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Organizational Cholesterol:The Cardio-Thoracic System asa Metaphor for Organizational Innovation
Lindsay Collier I admit it - I’m a sucker for metaphors. I use them constantly to help my clients, and me, think more creatively about problems and opportunities. The stranger the metaphor is the better.Metaphors have the capability of providing you with complete shift in your thinking. Often the bestmetaphors are staring you right in the face or may even be closer than that. They may be a part of you. For example, why is an organization similar to a human body? And, since the body is a rather neat design, what are some ideas we might steal from it to better design an organization? Everyorgan and system within a body has within it the potential for a great metaphorical dialogue aboutnew organizational possibilities. They need to be held together by skeletal systems, they need to benourished, they must grow and reproduce, they need to learn, and their life systems need to besustained. Why not enhance our learning about these functions by using our own bodily functionsas metaphors?I recently had some un-invited experience and a first hand introduction to learn more about thecardio-thoracic system and found that this system had a tremendous number of commonalties to the process of pumping life into organizations. This system, very simply, involves the heart, lungs,arteries, and veins and works constantly to provide life to the body. Oxygenated blood is pumped by the heart through the arteries to the entire body and provides nourishment to cells. It is returnedto the lungs to pick up more oxygen and then back to the heart to start the cycle over again. Sounds pretty simple doesn’t it? Well, it is when everything is working right. What is the organizationalequivalent of the heart, the arteries, the lungs, the oxygen, and the cells? Organizations also need tohave life sustaining knowledge and creative ideas pumped through their bodies if they are tosurvive and prosper. So why not just emulate the way the cardio-thoracic system works and createits organizational equivalent?The system doesn’t always work perfectly. Somewhere this thing called
time
creeps in. Our bodies,and our organizations, tend to wear out over time. In the cardio-thoracic system the most common problem is the build-up of blockages in the arteries. The arteries transferring blood becomenarrowed with cholesterol deposits and may even become totally blocked. The body is designed sowell that, in many cases, small detour arteries are created around the obstruction. Organizationsalso do a pretty good job building new roads around blockages. Sooner or later though, these blockages will manifest themselves as pain when the system can’t get the blood flow it needs. Ittimes of high physical or mental stress the body calls for more oxygenated blood and the systemcan’t respond. The result might be pain, an attack, or a stroke.What is the organizational equivalent of cholesterol? How do organizations get around blockagesand what are the organizational equivalents of these blockages? When we can’t get things to flowthrough normal organizational arteries, what happens? And, what is the significance of this,especially relative to the long-term health of the enterprise?The main choices you have when there is significant enough blockage within the arteries to causeconcern are:
•
Live with the pain.
•
Displace, or remove, the blockage.
 
•
Create new roads around the blockage.
•
Slowly reverse what’s causing the blockage.
Living with the pain.
This pain is commonly referred to as
angina
and my guess is that there are a large number of  people who change their lifestyle, take medication, and live with this pain. This seems like a goodshort-term option but, unless there is a reversal of whatever is causing the pain in the first place,things will ultimately get worse. I know of many organizations that are living with angina pain -short-term solutions are always very popular in business. You usually don’t experience any pain if you don’ take risks, so just stay with in the comfort zone and everything will be okay for a while.The only problem is that no breakthrough ever comes from the comfort zone so, with this option, itlooks like you might be cashing in the future of the business.
Displace, or remove, the blockage.
The most common method to displace the blockage in the arteries is called
angioplasty
. This issuitable only in cases where the blockage is not too severe. A balloon is inflated within the artery atthe blockage site, the plaque is pushed against the artery wall, and a stint (something like a chainlink fence) is put in place to hold it there. What is the organizational equivalent of this? My guessis that there are many organizational development techniques designed to smash the blockageswithin organizations and push it out of site, in hopes that it never returns. Guess what? It returns!Sooner or later the blockage will again develop at the same site and probably at other sites as well.There are methods for removal with lasers and rotating blades (like a Roto-Rooter) that are lessdeveloped that might represent analogies to other organizational equivalents. Rather than justcrushing the blockage it is removed and absorbed by the system.
Creating new roads around the system
In this case, new arteries (borrowed from other parts of the body) are sewn in to by-pass areas of extreme blockage. This involves a major invasion of the body and a shutting down of the heart andlungs. A heart-lung machine carries out life functions during the operation. It’s a fairly long-termfix if the cause of the blockage is removed. There are hundreds of these operations performed eachday and, all things considered, there are a pretty good percentage of survivors. It is generallythought to be a pretty favorable option for getting a patient back to good health and it may also bea good option to get an organization back to good health. Here are a few questions to play with tostart your dialogue of returning your organization to health with a by-pass operation:1.Are the blockages severe enough to warrant something this invasive?2.What is the route you’ll take to get to the heart of the organization and what major skeletalwork must be done?3.What will you use for a heart-lung machine to keep the organization alive during theoperation?4.From where will you harvest new arteries for the by-pass?5.What are the things you need to do to help the organization recuperate from the operation?
Slowly reverse what’s causing the problem.
All the options so far suffer from a similar problem. If nothing is done to reverse what caused the problem in the first place it will return. Each successive method just gives you a little more time. Insituations where the blockages are not severe, many think that the best option is a dramatic shift in
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