Hey folks! Great thoughts and discussions on hierarchies and networks!
Wonderful thread!
Ram mentioned that organizations today are NOT hierarchies but networks...
actually hierarchies ARE networks, they are formally known as TREES.
Hierarchies are prescribed/authorized networks, whereas when people refer
to networks they are usually talking about emergent/self-organizing
groups/clusters/structures.
As long as the prescribed and emergent structures in organizations
recognize/adapt to/learn from each other the organization should do fine.
The emergent and prescribed are very interdependent. Many seers say we
are moving from an hierarchical world to a networked world, with
hierarchies going away. IMHO, we are moving from a predominately
hierarchical world to one in which we have hierarchies AND networks -- the
two species will coexist and more important, coevolve! So the world will
be more networked, but hierarchies will not go away -- they just won't
dominate the way they have in the past.
David's comments about the systems view/complexity theory vs. the 'clean
slate' view of most BPR were superb -- right on the money!
--Valdis Krebs Krebs & Associates Los Angeles, CA
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>