One of the greatest revelations of 21st Century science has been that the human organism is a collective. We exist in symbiosis with a millions of different microorganisms that maintain our health when they are in balance and cause ill-health or death when they are not.
We are also at an early stage of understanding of the principle of a commercial organisation as a complex, symbiotic entity – perhaps much earlier. As we struggle to come to grips with climate change, poverty and other big societal challenges, the health of the corporate biome must be an increasing cause for concern. We know, for example, that promoting a healthy gut biome in humans is important in disease prevention. What is the equivalent in a corporate context?
While the concept of stakeholders provided a useful starting point for understanding the complexity of an organisation’s relationships with the world around it, it does not capture the complexity of those interactions. We need a better metaphor that captures that moving complexity.
So, what might the key components of the corporate biome be? They include:
The employees. Like gut bacteria, their efforts inside the corpus combine for greater or lesser well-being of the corporate whole.
Suppliers. A healthy relationship between suppliers and the organisation is one where each contributes to the well-being and sustainability of the other. The ideal is a long-term partnership, in which both parties develop symbiotically.
Customers. The same applies to customers. Is the relationship purely transactional, or does it involve a deeper investment in each other’s future? For example, I frequent our local fruit and vegetable market because it is a valuable community resource; and because it is more attuned to the needs of local people than large grocery retailers.
Education. Companies engaging with youth education help schools prepare the future workforce for the evolving world of work. For example, teaching children to coach and mentor gives them core leadership skills before they enter the workforce. Organisational well-being is closely related to continuous learning and adaptation. In future, companies will need to develop very different relationships with education.
The normal assumption is to lump shareholders together, but they too constitute a complex ecosystem.The needs of pension funds and private investors are not necessarily the same. Smart companies cultivate investors, who will share the corporate vision.
Local communities. Good corporate local citizenship was a foundation concept of Corporate Social Responsibility in the 1960s. It can be about a lot more than funding the local scout hut. But we lack generic principles of this form of symbiosis.
The environment. The big problem with creating symbiotic relationships with the environment is that the place where decisions are taken is usually way removed from where the effects of those decisions are felt. We need to develop more robust methods of making the chain of cause and effect transparent. Even a small number of practical examples can shift people’s awareness. It’s also important to change the emphasis from preventing or ameliorating harm towards creating symbiotic good.
Future generations. An analogy here is drug abuse during pregnancy. We know that the impact will be not just on the children but on their children and grandchildren. What are our corporations addicted to today that will harm future generations?
Studies of the human biome also reveal the impact of stress in the system. Stress in one part of the system generates stress and negative outcomes in other parts. Any exploration of the corporate biome must take into account where and how stress is generated and the impacts it has on the whole biome.
Mapping the corporate biome is, I believe, the starting point for coordinated action that improves the health of both the corporate organism and the systems, in which it is nested. It requires a more complex level of thinking than is normally applied. The starting point is to redefine the corporation itself – to leave behind the idea that it is a discrete entity and accept that it exists lonely in symbiosis with its environment.
© David Clutterbuck 2024