most
European countries.  These have a longer history than the United States
of revolutionary adaptation (empire - feudalism - empire - parliamentary
democracy).  For the last 50-plus years they have exhibited evolutionary
adaptation.
   My own organization, Sandia National Laboratories, shows some of the
fossilization of age but has managed evolutionary adaptation.  At least
we haven't had massive layoffs of nuclear weapon engineers in favor of
information technologists.  In part this is attributable to a skunkworks
corporate culture with a can-do attitude.  Another reason that Sandia
has manage to evolve rather than revolt is diversification.  This latter
actually argues against your size point - larger organizations can be
more diverse which allows a greater range of behaviours and more ability
to adapt.  In recent years, the dissonance with our environment has
increased.  I attribute this increase to the increasing intrusion of
government bureaucracy into an organization that has always worked in a
skunkworks mode.
   Organizational size plays a much smaller role in failure to adapt to
the environment than does age.  Greater size can help by allowing
greater diversity of behaviour.  Smaller size makes adaptation less
traumatic to the organization in that fewer individuals need to change.
  Age is the key, however, since it is only over time that
organizational behaviour becomes inappropriate to its environment.

--
Ray Parks                   [hidden email]
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