Designing companies to behave like machines doesn't make sense

I just recently started exploring 'The Connected Company'. A topic which is being explored by Dave Gray and others. It evolves around the notion that company building based upon 'machinery design' isn't sustainable. Basically it's one of the reasons that today a the average life expectancy of a company is less than 15 years. Around 1937, that was 75 years!

So clearly our world is evolving (no shit sherlock..) and company building needs to adapt in order to cope with these changes.

Luckily most of us are living in the most adaptable systems ourselves. Called nature and your city.

The difference on an abstract level is pretty easy. Machines only work with active humanized input and control. Whereas organisms are unpredictable and complex systems constantly adapting and reacting on what's happening around them.

A city doesn't have a central planning like most companies have. But cities are more complex and way more productive than most of the companies we know. Research has shown that when people are added to a city it actually becomes more productive and lively. However when we add people to a company, productivity drops.

I'm happy to see that this topic looks to be closely related to the lean startup philosophy as it embraces change and agility in big companies. The forthcoming knowledge on this topic will be interesting to all current startups.

My forthcoming posts on this topic will be about the charactaristics of existing companies, what it means for startups and above all what we can learn from it.

For now take the time to watch this promotional item from the BBC for the series 'The Secret Life of Chaos'. It gives a good sense on how chaos and order are unpredictable and both live right within the same systems.

It blew my mind.