Living Companies Keep Me Up At Night

So anyone who has talked to me in the past two weeks knows that lately I've had a hard time sleeping. There's something about the peace and quiet of the night that lets my race and I just can't get it to stop. I probably should stop reading, but I've been really engrossed by this book that's changed the way I think of businesses and communities.

The book is called "The Living Company" by Arie de Geus, and he challenges us to think about businesses and other social organizations not as just collectives of people, but as a distinct persona, which has the capability to learn and grow as any other individual would. He utilizes the definition of persona by the psychologist William Stern to explain how a company is a living persona:

1. A company is goal-oriented. A company desires self-preservation, utilizing its strengths and the conditions of its environment to ensure its existence.
2. A company is conscious of itself. The is a clear definition between who is part of the company and who is not.
3. A company is open to the outside world. Elements enter and exit the system of a company, similar to the human body.
4. A company has a finite lifespan. A company is born, lives its life, and when it can no longer function, dies.

At first, I had a hard time grasping this idea just because I'm used to just considering individuals as organisms. That is, until I realized that individuals are collectives themselves. While it seems natural that we have full control of our own body's facilities, the truth is we don't. Our body can be subdivided into organs which operate beyond our conscious thought, and sometimes even function independently and against the will of the higher-level personae. These organs also prioritize their own self-preservation; it's just that in most cases, their self-preservation is best served by following the will of the higher-level personae.

The author argues that because companies are living entities, the success and longevity of a company is determined NOT by its size or its profit, but rather by its ability to adapt and to grow. He also argues that too many companies prioritize profit over longevity, which then discourages collective learning and adaptation, and thus die prematurely.

The paradigm shift has got me to re-think my own concepts of human will and human behavior, the possibility of individual will of the organs and cells within my own body, and how to best facilitate leadership, both within the company I work for, and within the production team of my film. No wonder I stay up nights.