This begins a sequence of posts which describe Karl Weick’s picture of change. Weick has formulated a theory of social organization that is, I believe, highly informative to the processes, principles and values associated with organizational agility. Hence, I shall unfold Weick’s theory in a series of posts, all the while making every attempt to relate aspects of that theory to the notion of beauty and agility in organizations.

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We begin by distinguishing an evolutionary model of human behavior and change, based on Donald T. Campbell. Very roughly speaking, the evolutionary process requires (a)variations (e.g. mutation, trial, experiment, etc.); (b) a selection process by which certain variations are favored and incorporated, and; (c) a retention system that rigidly retains the selected variations.

It should be noted that every mutation (variation) constitutes a failure in the reproduction of a previously selected form. As Campbell notes, “too high a mutation rate jeopardizes the preservation of already achieved adaptations.” If mutation rate is too high, then the system disintegrates. So, it pays for systems, particular elaborate ones (like human organizations), to snuff out too much variation.

What this means, however, is that what gets preserved are the adaptive traits of an environment long since passed. That is, the organization has retained an adaptation from the past, not from the present. This can be a fatal problem (think of the duck-billed platypus, or of any number of Good-to-Great companies currently in trouble). Hence the phrase: Adaptation is the enemy of adapting.

This suggests that moderate rates of mutation (variation) are necessary for evolutionary advantage and, hence, survival. This can be very hard to do in human organizations, particularly those that have been, or are, successful. Success is a powerful force in the retention part of the process. It is important to see that Retention systems are not merely repositories for the various rules, heuristics, and practices that have been selected. Retention systems affect subsequent actions, both in terms of Variation and of Selection.

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Let’s explore this last point in a bit more depth, since it brings us closer to the core of what we want to see here.

Consider the following picture:

First notice the use of the term ‘Enactment‘ in the place of the previous term ‘Variation.’ The term ‘enactment’ is more appropriate for human social systems since it more accurately depicts what is actually happening: that human beings themselves bring about the ‘variations’, in evolutionary terms, which define the process of organizing.

Enactment occurs, always, with regard to an ecological stream or event. As human beings we almost never deal directly with raw ecological data. By taking this action, or giving that aspect of data our attention, we are effectively filtering it, and chunking it, by which means we discern discrete events and situations.

Now, you may ask, what is the point of all this filtering and chunking? The point is to reduce equivocality. In fact, this is the point of much of what is done in organizations: reducing equivocality. Now, equivocality is not necessarily the same as ‘chaos’ or ‘noise,’ though it might look like that sometimes. Equivocality has more of the feeling of an unresolved ‘pun’ (read more about organizational equivocality here)

Selection brings about further filtration of the enacted information, some subset of whose results are ‘retained‘ by the organization. What is retained comes to form, over time, the technological, operational, and cultural systems by which the organization comes to accomplish its goals and by which it comes to identify itself. Those systems form the foundation upon which further Enactment and Selection are carried out within the organization.

It is by virtue of this feedback that organizational memory (retention) exerts its powerful influence over the processes by which organizations and people learn (or don’t), and hence the capacity for adaptability (or lack of it).

The ‘+’ and ‘-’ signs have a special meaning. ‘+’ indicates a positive force–the more of one thing engenders more of the other. ‘-’ indicates a negative force–the less of the one thing engenders more of the other, and vice versa. So for example, the stronger the Enactment of raw ecological data (i.e. the more narrowly defining the attention given to it, and the chunking applied to it), the stronger and more narrowly defining will be the Selection made. By the same token, the stronger and more narrowly defining the Selection process, stronger and more narrowly constraining will be the Retention process.

Feedback introduces a special property of any system, including this one. Consider the following example:


Two elements are in a feedback relation. The first set defines a positive feedback loop, while the second defines a negative one. In the first case, an increase in A will cause an increase in B, which in turn will cause an increase in A, etc., until the whole thing blows up. In the second case, a decrease in A will reinforce a decrease in B, and so on, resulting eventually in the disappearance of both.

Both of these loops are referred to in Systems Theory as reinforcing loops. In social systems, however, they are referred to as deviance amplification loops, since they amplify any deviance that appears. You can quickly assess whether a given loop is a reinforcing loop, since they will always have an even number of ‘-’ signs (0, 2, 4, etc.). In the loops above, sure enough, there are even numbers of ‘-’s.

Now consider the following contrasting loop:



This loop has one ‘+’ and one ‘-’. Such loops are referred to as ‘Balancing loops’, since the number of ‘+’s and ‘-’s balance each other out. In the above loop, more of A will result in more of B, which in turn will result in less of A, and so on–a ‘balancing’ loop. Balancing loops can be easily discerned by noting that the number of ‘-’s will always be odd. Balancing loops define systems that tend to reach equilibrium and not blow up, as reinforcing loops will do.

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Returning to our depiction of Enactment….

The ‘+/-’ in the feedback from Retention to Enactment and Selection indicates that there can be either positive or negative feedback. In organizing systems, negative feedback between Retention and Enactment/Selection indicate the presence of organizational ‘doubt’ or of organizational ‘forgetting.’ By contrast, positive feedback indicate the presence of strong ‘confidence’ and of organizational ‘remembering.’

Most organizations have bountiful confidence and remembering, and a dirth of doubt. Most managers are ever-concerned about ‘forgetting’ things, and hence manage the design of systems to intensify remembering. These systems not only introduce tremendous waste–the enforced remembering they induce engender entrenchment and organizational inflexibility.

Karl Weick maintains that it is more likely that organizations fail, not because they forget, but precisely because they remember too much for too long, and hence persist in doing the things they have always done, how they have always done them, regardless of how long it has been since the environment actually called for doing things that way (remember the duck-billed platypus).

A balance of confidence and doubt, of remembering and forgetting, engenders a healthy balance of retention and genuine learning, and hence of organizational adaptability.

More on all of this in coming posts.

Karl E. Weick, The Social Psychology of Organizing, 2nd Edition, 1979.

Posted in: Self-organization, Change & Development by admin on Saturday, July 26th, 2008

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