OGL 550 Organizations as Brains Morgan Ch. 4 Organizations as Brains Is it possible to design “learning organizations” that have the capacity

OGL 550

Organizations as
Brains
Morgan Ch. 4

Organizations as Brains

Is it possible to design “learning organizations” that have the capacity to be
flexile, resilient, and inventive as the functioning of the brain?

Is it possible to distribute capacities for intelligence and control throughout an
enterprise so that the system as a whole can self-organize and evolve along with
emerging challenges?

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Organizations as Brains

• Information processing brains

• Complex learning systems

• Holographic systems combining centralized and decentralized
characteristics

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Organizations as Information Processing Brains
• Organizations are information systems

• “the decision-making approach” – Herbert Simon and colleagues

• Electronic brain

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Creating Learning Organizations

v How can one design complex systems that are capable of learning in a brain-
like ways?

v Cybernetics
v Systems must have the capacity to sense , monitor, and scan significant aspects of their environment
v They must be able to relate this information to the operating norms that guide system behavior
v The must be able to detect significant deviations from these norms
v They must be able to initiate corrective action when discrepancies are detected

v Single loop learning
v Double loop learning

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Guidelines for Learning Organizations

• Scan and anticipate change in the wider environment to detect
significant variations.

• Develop an ability to question, challenge, and change operating norms
and assumptions.

• Allow an appropriate strategic direction and pattern of organization to
emerge.

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Organizations as Holographic Brains
• The metaphor of a hologram allow us to think of systems where qualities

of the whole are enfolded in all parts so that the system has an ability to
self-organize and regenerate itself on a continuous basis.
• Build the whole into all the parts
• The importance of redundancy
• Requisite variety
• Minimum specs
• Learning to learn

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Summary

“Leadership needs to be diffused rather than centralized; even though goals,
objectives, and targets may be helpful managerial tools, they must be used in a way
that avoids the pathologies of single-loop learning; goal seeking must be
accompanied by an awareness of the limits needed to avoid noxious outcomes;
and hierarchy, design, and strategic development must be approached and
understood as self-organizing, emergent phenomena” (p. 113)

Copyright © 2020 Arizona Board of Regents.

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