Organisations are complex and social-technical and are held together with various structures. Likening the organisation to human structure, the corporate body is a metaphor we can use to symbolise the interconnectedness of different departments and roles.
The embodiment of an organisation is a way of thinking of organisational issues and designing strategies to managing problems by considering its interconnectedness. Our physical bodies are inherently unified through connective tissue called the fascial net. From a complexity perspective there is a warp and weft - a weave of lines of pull that become ingrained through growth and movement habits. This differs from the segmental, or biomechanical approach to anatomy where we focus on divisions – the disjointed skeleton, muscle and connective tissue components. Have you worked on organisational strategies in separate and linear faashion? That is the biomechanical approach.
The body is complex and so are the various parts of the corporate body - in how they interact and produce outcomes. Just like in the body, in the organisation we see lines of pull that became ingrained from habits developed through business processes and interactions. So if we approach strategy biomechanically, segment by segment, then we are parsing a seamless whole, applying levers where an interconnected matrix is the reality.
"The natural world and the interconnectedness in how BIG PICTURE works sit well together. Imagining the organisaton itself having a Birth Certificate as an entity interdependent with wonderful humans- your colleagues!
We love to embrace this in the 'damn good conversations' we have creating the conditions in which the most amazing connections can be made. It's only possible when the group themselves jump at the chance to do the 'heavy lifting' with a shared language."
Martin Johnson, Creator of BIG PICTURE®
The geometrical unity of fascia morphology means we are in continuous tension and we quickly leave Newtonian levers and vectors aside and instead think in terms of tensegrity. Buckminster Fuller’s tensegrity requires a balance of woven tensile forces through the structure (fascial) instead of the column and wall compressions (biomechanical). Our musculoskeletal system is a complex tensegrity structure and it is not a big stretch to see how complex organisations may in fact be held together through “lines of pull” that are not shown in the written organizational chart.
I am suggesting we look to our embodied wholeness to fully understand how to embody organizational design and harmonise organisations enabling organizational cross-functional collaboration and connection. If we shift our focus to the whole structure, embracing the intricacies of how different parts of the corporate body interact and influence each other then we begin to harmonise organisations - to better align the organisation's goals and values and create streamlined experiences for employees, customers, and stakeholders.
