A recommended book about system thinking is the textbook ‘the systems view of life’ by Fritjof Capra and Pier Luigi Luisi. It is a quite enlightening read. One of the topics addressed in the books is emergence. In complex systems, emergence occurs when an entity is observed to have properties its parts do not have on their own. And the point made by the authors is that organisations need to have both at the same time and established formal organisation, and an informal emerging one.
“Human organisations always contain both designed and emergent structures. The designed structures, as described in its official documents. Ther emergent structures are created by the organisation’s informal networks and communities of practice. The two types of structures are very different, and organisations need both kinds.”
The future of the organisation is generated by the tension between both types of organisation. “In every organisation there is a tension between its designed structures, which embody relationships of power, and its emergent structures, which represent the organisation’s aliveness and creativity.”
While I have always observed the importance of the informal organisation for the formal to work properly, the new point here is to see it also as part of the emergence. And this also means that somehow, the informal organisation is in some ways the draft of the future organisation.
How is your emerging informal organisation doing? Can we accelerate transformation by leveraging on this informal organisational emergence?
