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Matt Braun Mary Mulcahy Colleen Mooney Lorraine E. Zlupko

Organizations as Brains. Matt Braun Mary Mulcahy Colleen Mooney Lorraine E. Zlupko. Organizations as Brains.

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Matt Braun Mary Mulcahy Colleen Mooney Lorraine E. Zlupko

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  1. Organizations as Brains Matt BraunMary MulcahyColleen MooneyLorraine E. Zlupko

  2. Organizations as Brains The brain as a system engages in an incredibly diverse set of parallel activities that make complimentary and competing contributions to what eventually emerges as a coherent pattern (p. 75).

  3. Organizations as BrainsMetaphor Strengths • Information Processing Brains • Networked intelligence • Limitless supply of data • Data-driven organizations • Human-based computation • Humans and computers work together to solve problems • Changing the divided brain paradigm • Left and brain capacities are intertwined, not opposing • Create Learning Organizations • Scan and anticipate change in the wider environment to detect significant variations (adapt or fail) • Develop an ability to question, challenge, and change operating norms and assumptions (double looping) • Allow an appropriate strategic direction and pattern of organizations to emerge (learn from mistakes)

  4. Organizations as Holographic Brains

  5. Organizations as BrainsMetaphor Limitations • Having to “evoke metaphors to elaborate the implications of a metaphor” (p. 111) – when discussing the Organizations as Brain metaphor we are forced to look at other metaphors to describe the first (ex: holographics and cybernetics) • The possibility of “overlooking the important conflicts that can arise between learning and self-organization, on one hand, and the realities of power and control on the other” (p.114)

  6. Real-World Connection • Is it possible to design learning organizations that have the capacity to be as flexible, resilient and inventive as the functioning of the brain? • Is it possible to distribute capacities for intelligence and control throughout an enterprise so that the system as a whole can self-organize and evolve along with emerging challenges? (Morgan, p. 72)

  7. Organizational Need for Change………… • The school organization has “grown” a great deal, moving from a struggling school to a STAR 4 center. • We have created these positive changes with a modified “machine” organizational model, but, it is time in our organizational growth to change our focus and mindset in order to continue our Continuous Quality Improvement goals. • It is imperative that knowledge and power become distributed in the organization.

  8. Moving from a “Machine” to a “Brain” Organizational Structure Positives: * Building a Learning Organization * Requisite Variety - internal diversity * Corporate DNA Working toward change Watch for: *Resistance of status quo * Managers must be willing to truly let go

  9. Change Process to Organization as a Brain Model Machine Metaphor W Where the school is now…

  10. Where we want to be ---- • Brain Metaphor • Great degree of interconnectedness • Distributed leadership • Learning Community • NOT imposing from above – communication and integration

  11. An Example of Interconnectedness…….. Blue Brain Project Reconstructing the brain piece by piece and building a virtual brain in a supercomputer—these are some of the goals of the Blue Brain Project.  The virtual brain will be an exceptional tool giving neuroscientists a new understanding of the brain and a better understanding of neurological diseases.The Blue Brain project began in 2005 with an agreement between the EPFL and IBM, which supplied the BlueGene/L supercomputer acquired by EPFL to build the virtual brain. (http://bluebrain.epfl.ch/page-56882-en.html)

  12. Organization as Brain (modified for our school) • Both holographic and specialized (Morgan 73) • Leadership, PELICAN, Work Sampling, OUNCE, STAR Requirements shared • Distributed Leadership • Organizational Diversity Brain Metaphor W Where we want to move as an organization…

  13. References • Morgan, G. (2006). Images of Organization. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. • The Blue Brain Project. Retrieved from http://bluebrain.epfl.ch/page-56882-en.html.

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