Fedepoiesis Fundamental Nature of the Human Organization

Doug McDavid
I have already realized I need two significant upgrades to the current draft. One is
that I failed to properly describe the the underlying power behind the structure of
roles and the process of endless federation. That power stems from the motive of
desire, which then can be further explored through Maslow's hierarchy and Bastiat's
"enumeration" of "human wants" -- "Respiration ... Food--Clothing--Lodging-Preservation or Re-establishment of Health--Locomotion--Security--Instruction-Diversion--Sense of the Beautiful". This all needs to be mentioned as the interface
between the biological/psychological person level and the organizational level
(similar to the interface from physics to chemistry, and from chemistry to biology)
claude frdric bastiat, The Bastiat Collection, Auburn, Alabama, Ludwig von Mises
Institute, 2011, p. 487
The other thing I realized is that I need to be a lot clearer about the "federation" as
merger of autonomies. In this way this subject differs from cell-to-organ, organ-toorganism, because of the autonomy of human and organization.

Introduction
This paper provides a contribution the understanding of human social systems (that
is to say, organizations). It challenges a purely mechanistic view of human
organizations, and it challenges a purely organic view of human organizations, as
well.
Together we will explore a viewpoint that balances the intentional creation and the
natural growth of organizations. We will focus on an understanding that the human
organization is the only type of system we know that is both allopoietic and
autopoietic. We will discuss the micro-architecture of organizations in terms of the
primitive concepts of role, role-player, role-set and role-net. We will talk about
organizations as a hybrid form of life that flourishes everywhere we find human
beings. And we will discuss birth, death, maturation, and evolution of organizations.
This paper was written with several audiences in mind. In recent years the fledgling
disciplines of enterprise architecture and business architecture have begun to
emerge. This paper addresses 1) the question of what an organization is, such that
it might have architecture, and 2) hopes to make a contribution to what such
architecture might look like. This perspective is also recommended to all those who
work with organizations via consulting and information technology interventions.
And this viewpoint can also provide insight for business leaders of all kinds, helping
them understand the true nature of the organizations they deal with on a daily basis.
Purpose
There is a widespread perception and belief that human organizations fall into a
category of some kind of man-made mechanism. At the same time, there are many
people who have an organic view of human organizations. There are people who talk
about socio-technical systems, or socio-technological systems. We observe
fragmented approaches that treat specific problems without due consideration of
organizations as unified entities. We see people with hammers in overly focused
search for nails.

The fact is that human life, as we know it, seems nearly 100% embedded within and
among groups of people. The lone hermit, the feral child, the persistent recluse exist
as the very rare exceptions that prove the rule, and are interesting exactly because
of their rarity. Yet in spite of almost total ubiquity, human groups, organizations, or
organizations present tremendous challenges to human understanding. Perhaps this
is like the fish who wondered, What the heck is water? since hed never known life
outside the pond. Were so completely immersed in and among organizational
affiliations that its hard to get enough distance to have a clear sense of the nature of
this medium in which we swim.
In spite of their pervasiveness, its worth asking whether anything can be more
important than truly understanding the phenomenon of human beings in groups?
Can we think of anything more influential on the planet than the organizations that
have allowed one species to dominate the environment, including all other life forms?
Our purpose is not to focus on the problems that were all familiar with (climate
change, sustainability, wars, famine, and pestilence). Instead, our purpose here is
to raise the questions of how human organizations come into being, how they live
and die, and what implications we can draw from this understanding.
The problem
The biggest observable problem among practitioners of intervention into human
organizations is the almost total reliance on metaphor and analogy. In spite of
several decades of evidence to the contrary, software architects, enterprise
architects, and business architects persist in comparing what they need to do with
what building architects do and what hardware architects do.
Possibly this is because human organizations are intrinsically invisible, and only
available to the senses through physical manifestations they enact. Organizations
erect towering headquarters skyscrapers, highway billboards, advertising delivered
via print and electronic media, uniforms, insignia, tattoos and distinctive hairstyles of
members, etc., all in the quest to call attention to themselves, the services they
offer, and the opportunities to join.
We intend to delve into the actuality of organizational structures and behaviors
directly. Not metaphorically, but in terms that are unique to the subject at hand.
We provide thinking tools to understand these questions in consistent, rigorous, and
useful terms. We are aiming this purposeful, common set of concepts and terms
toward people who work directly with human organizations. We intend for this to
provide a basis for comparison, reconciliation, and integration of techniques,
methods, and tools that people use to make interventions into the fabric of human
organizations.
Living systems
A starting point for this investigation is the notion that human organizations
constitute a special class of living system. It is not our purpose here to introduce
any particular definition of system, other than this: "a set of interrelated elements"
(Franois, 1997). This definition, by the way, is attributed to Ludwig von Bertalanffy
in 1956 and Russ Ackoff in 1972.
We focus here on the living characteristics of systems. Perhaps the clearest, most
concise descriptions of what it actually means to be living was advanced by
Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela, two Chilean biologists, via the term
autopoiesis. They said, the notion of autopoiesis is necessary and sufficient to
characterize the organization of living systems. Thus, according to Maturana and
Varela, all living systems are autopoietic, and all autopoietic systems are living.
Their formal definition of autopoiesis is:

An autopoietic machine is a machine organized (defined as a unity) as a network

of processes of production (transformation and destruction) of components that
produces the components which: (i) through their interactions and
transformations continuously regenerate and realize the network of processes
(relations) that produced them; and (ii) constitute it (the machine) as a concrete
unity in the space in which they (the components) exist by specifying the
topological domain of its realization as such a network.
In some ways it is easy to see how human organizations meet this set of criteria. A
fair amount of literature contends that human organizations are living (even though
Maturana and Varela themselves were actually divided on this question). Stafford
Beer declared himself to be on the positive side of this question in his preface to the
1973 essay "Autopoiesis, The Organization of the Living" published as the second
half of the book Autopoiesis and Cognition (Maturana and Varela, 1980).
In essence, the definition quoted above says that an autopoietic system produces the
components that make up the system, and that the interactions of those components
in turn self-create the system as an entity.
There are important aspects of human organizations that seem to comport well with
the formal definition of autopoiesis, and other aspects that do not. This definition
states that the system in question continuously creates itself through the interactions
among a set of components. The biologists, Maturana and Varela, cite the cell as an
example of what it means to be autopoietic1, and the human being, where cells are
its components, to be another example of what it means to be autopoietic. However,
it is hard to make that case for human organizations, if we think that the
components of such systems are human beings.
This points to two fundamental challenges in comparing human organizations to
physical, biological systems (as well as the living organizations of other species). The
first challenge is the issue of the dedication of components to the larger entity. In
the case of biological organisms, cells are fully contained, completely dedicated
components of the system. In the case of organizations of non-human species,
Maturana says: The society of bees is an example of a third order self-referring
system. A cell in an organism is fully dedicated to, and physically embedded in,
that organism. This is not the situation for a human being in relation to an
organization. Likewise, a beehive is not a good model for human organizations.
Bees dont divide their time among the hive, a job, the PTA, and the Rotary Club in
the way people in the 21st Century typically hold memberships in multiple
organizations at the same time.
The second challenge stems from the insight that autopoietic systems create their
own components. But what are the components of a human organization? An
immediate, intuitive answer might be that a component of a human organization is a
person. However, a slightly deeper look brings the realization that this answer
doesnt actually satisfy the condition. Yes, it is relatively meaningful to say that the
family, as an organization, may create its members, human beings, who could be
seen as its components. But a corporation does not create human beings. Nor does
the church, the military, the government, the university, or any other human
organization. And even the family, through adoption, and even through marriage,

The production of constitutive relations through the production of the components that hold these
relations is one of the defining dimensions of an autopoietic system. In the cell such constitutive relations
are established through the production of molecules (proteins, lipids, carbohydrates and nucleic acids)
which determine the topology of the relations of production in general. Maturana and Varela, 1980, p. 91

does not really create all of its components, if its components are considered to be
complete human beings.
These two challenges suggest that a complete individual human being should not be
regarded as a component of a human organization. Yet we hope to show that in a
very real sense (and more importantly, a very useful sense) the living view of
organizations is not wrong. It is the intent of this paper to outline the structures and
mechanisms that give rise to systems that exhibit characteristics of life, even though
they themselves are not biological. We are going to take this assertion as the basis
for undertaking a formulation of the human organization, modeled to some extent on
the notion of autopoiesis.
Memes
As a preliminary step along the way, it helps to introduce the concept the meme. The
meme is one of two kinds of replicators (genes and memes) that execute the
evolutionary algorithm of universal Darwinism. That algorithm holds that, over time,
within a large population of replicators, those that produce more surviving offspring
leave lines of descendents better adapted to the environment (Dennett, 1995).
Richard Dawkins first introduced the idea of the meme in his book The Selfish Gene
(Dawkins, 1989). His thesis is that the gene is the basic unit of evolution, and the
propagator of change and variation. The successful gene is the one that has
characteristics (fidelity, fecundity and longevity) that make it successful in the
competition to replicate. Memes, on the other hand, are ideas or behaviors that also
have the ability to replicate themselves, to change over time and to reproduce
changed forms in a kind of cultural evolution. The successful meme is the one that
has characteristics (fidelity, fecundity and longevity) that make it successful in the
competition to replicate. Memetic theorists base the operation of memes on the
observation that human beings, of all species, exhibit the most pronounced
propensity for imitation (Blackmore, 1999).
Commit-meme
We postulate a particular type of meme called the commit-meme. A commit-meme
carries a unit of commitment on the part of one person to another person or to some
human organization. Like all memes, the commit-meme stimulates imitation of
behaviors associated with commitment. Commit-memes may merely transmit
mental intent, or maybe even an illusion of commitment. They become powerful
externalized in some way: verbally, physically in the form of text, electronically in
the form of computer records, or even as a meaningful glance or gesture. Textual
and electronic representations of commit-memes provide fidelity and longevity,
which are two of the characteristics of successful replicators.
Once the commit-meme has become incorporated into a persons thoughts and
behaviors, it increases its survival potential if it does two things: 1. it brings
additional parties into similar commitments, and 2. expands the set of related
commitments so as to dominate more of the attention of all hosting individuals.
Agreements
The replicating power of a commit-meme increases as it externalizes in the form of
verbal or recorded agreements. An example of an agreement might be a person
asking a stranger for a favor. We can observe the eye contact and subtle movement
of head or hand that lets another motorist merge in traffic. Other examples include
terms and conditions of business contracts and clauses in laws and regulations.
Even the most atomic agreement, as a unit of social organization, always involves
some part of the external world - that is, some thing of interest to the parties who
participate in it. In other words, this thing would answer the question, "What is this

agreement about? It may be your suitcase that Ive committed to watch while you
go get a cup of coffee in the airport, or it may be the space in the flow of traffic that
I invite you to occupy in front of me.
The concept of agreement permeates the human organization. Agreements can be
informal, such as the proverbial handshake agreement, and they can be very
formal in the form of legal contracts of all kinds. The minimalist agreement, at the
moment when human beings go from me to we, as discussed in conversations
with Tom Graves (Graves, 2014). There are special kinds of formative
agreements, such as charters, constitutions, by-laws, which declare the very
existence and initial aspects of the organization.
The universe of agreements leads us straight into an exploration of roles and sets of
roles. This includes those agreements that are formalized in the form of contracts.
Think of the language that talks about the party of the first part, and hereinafter
called, etc. These are very formalized roles, but as well see, that is just the tip of
the iceberg.
Roles
By exploring the complex dimensions of roles, we are beginning to articulate a
primitive micro-architecture of the living aspect of organizations the organizational
analog of autopoiesis. Remember, the problem here is to account for how
organizations create their components, given the twin issues that persons are not
fully dedicated to one organization, and organizations do not actually create persons.
Since a person cannot be designated as the component of a human organization,
what can be so designated?
A straightforward statement on this topic can be found in a 50-year-old writing. In
his book The Image, Kenneth Boulding proposes the following: An organization
might almost be defined as a structure of roles tied together with lines of
communication. The cellular units of organization are not men, but, as it were, parts
of men, men acting in a certain role. (Boulding, 1961) Aside from the datedsounding use of the masculine pronoun as gender-neutral, this quote leads in the
right direction.
In an attempt to be as clear as possible, we will introduce some new terminology.
This not intended to be confusing or intimidating, but rather to emphasize that what
you read here may not be the concepts that you may have already associated with
well-known English words.
Role-def
We start here with a new term role-def, which simply means the definition of a role
that someone can agree to adhere to. So when Boulding talks about a structure of
roles, this needs to start with the definitions of the roles themselves.
At the heart of the notion of a role-def is a relationship (commitment, agreement,
contract, etc.) between one human being and other human beings, or between one
organization and other organizations. A role-def implies a set of responsibilities for
delivering results in terms of services, and is characterized by abilities that enable it
to be matched with potential role-players who possess those characteristics. This
essentially means that a role-def embodies a commit-meme that will inhabit those
who accept the commitment.
A key point is that a role-def may be explicit (e.g. a written job description) but also
contain implicit or tacit expectations. In many cases the role-def is entirely tacit,
and only discovered through experience in practice. The role-def, especially
involving tacit expectations, may evolve over time in response to evolving situations.

What happens in these common cases involves co-creation of expectations by

serving and receiving role-players.
Role-player
We are, of course, familiar with the term role-player from the theater and gaming
worlds. Here, the term role-player simply denotes a person who is committed to the
expectations defined by a role-def.
Role-set
As we look more closely at roles it becomes clear that roles tend to cluster around
common themes. We give the name role-set to this clustering, so that we can talk
about this pattern of organization structure.
A role-set generally forms around a thing or class of things in the world. For
example, project management for a particular project may require the role
responsible for matching skills to units of work to be done, the role responsible for
estimating time to do units of work, and the role responsible for determining
dependencies of work units on the results of other work units. The existence of this
role-set does not necessarily mean that the individual roles all need to be played by
the same person; just that for a particular situation, the full role-set is required.
However, when multiple people are involved in a role-set, this also gives rise to a
role-net, as discussed below.
A common business role-set consists of conditions of employment. For example, the
agreement might be that you cant work here and simultaneously work for another
company. Or you can, but never for a competitor. In these cases we see constraints
that make certain sets of roles acceptable and other sets discouraged or forbidden.
Certain combinations of roles in a role-set introduce tension because of conflicting
interests. Being an employee of a company and a member of a labor union can
exert conflicting forces on the role-player. Playing roles in an industry and within a
regulator of that industry can introduce conflicts of interest.
Role-net
Roles and role-sets naturally become attracted into complexes of commitments that
bind people together in purposeful ways. A role-net has the property of attracting
or generating new role-players. This is driven by the replicating nature of commitmemes, where each additional increment of commitment reinforces and justifies the
claim of the existing complex on the mindshare of its role-players.
The role-net forms the nucleus of a human organization. It is composed of the
relationships among roles and role-sets. Role-nets can proliferate in arbitrary
complexity, as role-nets become integrated with other role-nets.
A role-net, like a role-set, generally forms around a thing or class of things in the
world. A certain part or assembly in a manufacturing operation may instigate a roleset that involves individuals playing design roles, engineering roles, etc.
We can see that the role-net is the component of the human organization that weve
been looking for. We will see how a collection of role-nets becomes, through their
interaction, the living human organization. We can also see how, through the
replicating power of the meme, the human organization creates its components, the
role-nets.
What is the mechanism that causes this replication ability (the fecundity of the rolenet)? The foundation of any agreement is some human motivation, which can be a
survival mechanism, coercion, pursuit of pleasure, etc. Shared motivation forms the
basis for agreements, from the role-set on up. Role-nets compete with each other

for mindshare of their human hosts, which are subject to finite time, as well as the
manifold set of time demands imposed on the human organism.
A number of interlocking role-nets have given rise to the level of interrelated
components that can sustain itself in a self-referential manner indefinitely. The rolenets create the organization, and the organization creates new roles and role-nets,
and it attracts role-players.
Role replication
We dont need a special term for this, but we simply recognize that certain types of
organizations require certain role structures (sets and nets) in various quantities. An
ancient example is quoted here (Wikipedia, 22 November 2014):
A Roman legion comprised ten cohorts, known simply as "the first cohort",
"the second cohort" etc. The commanding officer of the First Cohort, the
Primus Pilus or Senior Centurion, was the ranking Centurion in a legion. This
cohort also carried the legion's standard and the legionary Eagle into battle
and, as a result, the cohort was considered to be the most senior and
prestigious.
A cohort consisted of approximately 480 men under the command of one
man. It consisted of six centuriae of 80 men, each commanded by a centurion
assisted by junior officers.
Here we see replicated roles of Centurion, Senior Centurion, junior officer, and
legionaries (here just called men). We find similar structures, with varying degrees
of formality and expectation everywhere we look throughout human organizations of
every description,
Role variety
Once we start to look deeply into the phenomenon of roles, role-sets, and role-nets,
it becomes apparent that there is real explanatory and analytic power that
contributes to understanding the forces at play in the formation and maintenance of
human organizations. The following section just touches on the areas of explanation
that open up from this perspective.
One thing to consider is the basis of a structure of organizational roles.

Ownership A set of roles cluster around the role-set of, say, a homeowner,
requiring some accountability to the property itself, a bank, perhaps, the
neighbors, etc. A much more complex role-set swirls around business
ownership, with responsibilities to the business itself, clients, suppliers,
community, etc., etc. This kind of role-set becomes a role-net as well, as
soon as there is an ownership group beyond a single owner-founder or sole
trader (solopreneur).

Stewardship The stewardship role structure requires a kind of solicitous

accountability toward the asset being stewarded. A park ranger, for
instance, takes on a daunting role-set of commitments to guard a complex
socio-ecological geography. A sheepherder essentially commits to a role-set
that puts the role-player in a service-provider position vis--vis a stable
group of domesticated animals. Religious leaders generally assume a
stewardship role-set. Academics find themselves guarding a well-bounded
knowledge asset. Jane Jacobs explores implications of a moral syndrome
embedded in this guardianship role-set (Jacobs, 1993).

Leadership The role-sets of leadership by their very nature imply role-nets

with multiple players.

Agency The role-sets of agency provide for the role-player to act on behalf
of another role-player. Without a role-net to that effect, there can be no on
behalf.

Employment The employment role-sets constitute one of the most

common and widely recognized examples of the concept of roles. Everyone
recognizes the existence of the role-def of a job. Depending on that actual
role-def, which typically involves a job description, the role-sets are
specified, and role-nets in terms of who works together are generally
specified as well.

Familial Family role-sets constitute another of the most familiar, and

ancient arguably more familiar even than job descriptions. The actual
role-defs vary greatly, and largely in cultural context, such that parental
roles, for instance, are quite diverse. One particularly interesting situation
occurs within family businesses, where familial role structures intersect with
business role structures.

Tribal Tribal role structures include ethnic, political, religious, and other
cultural factors at their base. Some of these structures line up in
complementary sets, as in a clergy role-set that includes working and tribal
practices. Sometimes these conflict to greater or lesser degrees with nontribal role patterns, based on incompatible commit-memes.

Personal attraction One way to talk about this basis for role-set and rolenet formation might be to call it charisma-based. Personal admiration,
sexual attraction, and even friendship, can be the basis for voluntary or
business role assumption.

Intellectual Role-defs based on intellectual disciplines or field of study can

create a common basis for role-players to align with academic institutions,
as teachers and learners. These disciplines then carry over to the
workplace, as practitioners of various types find themselves involved with
role-sets that include corporate commitments and professional
commitments.

When we look closely we can see that role structures conform to various governance
modes, for lack of a better term.

Prestructured A formal job description illustrates the typical prestructured

role-set. Similarly, learner roles in many educational institutions have a lot
of specified structure.

Negotiated Some role-def situations allow negotiation in the opening

stages of a relationship. Examples include contractor and consulting
relationships with business entities. Some role-defs remain in a negotiated
state for their duration. Negotiating and renegotiating roles lies at the heart
of Steve Haeckels adaptive enterprise prescription, for instance (Haeckel,
1999)

Situational In times of great stress role structures emerge seemingly out

of nowhere. Yet, there seem to be patterns of these situational structures,
such as the well-known neighbor helping neighbor pattern. Sometimes role
structures appear in an opportunistic manner, as when a newsworthy event
provides motivation for souvenir markets. Sometimes there are roles that
form around the bricolage situation, where role-sets and role-nets form in
order to make use of whatever is readily at hand. And, of course, fluid role
structures form and morph constantly in the realm of improvisation,
exemplified by jazz musicians, within role-sets of musicianship.

Imposed One (very complex) role that is imposed on each of us, before
were even born is the role of citizenship. Royal families are born into even
more complex and all-encompassing role-sets. Once in the military,
personnel are subject to orders that impose roles upon them. Mandatory
education rules impose student roles on young people up to a certain age.
Role imposition can be in reverse, as well, meaning that, based on any
number of factors, certain people are excluded from serving in various roles.

Legal Certain roles, even if voluntarily assumed, impose legal restrictions

and/or requirements upon the role-player.

Permissive A permissive role grants a significant degree of latitude in its

performance.

Empowered An empowered role is granted decision-making and resource

allocation authority, with a promise that the organization will stand behind
the role-player in the exercise of these powers.

Taking on a role has various kinds of implications for the role-player. The kinds of
implications include

Expectations Once a person becomes a role-player, there may be any

number of expectations triggered in the minds of other people. These have
to do with the services to be performed within that role, and essentially all
the aspects of the role-def.

Responsibility Not only are there expectations of performance, but, based

on the governance mode, the level of responsibility may, for instance, lead
to sanctions for non-performance, etc.

Commitment Assuming a role implies that the role-player is committed to

everything stipulated by the role-def

Roles and role-sets have a number of both measurable and ephemeral

characteristics:

Extent Some roles are more wide-ranging and diverse than others in
terms of commitments, services, and expectations.

Strength Independent of the diversity, some roles and role-sets exert

varying degrees of power over the role-player to perform services and keep
commitments

Time demand Time demand of roles can be analyzed, both in terms of the
role-defs themselves, and in terms of time actually demanded of the roleplayer.

Emotional intensity In addition to time demands, roles and role-sets exert

differing demands on the emotions of role-players. In competitive
situations, or when the consequences are high, or when human well-being is
at stake, the emotional aspects of role demands can be very intense.

Density Density refers to the overall level of participation in role-sets, with

their collective demands on the role-player.

A role-player may become involved with certain role structures because of a number
of possible motivations. We list and describe a few motivations below, keeping in
mind that the same role-player may be motivated in more than one of these ways.

Coerced Coercion as motivation for being a role-player involves avoidance

of sanctions for non-compliance. People are forced to play the role of
taxpayer, prison inmates are forced to play certain compliant role-sets, and
military conscripts are forced to march into battle.

Ideological An ideological role-player demonstrates commitment to some

ideas and cause, even to the point of challenging entrenched power
structures.

Personal A personal motivation for a role can be detected because the

role-player actively seeks to participate in some roe-set.

Traditional A role-player motivated by tradition sees that role-set in

question is just the right thing to do, because its just always been done that
way.

Pecuniary The pecuniary motivation cause a role-player to take on a role

for monetary gain. This may not be the only motivation, but a player
harboring pecuniary motivations might eschew roles where no money is
forthcoming, an might seek constant upward-mobility in the money
department.

Altruistic Alternatively, a role-player with altruistic motives is likely to

perform on a voluntary basis, even if no money is forthcoming.

Magnetic The magnetic motivation means that for some players, for some
reason, they gravitate to a role at all cost. This may be an altruistic
motivation that will not relent unless they are doing good, by their lights.

Viral A viral motivation, like a magnetic motivation is quite compelling for

the role-player. In this case, however, the memetic forces cause more
attraction the more people are attracted. This seems to take place
frequently within the consumer role complex.

Superficial A superficial motivation may attract a role-player, but with

weak to non-existent perseverance.

Loyalty Those motivated by loyalty may take on a role in repayment of

previous favors, or some traditional relationship or personal attraction.

Part of the role-def has to do with how performance of a role will result in various
kinds of rewards:

Monetary The monetary reward needs little explanation. The pecuniary

motivated role-player will be taking a close look at this!

Advancement A key reward in work-related roles, for most career-minded

individuals has to do with the opportunity to advance themselves.
Advancement can mean different things, but often means to move up in
management ranks.

Recognition A few roles provide a real opportunity for recognition. The

fame and fortune opportunity really appeals to a significant number of
people, and especially given the culture of celebrity we find ourselves in
today.

Psychic Psychic rewards include the ability of the role-player to increase

self-esteem, or to make a difference in the world.

Security One of the role rewards may be promised or guaranteed longevity

of the relationship. This kind of reward has become increasingly rare over
recent years, looking back at an era when it was commonplace to expect
employment for life.

Safety A safety-oriented reward means that the role may not be the most
interesting of commitments, but at least it will carry significant risks or
dangers.

Learning A reward provided by certain role-defs can be seen as the

opportunity to significantly increase experience-based knowledge, which in
turn may lead to some form of upward mobility in the organization, or
opportunities in other organizations.

Mentoring The mentoring reward can actually go in two directions. The

mentee may gain benefits from support by a senior role-player, and the
mentor may gain satisfaction of contributing to the future success of another
person, and the organization itself.

Protection A particular role may provide cover for the role-player behind a
well-placed sponsor or patron.

Fun Lets not forget that a major reason that people do things is for
happiness, entertainment, and joy. In short, a reward from many roles can
be the sheer fun of performing them.

The opposite of rewards are role-based sanctions for poor performance,

malfeasance, etc.:

Explicit Failure to perform a role according to expectations can result in

withholding of some (part of a) reward, or reduction in future opportunities
in the role (suspension, demotion, dismissal, fine, reduction in pay, etc.).
Actual malfeasance, including sabotage, embezzlement, etc. can result in
any of the above sanctions, and even legal action, including incarceration.

Tacit In addition to explicit, and officially recognized sanctions, many

breaches of role expectations can lead to tacit, unofficial sanctions in the
form of shunning

Fedepoiesis
Role-sets and role-nets form the basis for the fedepoiesis of human organizations.
As weve seen, some systems are living systems and some systems are designed.
Living systems include cells, organs, and organisms. Designed systems include
machines, buildings, and software. Human organizations (unlike bee swarms, ant
colonies, and slime molds) are both living and designed. However, the design of
human organizations is a matter of degree and is often elusive. A common
experience is that of the entrepreneur, who founds an enterprise for a specific
purpose, and then at a certain point the company takes on a life of its own and
escapes the direct control of the founder.
The term fedepoiesis has been coined to represent the hybrid of designed systems
that exhibit unmistakable features of life. This term follows on the terms autopoiesis
and allopoiesis, which indicate the form of creation and sustainment of a system in
question. Autopoiesis, as weve seen, is the term to describe the process of selfcreation and maintenance, from the Greek for self and create. Autopoiesis
applies to biological cells and biological organisms. By contrast, allopoiesis describes
a process of creation and maintenance via some external agency. Allopoiesis applies
to manufactured products, such as automobiles and computers, which do not
continually create and refresh themselves (as much as we might wish they would!).
Based on the idea of making, the term fedepoiesis combines poiesis with the
Latin term for league, or ally. Literally, fedepoiesis denotes the making by
federation. The word federation implies a unity where there is autonomy in the
parts and autonomy in the unity. We have explored the micro-architecture human
organization, as roles, role-sets, role-players and role-net. At arbitrary levels of
scale and complexity these meme-based role structures can be seen as federations
of role-nets of role-nets, combined with role-nets of role-nets.

As a role-net becomes more complex, involving common commit-memes held by an

increasing number of people, it eventually passes a threshold where it becomes a
full-fledged human organization, capable of sustaining itself over some period of
time. Following the definition of fedepoiesis, this threshold is passed when it
becomes a recognizable unity, formed by the interrelationships among participating
role-nets, which it continuously creates.
Role-nets, as components of a human organization, collectively have the ability to
federate endless numbers of role-nets via the fedepoiesis process. These new
components may remain as part of the original human organization, or may spin off
and become fedepoietic in their own right. In this way, fedepoiesis is not only selfmaking in the autopoietic sense, but also reproductive. That reproduction may be
quite conscious, which accommodates the idea that human organizations partake in
a hybrid form that combines aspects of autopoiesis and allopoiesis.
Higher-level organizational frameworks
People often talk about "building blocks" of organizations. Some people like to
emphasize the team structure, and there is a good case to be made for the generic
structure of a team as at least one widespread type of building block for
organizations. There are also formal departments, both operational and supporting,
communities of practice, consortia, partnerships, etc.
All of these higher-level structures are formed through continuously operating
fedepoiesis. There are several important viewpoints that help understand, and
predict, the structures and functions that form between the role-based microarchitecture and the independently operating organization. We glance at cursory
descriptions of several of these viewpoints below. This is obviously tip-of-theiceberg examination, to point to further study and articulation of useful architectural
views of human organizations.
LSM
First lets consider James Grier Millers living systems model (LSM) (Miller, 1978).
Millers book Living Systems is a huge work of carefully crafted isomorphisms, or nway comparisons among biological and social systems, including much of what we
have referred to as human organizations.
Millers model is a pattern of nineteen functional subsystems that he applies
recursively at various levels of complexity: a single living cell, an organism, a social
organization, and others. These domains of functionality are grouped into three
higher-level systemic areas:

Material and energy subsystems are the functions within the organization that
process material, use energy, and produce products and byproducts:
Ingestor, Converter, Motor, Distributor, Supporter, Matter and energy
storage, Producer, and Extruder.

Information processing subsystems are the nervous systems of organisms

and organizations: Memory, Encoder, Decoder, Associator, Decider, Channel
and net, Input transducer, Internal transducer, Output transducer.

Hybrid subsystems have both material and information management aspects:

Boundary, Reproducer.

The model sheds light on the role or purpose of an organization within society. In
turn, this has a profound effect on the relative development of its various
subsystems. For instance a telecommunications company, as part of the channel
and net function of society, has a much greater emphasis on protocols, transmission

media, switching gear, and logical addressing structures than would a producer, such
as, say, a toy manufacturer.
Within the framework provided by the LSM, the architects of business can nurture
the operation of fedepoiesis to foster the emergence of role structures in the various
specialized functional subsystems appropriate to the particular kind of human
organization being formed. Much more can be said about how this can be done, but
the key point is to observe that the conscious design of the organization can harness
the natural process of fedepoiesis for graceful growth, or impose mechanistic
regimes that run the risk of impeding these natural processes.
VSM
Stafford Beers viable systems model (VSM) provides another important
organizational framework (Beer, 1985). The perspective of the VSM is management
cybernetics, of which Beer was the earliest and primary proponent. Cybernetics
focuses on control mechanisms, and Beers major concerns were oscillations, set up
by reaction, counter-reactions, over-reactions, and ultimately damaging or deadly
positive feedback among the subsystems of an organization, often set in motion by
perturbations from the environment. The VSM articulates homeostatic mechanisms
of amplification and attenuation, to maintain the requisite variety called for by Ross
Ashby.
The elements of the VSM are organizations, the environments within which they
exist, their management functions, and the implicit or explicit model that
management uses to understand and manage various situations. The VSM identifies
several systemic components of the organization.
System 1 represents the set of operational units each consisting of one organization
within its environment (niche) and its management structure. System 2 performs a
coordinated anti-oscillation function across operating units, and as such is
responsible for maintaining and coordinating the set of mental management models
(including standard practices and forms) within the organization as a whole. System
3 uses a command channel and a resource bargain to give orders to the operating
units via their individual management structures. System 3* (3 prime) provides an
audit channel for special-purpose analyses, as needed. System 4 looks outward into
the environment as a whole and into the future. It is oriented toward learning and
change. System 4 and System 3 are somewhat adversarial - the difference between
a future-oriented perspective and a here-and-now perspective. System 5 exists to
mediate between Systems 3 and 4, in order to balance the current and future needs
of the organization, and to embody the unity of the organization as a viable system.
Like the living systems model, the viable systems model is a recursive, or fractal
structure. Inside every operational element of the organization can be a
recapitulation of the entire model, Systems 1 through 5, behaving at a more
granular level. This cybernetic architecture completely depends on the skillful
manipulation of fedepoiesis to motivate and nurture the skills and attitudes that
Evolution of Human Organizations
We have seen the minute structure of memetic replicators that provide the
components for autopoietic human organizations. Weve explored a higher-level
architecture of the human organization as a fedepoietic system. This framework is
generic a source of commonality across business enterprises and other
organizations. At the same time we know that there is vast and growing diversity
among these human organizations. In this section we briefly explore the
mechanisms that drive evolutionary change and variety in the social domain.

Earlier we visited the notion of a universal Darwinian algorithm that works on a set
of innovating replicators that compete for survival and reproduction. To understand
the proliferation of organizational forms, we turn again to the biological realm for a
metaphor.
Biological evolution is driven by information changes in DNA produced by one of
three means: mutation, bacterial recombination, or symbiogenesis. Bacterial
recombination occurs as bacteria transform themselves in real time by incorporating
bits of genetic material from other bacteria. As Lynn Margulis puts it, "Genetically
fluid bacteria are functionally immortal (Margulis & Sagan, 1997).
The isomorphic evolutionary mechanisms for human organizations are instructive.
Margulis refers to bacteria as cellular corporations. The bacterial exchange of
genetic information that immediately alters the receiving organism is an interesting
analogy for what happens when a new person with a set of accumulated knowledge,
joins an existing human organization. This form of variety creation is even more
dramatic when human organizations merge, such as an acquisition or takeover of
one business by another. Organizations too, can be genetically fluid, and
functionally immortal. Adaptation based on information exchange is the means of
creating both variety and specialization in business.
Business Design, Evolution and Technology
We have seen that human organizations, including enterprises, fall into a special
hybrid classification of living systems that they are both designed and grown. The
issue of business design is a major concern these days, especially in light of the
proliferation, and even patenting of various forms of business model or design
(priceline.com).
The evolution of business designs is largely driven by information technology. The
various technologies are themselves manifestations of powerful memes, which are
also evolving at a very rapid rate. This gives rise to the variations among sociotechnological human systems that expand the possibilities of the enterprise cognitive
architecture. This is the mechanism of symbiogenesis in action, and it is
accelerating.
Information technology has changed the rate of propagation of organizational
structures and business designs. Social and business changes are propelled by, but
always lag behind, the furious changes brought about by the cumulative effect of
Moores law (that predicts the rate of increase in computing power) and Metcalfs
Law (that predicts the rate of increase in the adoption of networking technologies).
It is quite apparent that these rapid technological changes alone are capable of
introducing plenty of variety into the ecology of human organizations, which can be
operated on by the universal Darwinian algorithm.
With information technology were introducing something that is equivalent to new
kinds of neurons for the cognitive substrate of human organizations. The
technologies allow imitation and propagation of business memes at an increased rate
(fecundity), and with the potential for perfect fidelity, but also with the potential for
stronger variability through deliberate or inadvertent changes at each point of
propagation.
The single biggest factor in the acceleration of this application of the universal
Darwinian algorithm is the Internet. The Internet is a manifestation of the network
meme, which is at the heart of systems thinking. It is quickly becoming the most
powerful meme propagation engine yet, and it is propagating the meme of itself, the
Internet.
Conclusions

The view of human organizations as artifacts created by external agents is not

wrong. Human organizations can be consciously architected, designed and launched
by people who take steps to bring them into being. At the same time, the view of
organizations as living systems is not wrong. Organizations do take on a life of their
own, in ways other artifacts do not. In fact, once launched, an organization almost
immediately moves beyond the absolute control of its founders.
The view of a human organization as an organism is most assuredly wrong. Human
organizations and biological organisms form different categories of being. As a first
approximation, this organic metaphor, however, can be useful to help move beyond
a mechanistic viewpoint. But then, as Len Fehskens likes to quote Huston Smith,
An analogy is like a bucket of water with a hole in ityou can only carry it so far.
We contend that the human organization should be seen as fedepoietic. This term
denotes a system that federates autonomous systems that federate autonomous
systems. The autonomous systems in question consist of role-nets of role-sets
occupied by role-players. These role-nets exist to perform services within a
population of human beings.
This gives us perspective on the design and growth of mid-level organizational
structures, as well as full-fledged human organizations within industries and larger
societies. This opens up a universe of learning and applying the lessons of design
and growth as the hybrid mechanism of fedepoiesis.

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