Why do trees look like trees (and the relevance to Management)

Broadly speaking all trees from the same species look the same. For example we know what a Beech tree looks like and can recognise it as such. We know what a Poplar tree looks like, and can recognise it as a Poplar tree as distinct from a Beech tree. We also know that this is not an accident of over simplification or educational classification (that any tree that happens to look Beech tree shaped we call a Beech tree) because if we plant a seed from a Beech tree it will grow up to look like a Beech tree just as a Poplar seed will grow to look like a Poplar tree.

So there is something innate which makes each tree look like it does. Yet there is nothing within a Beech tree that tells it to look like a Beech tree, no central brain or blueprint or command point, yet every Beech tree looks like a Beech tree and every Poplar tree looks like a Poplar tree.

There is of course DNA that exists at a cellular level and influences each cell how to act, behave and react with its cellular neighbours but there is nothing that tells the overall tree structure that it needs to be 30 ft tall with a broad bough and sparsely toothed leaves other than the individual actions, interconnections, and emergence of the cells in its structure, yet all Beech trees look like Beech trees

The shape of a Beech tree is an emergent property, an output of many interactions at cellular level just as the shape of a Poplar tree is an emergent property of the interactions of cells that make the Poplar tree.

Organisations behave like organisms in respect that the shape of the organisation is not defined by any grand plan or design. A central plan may influence the shape or output of the organisation in the same way as a trees environment (type of soil, rainfall, wind conditions etc) may influence certain factors of a tree but would not stop a Beech tree being a Beech tree (other than to kill it). The output of an organisation is an emergent property of the cellular level programming that it contains, cellular level within a human organisation being the individual people forming continuously the shape of the organisation, and DNA programming being the thoughts, hopes, aspirations, desires, needs, fears and beliefs - values, of the people that make up that organisation.

The relevance to management.

If an organisation was a Beech tree and we decided that we no longer wanted it to be a Beech tree, and in fact we wanted to look like a Poplar tree because we believe that our organisation will function better in its environment as a Poplar tree, our first action as managers would be to recruit some consultants in who would advise us how to get our Beech tree to look like a Poplar tree and it would probably go something like this.

•    First, we would chop some of the lower branches off the tree and thin out the trunk as a Poplar tree has a long slender trunk and our Beech tree has a thick short trunk.

•    Then, attempt to bend the higher branches up, using some sort of contraption to ensure they don’t break during the process so that rather than the broad bough of the Beech tree we now have the slender profile of the Poplar tree.

•    Next, as we are companies, we would probably do something very clever with the leaves, inject them with some special paint, to make them look like Poplar leaves.

•    Having got to our desired ‘tree look’, we would place in a structure consisting of special stays to keep the branches bent like a Poplar tree and employ technicians to go round periodically and lop of branches that don’t look Poplar and keep the leaves as we desire.

•    Finally, we would wrap a management control system around the tree, the special stays and the Technicians in order to ensure that the process we have designed continues to function and keep our organisation looking like a Poplar tree.

But…..

New Branches will grow, as Beech branches not Poplar branches. Every year the new crop of leaves will look like Beech leaves not Poplar leaves (regardless of how long we keep trying to enforce the Poplar shape on the Beech tree). Over time the special stays will wear and break, the technicians and the management team will not keep on top of the ongoing maintenance through budget cuts and other distractions. Over Time Our Poplar tree will once again look like what it is, a Beech tree. Over time the DNA of the humans will over power the external influences which have hindered it’s ‘growth’.

The Complexity approach or thinking to change and organisations would seek to address the DNA level programming of the organisation (not address what the organisation looks like to Command our Beech tree to be a Poplar tree and Control how it behaves) through understanding the complex interactions of the people in the organisation, their beliefs, past experiences and future hopes, and how this shapes what they do and how they behave. Only through recognition that the shape of our organisation is an emergent property of these interactions will any long-term change be sustainable (and, by the way, it will also free from unnecessary cost & burden of management control systems).

Just as the only way to change a Beech tree into a Poplar tree is to Genetically modify the programming at a cellular level, the only way to change our organisation is to work at the cellular level with people, understanding their behavioural programming and acting upon that level information accordingly. Holistic thinking from the cellular level generates change led from the frontline. Creating a structure where the human feels valued, motivated and owns the tree (organisational product) will grow an organisation that will naturally and positively identify and respond to the need for change.


Mick Rogers
Performance & Improvement Manager