482.
Entropy and organisational focus
In
the previous item in this blog I discussed entropy. Here I apply it to the notion
of organisational focus. First, let me present a puzzle.
Nature
and society are full of so-called ‘complex adaptive systems’(CAS). Such a
system consists of subsystems that come together (‘complexity’) and produce new
functions, often spontaneously, in self-organisation. Neutrons, protons and electrons together
produce atoms, atoms come together in molecules, molecules in organs, organs in
bodies, bees in a colony, people in organisations, people and institutions in nations,
nations in supranational entities like the EU.
The
puzzle is this. Producing complexity seems to add things and thereby increase
entropy. But it also increases organization, which we associate with decreasing
entropy. How can this be? The solution is that in coming together, the
subsystems lose autonomy, are constrained to satisfy the coherence of the
higher level system, and that loss of freedom of manoevering constitutes lower
entropy.
I
connect this with the notion of ‘organisational focus’ that I developed in
research. To get things done, an organisation needs a certain focus, on shared
ideas about what it does, what its product is, the technologies needed for
producing it, the ways in which people treat each other, specialised jargon, organisational
culture.
In
other words, the focus is needed to not fall apart, to have a direction, in
other words to keep the increase of entropy at bay. The focus is narrow when
the organisation is directed at efficient production, which requires that
people understand each other well, at limited ‘cognitive distance’. The focus is wider when the organisation is
oriented more at innovation, which requires larger cognitive distance to produce
the ‘novel combinations’ of innovation. That initially increases entropy, with
more mental states, perspectives, but when successful new combinations are
made, with new things replacing old ones, entropy is decreased again.
Thus,
innovation can be seen as an alternation of rising and decreasing entropy, with
the rising entropy creating more innovative opportunity in the form of
diversity. A little chaos is needed to produce new organisation.
An
alternative is to seek the variety for novel combinations outside, in
collaboration between organisations, with different foci, in alliances. That,
however, is difficult, with the risk of breakdown, in a conflict of interests
and risk of misalignment and misunderstanding, with the break-up increasing disorganisation,
entropy again. To avoid that, the organisations
may come together, in a shared focus, a new CAS, constraining the action space
of the constituent organisations in a common order, reducing entropy.
A
final comment. In the literature on freedom, a distinction is made between two
forms of freedom: ‘negative’ freedom in the form of absence of outside constraint,
and ‘positive’ freedom, in the access to resources. In the integration in a
higher level system, the subsystems lose negative freedom, due to the
restrictions imposed by integration, but gain positive freedom, in access to
new functions.
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