Madhukar Shukla
The conventional principles of organisational design are mechanistic in nature. The traditional mechanical design is "functionally rational" for achieving a given purpose in fixed conditions in an efficient manner. It is based on compartmentalisation, segmentation and economy. It is organised.
The holographic metaphor, on the other hand, suggests an alternative principle for designing organisation which replaces redundancy of parts (so much characteristic of the mechanistic principle) with redundancy within parts.
In the holographic design, the redundant capacity signifies a potentially important self-organising, and therefore, adaptive capacity. The aim is to create systems that are able to learn from their own experience, and to modify their structure and design to reflect what they have learned. The holographic design is "substantially rational" in that each element has the capacity to question what it is doing, determine whether what is being done is appropriate, and adjust actions accordingly. It is self-organised.
1. "Requisite Variety"
This principle says that in order to deal with variety in external environment, the system must possess at least an equal amount of variety. That is, the system must contain redundancy.
In the mechanical design the redundancy is built into controlling parts which are activated when problems arise (e.g., slack resources, inventories, etc.). Also, the attempt is to minimise redundancy as far as possible to achieve efficiency.
In the holographic design, redundancy is essential for system effectiveness (e.g., multi-skilling, interchangeability, different teams working on the same project, parallel systems for information generation, etc.). The variety is built at the point where it is needed directly. Variety is seen as a source of insight and innovation. relevant stakeholders must be involved in the learning process to ensure availability of variety of ideas, beliefs, etc. Action learning is variety increasing, while the traditional decision-making is variety decreasing.
2. Self-Monitoring
This principle is necessary to ensure the translation of "requisite variety" into learning capacity. It refers to "the ability for the system to monitor and question the context in which it is operating, and to monitoring and question the rules which underlie its non-operation." Thus, in the holographic design, all parts/elements of system engage in double-loop learning.
Decision-making processes in such an organisation are spread as widely as possible to gain a wide range of information required... Holographic organisation encourages such substantial rationality by recognising that every member of a system may have something of value to contribute to an understanding of the system, and that resource should be tapped in as many ways as possible to enhance the learning capacity of the system as a whole.
Holographic design enables people to learn to learn. People create and enact a reality, rather than "live in" a reality independent of them. The ability to frame, probe, and reframe reality so that learner can acquire a deeper appreciation of that reality is crucial for empowering the learner to engage in meaningful action.
3. "Minimum Critical Specification"
The principle of minimum critical specification facilitates such changes in structure by encouraging systems designers to specify not more than is absolutely necessary for a system to begin operation, so that a system can find its own design. The minimum conditions are what might be understood as "enabling conditions" - conditions that enable a system to initiate key processes necessary for its continued existence.
Thus, while mechanical principle relies on "predesign as much as possible" mode, the holographic principle focuses on predesigning as little as is required.
In designing organisations in this way the aim is to promote inquiry as the fundamental route to structuring. Minimum critical specification encourages organisational members to reflect on what is going on, and thus, to question what they and others are doing, in a substantially rational way. This process helps to promote the kind of questioning and conflict between competing ideas and theories in use that keeps an organisation flexible and diversified, so that it can evolve sufficient and appropriate structure to deal with problems at hand and those that are likely to crop up in the future.
To create minimum specifications, Morgan (1983) suggested the use of design strategy based on avoidance of negatives. The central idea is to create degrees of freedom and define a space of possible organisational forms, actions and outcomes by specifying the forms, actions and outcomes that one wishes to avoid. That is, specify the choice of limits of actions (rather than choice of specific actions), "allowing a direction to emerge through the avoidance of undesirable system states, which have to be continually defined and redefined."
Learning Occurs in Holographic Design, Because They:
* strive to be democratic and heterarchical.
* strive to be pluralistic.
* strive to be proactive and empowering.
* strive to link individual and social transformation.
* strive to integrate different kinds and levels of understanding.
* create conditions that are always evolving and open-ended.
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