Few days ago I've tweeted this loud statement. But it was not a provocation at all. I truly believe in this.
RenDanHeyi?
We've discovered this model recently while working on #OrgTopologies with co-author Roland Flemm.
RenDanHeyi is big. But have you heard of it before? It is the way Haier (a Chinese manufacturer of white goods) has been operating for a while now.
What's very interesting for us, researches of better org design models, is that the whole company of 70.000 employees consists of 4.000 what they call micro-enterprises (or micro-communities). Each of this MEs runs its business with a very proximity to the customers. They call it zero distance.
This is beyond any self-management that we are still trying to embrace in our "agile space". This is self-governance. And it has proven to be very successful, as Haier's growth has been unprecedented, even in the times of Covid-19 pandemic in China.
Quantum Management?
And another find that was an eye-opener for us is the theory of Quantum Management by Dahar Zohar. QM is a very much philosophical view on the way companies like Haier operate.
Quantum Management contrasts itself with the old school of management thought: Newtonian model and Taylorian views on work practices. In the old school, management believes they are smart enough to keep predicting the future and coming up with sound business strategies. Probably, that worked some 100–300 years ago, where the things were way slower. But now these days of speed changes and regular societal storms.
In the quantum realm, you believe that everything interconnected, there is no separate witness and the only way to make an organization function is to decentralize the power. Thus, putting all your trust in the hands of intelligence of complex adaptive system. Yes, from the viewpoint of QM, an organization is not just a system, but an intelligent living system that is capable of adapting.
That is a profound development of the system's thinking ideas of the 70s.
How exciting!