Organisations as Living Systems (Margaret Wheatley)

 The approach of Jim McNeish at Cantle introduced me to the thinking of Margaret Wheatley, a friend of Jim’s.  In encountering Wheatley’s work in my commercial practice as I read Pierrette Fleutiaux’s novels in my academic research, I found two kindred spirits interested in what I came to term ‘living structure’.  This phrase encapsulates the needs human beings have to organise themselves, once a group reaches a certain scale, together with an implicit recognition that ‘non-living’ or dead structure – those of overly rigid/rational/outmoded logics – have a disenabling effect on human flourishing.

Long before the term VUCA became prevalent in business culture (VUCA refers to the dynamics of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity in the external world), Wheatley recognised the highly uncertain nature of the times (see Finding Our Way, 2001).  From her research in the ‘new sciences’, Wheatley observed that far from resembling the cog-in-a-wheel mechanistic structures underlying the Scientific Theory of Management, human organisations function in a way more akin to living systems found in nature – forest, the human body, cells.

While we are inspired by Wheatley’s work in many ways, the primary element which informs our own group work and our advisory work with leaders is her notion of the organisation as a living system, that orientates itself around Purpose (meaning/identity), Information, and Connectedness.  Together with Gawande’s work in healthcare and Fleutiaux’s stories of individuating human beings, this emphasis on the importance of connection, alongside meaning and information flow, answers some of the pressing questions of the moment: how do we thrive in a VUCA world, and how does a leader navigate the endless landscapes of chaos and complexity now home to themselves and their followers?