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Organizations as Metaphorical Brains

By Gabriel Gonzales

University of San Diego

LEPS-560-01-SP20 - Organizational Theory & Change

February 10th, 2020

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An excerpt from Morgan's Images of Organizations describes intelligence in a way that

organizations should acknowledge: "The intelligence of the human brain is not predetermined,

predesigned, or preplanned. Indeed, it is not centrally driven in any way. It is a decentralized

emergent phenomenon. Intelligence evolves." The brain metaphor is the single most powerful

metaphor to apply to organizations. The human brain, as applied to the inner workings of an

organization, provides the ideal illustration for an organization's survival in an ever-changing

environment. When it comes to brain functioning, there is no center or point of control as with

typical western organizational principles; instead, the brain is made up of several lobes that work

together to control the body. In times of variance or disconnect, the brain will utilize one cortex

more than the other in order to compensate. The brain is continuously learning and evaluating,

gaining complexity, and improved responses as time passes and environments change. Unlike the

brain's collaboration abilities, many law enforcement organizations are ruled by a hierarchy, with

a small percentage of members controlling the organizational environment. In law enforcement

organizations, the brain metaphor would encourage more of a "bottom up" influence or flattened

organizational hierarchy. The concept of an organization as a brain is not just about

organizational structure, but also about the constant changing variables challenging conventional

organizational methods and procedures. This adaptation of the brain metaphor will identify the

requirements of "Learning Organizations," which paradoxically will not provide a blueprint for

success, but instead promote the need to be always uncertain and the need to evaluate for

errors continuously.

Brains are much more complicated than organizations, but one way of designing an

organization to be more brain-like is through the understanding of cybernetics. Cybernetics, in

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short, is the ability to detect significant aspects of the environment, apply it to norms, detect any

deviations from those norms, and initiate corrective action. As an example, this concept is

similar to a thermostat independently turning on and off to maintain a specific temperature.

Organizations must also proactively detect deviations, evaluate, and correct. This proactive

method of recurring evaluation promotes the ability of "learning to learn." Adding an additional

step before taking appropriate action after comparing deviations to operational norms improves

this continuous learning process. This extra step requires taking a "double look" at a given

situation before taking action. This method is referred to as "double loop" learning. Like a brain

that continually evaluates errors, organizations need to consistently add uncertainty to their

decision-making model before taking action. This process of learning will allow organizations to

break free from traditional modes of operation, which can trap them in retaining ineffective

methods, leaving them behind in organizational progress and enabling it to move forward with

rising members.

Through the brain metaphor, we see how western management theories and para-military

environments don't allow much room for change. Change or questioning of norms is indicative

of lack of control and defiance. In Presentation 4.1: Organizations as Brains, Chief Gary

Morrison speaks about tackling efficiency issues during staff meetings, which I applied to

"double loop" learning. Chief Morrison promotes "letting people make mistakes as long as

they're not critical mistakes." Chief Morrison goes on to state, "You push on how they can learn

from those mistakes, and then I think you have to look at the agency, too. Are these people

making mistakes because we haven't trained them properly? Or is it just there making a mistake

because they don't care what the policies are, and they don't want to be held accountable."

Instead of initiating an appropriate action after comparing it to operating procedures, the double-
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loop learning style promotes the process of questioning the procedures it is being applied to by

having an open dialogue with several staff members. Promoting mistakes is paradoxical because

it provides a much more valuable learning opportunity.

When imagining a holographic design of a brain, disrupting any part of the holograph

image would not cause the overall image to fail. Applying this image to organizations is also an

excellent metaphorical approach. Elements of an organization make up the whole, and the whole

of the organization should be built into those elements. If a part of the organization were

disrupted, would the organization continue to thrive? Would the organization overcome the

disruption with the remaining elements? Or does the organizational design suppress other parts

of the organization from recovering. To identify a holographic design, members should be

equipped with diversified roles, share information regularly, be diverse to match the

organization's environment and have a degree of "space" to work, with minimized control. An

excerpt from Effectively Leading Diverse Teams promotes this idea: "Each project, program, and

engagement brings its own dynamics and a complexity of internal and external environmental

factors. No two individuals think and react alike. Even if everything else remains constant,

leadership strategies would also need to be fine-tuned just because of differing team dynamics.

The communication needs for an individual differ based on multiple factors, including individual

priorities, cultural background, economic circumstances, and engagement levels." This excerpt

emphasizes the importance of having all members of an organization actively engaged in

improving communication and success, improving the holographic design of an organization.

The brain metaphor will generate resistance in law enforcement organizations.

Supervisors will be reluctant to deviate from the reliability of a para-military hierarchy type of

environment. But as the environment around us changes, so should organizational methods.