Organization as monolith (aka no one is the organization)
This is the old-school version that no matter how much folks try to kill it, it just won’t die. It’s a vestige of our industrial society past where the top controlled everything and the workers underneath were just happy to not have their arm chewed off by the machinery that day. This concept was further set in stone with the idea of the blindly loyal organization man. In this case, the worker and newly formed middle manager were just happy to not have their head chewed off by the boss that day.

Unfortunately, the monolith as organizational model hasn’t passed into history despite the increasing evidence that it no longer serves a purpose to either the individuals working within it or the folks on the outside who purchase its services and products. How do you know whether you’re working for or dealing with a monolithic organization? Here are a few clues:

• The monolith talks at people
• The monolith sees people as things
• The monolith sets rules above relationships
• The monolith creates narrowly defined roles for people

If you see something strongly resembling an engineering mindset here, that’s not by accident. The monolithic organization is built around notions of efficiency, practicality, economy, and order. These are precisely the kinds of things that folks at the top of organizations want because they believe it makes their jobs easier. All of which is pretty much crap.

Organization as hologram (aka each person is the organization)
For us organizational leaders who understand that the 21st century calls for a different paradigm, we’re driving the movement from the concept of one to concept of the many. The power and control that used to be jealously guarded at the top is being dispersed downward and sideways to the point where the whole fixed hierarchical dynamic has become blurred and increasingly useless.

Rather than viewing an organization as a bland, uniform, static structure, consider the organization as a hologram. Within a holographic image, each section contains a complete image of the original object. So the real beauty of the holographic perspective is acknowledging that the organization is a vibrant collection of all the individuals within it. It recognizes that each individual is fully reflected in the whole. The organization is the individual and the individual is the organization. The interests of each individual and the organization are interconnected and interdependent.

This approach offers a more human organization. Coming back to the marketing and branding conversation that got this whole subject started for me, it means that there’s not one message but scores of messages that define the organization. Each person brings their own stories and relationships to the anthology that is today’s organization. And these stories evolve as the people within the organization learn, grow, and change.

Let’s recap…
If your organization is monolithic, what’s that getting you right now? Employees who give a damn about their work? Doubtful. Customers who want to buy from you? Maybe. Customers who are passionately loyal? Probably not. Just keep asking yourself what’s the price of control and what will it cost you to keep a tight hold on something that is only going to slip through your fingers eventually?