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Universal Journal of Management and Social Sciences Vol. 2, No.6; June 2012

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Surviving the Structure: A Typology for Understanding Organizations and

How They Communicate *Paul W. Combs

Marymount University, in Arlington, Virginia, USA.

*[email protected]

Abstract

Organizations tend to communicate in a way that parallels their structure: some hierarchical

organizations communicate top-down, much like their pyramidal structure, others generate

communications in much the same way as they create goods or services for their markets, while

others communicate in a widely dispersed fashion, and yet others intensely at a local level with few

discernable patterns beyond their immediate environment. The article suggests that four

organizational archetypes exist, based on their tendency to be either highly structured or not, as well

as the extent to which they use multiple means of communication. This new look at organizations

describes the implications for HPT practitioners, and what they must do to either maintain an

organization’s viability or counter the trends that lead to organizational failure.

Surviving the Structure

A Typology for Understanding Organizations and How They Communicate

Some time ago, a man stepped into the Mexican evening air and walked alongside a building he

knew very well. Looking up into the night sky, in perfect alignment with the side of the building, he

saw a familiar pattern of stars in the Southern sky. They always appeared there, at that same place

on that same day, year after year, exactly and precisely. He was…reassured.

Sometime later, Julianna stepped into the Irish evening air from what had been her father’s home.

He’d died recently, and had left his estate to her and her sister Amabilia. With the income from

renters, she thought, she may be able to keep her holdings intact and enjoy a relatively stable life.

She was…moderately apprehensive.

Sometime later, Michael stepped into the California evening air outside the computing center, folds

of green-lined paper in his hands. “Why won’t this thing run,” he said sotto voce, his voice

practically a growl. “Every number is in place. Maybe if I . . . .” He was…confused.

Not too long ago, sitting on her patio in the Virginia evening air, Rose snapped her laptop shut. She

had attended three meetings that day, written a performance assessment, and revised a set of client

documentation. Her six-month old had started to stir, and Rose was glad she didn’t have a Beltway

commute to contend with that night. She felt…productive.

These scenarios are all true and they all, in their own way, reflect various types of organizations,

their structure and how they communicate, and how their members interact with them. What’s

striking about the scenarios is that they took place over a period of some 2200 years.

It’s no accident that there are four organizational archetypes suggested by these scenarios.

Each describes an organization that is relatively structured, or not, and each describes how

communications take place through a variety of channels. Or not. But the four archetypes

presented in these anecdotes have persisted as long as people have organized themselves into

collective bodies, and they persist today. We’ll quickly review those types here, identify aspects of

their organization and how communications occur within them, which will then lead us to an

understanding of why some endure and why some fail. We’ll then conclude with a set of

implications for managing organizations more effectively.


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The “Monumental” Organization

The first scenario described a society that existed in Mesoamerica, the city of Teotihuacan, some 40

km northwest of present-day Mexico City. Though its origins date to two centuries BC, the

Teotihuacano constructed pyramids on a grand scale about 300 AD. The “building” referenced

earlier is the Pyramid of the Sun. The construction of that massive artifact speaks of an exceptionally

well-structured organization, capable of sophisticated and precise engineering, communication, and

an extraordinary ability to execute plans on a monumental scale, and yet it’s significant that we

don’t know the name of our protagonist: members of that organization were merely enactors

whose names just weren’t important enough to record.

At Teotihuacan, the prevailing drive was to link earth and sky, earthly norms and celestial

movements. The city is ordered so that each district is oriented in a precise direction, 15.5 degrees

east of astronomic north, a development that is exceptional among Mesoamerican cities (Cowgill,

2003, p. 43). An organization capable of constructing a monument on an unprecedented scale with

such precision argues for the presence of strong centralization (Cowgill et al, 1984, pp. 171-172).

To link the earth with the stars, Teotihuacanos noted the rising and setting of planets, stars, and

asterisms using the surrounding mountains as a reference point. “Mesoamerican pyramids were

universally understood to replicate mountains” (Reilly, p. 18). Besides the physicality of replicating

a mountain in the architecture of a pyramid, it was critical to the Teotihuacanos that the pyramid’s

architecture be aligned perfectly and precisely. That precision took years to achieve: native

astronomers needed to make repeatable observations of the rising and setting of stars before

determining the alignments to which ceremonial structures were oriented (Reyman, 1975, p. 261).

Teotihuacan architecture therefore reflected the precision of not only the observations of celestial

processes, but a second aspect in the ability to measure them repeatedly and accurately.

Geometrically, the pyramid at Teotihuacan is related to other such structures: there is something in

the design of the pyramids that is compelling. Or perhaps it is the ability to communicate a

compelling idea that provided the impetus to sustain a monumental construction effort over some

20 years. But as Reynolds has shown, those simple geometric drawings, based on the Golden Mean,

accurately describe the relative diameters of the earth and the moon, they form the basis of the

logarithmic spiral around which hurricanes and galaxies exist, and they anticipate the design of even

larger pyramids constructed in Egypt a half-world away. As a core concept, this one is compelling.

If enthusiasm for these geometric principles couldn’t be shared, then the ability to measure time and

mark its regular passage, critical to determining planting and harvesting times, was a shared

motivator. Other evidence suggests that an observatory of sorts, celebrating and linking cosmos to

earth in a permanent way was an ideal that was readily shared.

Whatever the reasons, it is apparent that the organizations that constructed the pyramids

resembled the pyramids themselves: narrow at the top, comprising the priestly and administrative

hierarchy, and broader at the base, represented by tens of thousands of laborers. The organization

itself encompasses at least six different layers (Cowgill et al, 1984), each performing a coordinative

function. This organization had not only both an ideal and a clear vision of how to process

information critical to its functioning, it was capable of communicating so unambiguously that

thousands of members of an organization were compelled to engage in an endeavor of monumental

and long-lasting proportions.

The Feudal Organization

Julianna Fitz-Maurice, our second dramatis persona, lived in 1289. The world she lived in had none

of the structure of a Teotihuacan and in fact, hardly any at all. Her world was part of what we now


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call feudalism. In a sense, feudalism is what happens in the absence of a highly-structured

organization and with few compelling ideals to communicate. In further contrast to Teotihuacan,

which we know flourished and constructed its pyramids in 300 AD, feudalism itself is so ill-defined

that its exact beginning and end dates are uncertain and left to scholarly consensus to define them.

Most learned judgments note that feudal systems appeared in either the 9th or 10th Century and that

they endured through the 17th Century, by when they were in widespread decline. And feudalism

continues to be fraught with difficulty for student and researcher. It frustrates even one of its most

noted scholars, Bloch, who cautions against understanding feudalism in terms of centuries that are

“merely artificial measuring devices, created by the human mind for its own convenience, and there

is no reason why we should expect to have a measuring-rod to have a life and character of its own.”

Bloch further suggests that “it would be… a grave mistake to treat ‘feudal civilization’ as being all of

one piece chronologically” (1961, p. 60). Instead, we are limited to drawing some broad

characteristics of feudal organizations, how they communicated, and the nature of the data with

which they dealt.

Few words in the English language are so misunderstood or misused as the adjective “feudal.” The

term is almost never neutral and almost always value-charged. In newspapers, magazines, and

books something or someone is described as “feudal” to indicate disapproval. Something is “feudal”

if it is aristocratic or reactionary or both, or if it connotes authoritarian control of superior over

inferior. It implies a distinction between those who have power and privilege and those who are

oppressed and exploited, thus subverting equality or democracy. True, feudalism is a network or

system of land management, but one that is not centralized because it varies from fief to fief, town

to town, region to region, and without a prevailing or common means of communication. “In short,

the feudal arrangement is utterly confused. Organized anarchy, despairing scholars of a later age

will call it” (Davis, 1923, pp. 148-49).

As a model of capital accumulation, feudal structures produced mixed results, which opened

possibilities for workers to migrate—they were largely free to do so, contrary to prevailing belief—

towards towns, while agriculture shrank during the latter stages of feudalism. Trade began to

develop, urban growth slowly accelerated, and the impact of these phenomena implied a

deterioration of the feudal organization of society that foreshadowed a transformation to

mercantile capitalism.

The Central Processor Organization

The migration of large numbers of peasants from fief to market village in the late feudal period set

the precedent for an industrial revolution in which great numbers of laborers moved from rural

areas into growing urban centers, where factories and centers of mass production were located.

While artisans in feudal market towns were originally engaged in a relatively limited production,

producing goods that could be exchanged locally, mass production is engaged in producing goods in

unprecedented quantity and making them available for wide-reaching trade. This concept expands

on the feudal ideal of capital accumulation. To accumulate more capital, organizations need to

produce more goods and services, and one way to do that is to build more factories, engage more

laborers, tap into a greater concentration of capital, and increase their proximity to trade routes.

But another means of increasing productivity is to increase efficiency. The inclusion of greater

efficiencies into organizations’ processing is an entirely 20th Century phenomenon, entirely different

from Teotihuacan or feudalism.


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Let’s look at production in its simplest sense. It involves taking in raw materials (resources)

and through various means of processing, transforming them into an output or finished good.

Fisher’s 1993 model is apt:

Input Processing Output

This is a model whose roots lie in the Industrial Revolution. Names associated with the Industrial

Revolution—Frederick Taylor, with his emphasis on Scientific Management, or Henri Fayol,

emphasizing maneuvering men and their muscles—reduced waste and made tasks more and more

efficient by breaking them into smaller and more discrete components and focusing on achieving

incremental improvements. But unlike feudalism, organizations involved in mass production need to

measure their gains on the basis of the amount of resources input, production targets, and then set

goals with a high degree of precision. To achieve greater precision, organizations establish and

maintain various functional specialties: in addition to manufacturing processes, there are

administrative tasks: records must be kept, payrolls administered, profit and loss stated, taxes paid,

inventory tracked, and output measured. Growing organizations thus demand functional

specialization, and the resulting aggregate of components need to interact and function together,

and efficiently. In the mid-20th Century, organizations started to take on the dimensions of

“systems,” in which their various components were integrated. Here is the origin of a third

organizational archetype, one that we’ll call “Central Processor.”

“Systems” is a term often associated with “computer,” and computer systems have indeed been a

key aspect of organizations for the past half-century. The word “computer” originally meant a

person who solved equations; it was around 1945 that the name was carried over to machinery

(Ceruzzi, 1998, p. 1). As a modern concept, computing mirrored the administrative functions of the

manufacturing industry: data were collected, processed in some way, and output generated in the

form of updated reports, payroll, billing, or inventory. It is significant to our discussion that data

“processing” depended on punched cards which were hardly new as far as computing was

concerned. Instead, punched cards existed since the late 19th Century, containing finite, relevant

information about a particular entity--a sales transaction, for example—and encoded on a single

card that served multiple uses by being run through different pieces of equipment in a room with

individual computing processes handled by humans, not individual pieces of equipment. These were

the functions that the original electro-mechanical computing processes replicated (Ceruzzi, p. 16),

processes embodied in true mainframe processing.

Thus, mainframes processed information in ways that consciously mimicked an organization’s

structure: IBM kept the punch card with its System/360, and with it, the basic flow of information

through a customer’s installation. Keeping the punched card eased the shock of transitioning to a

new technology, and thus early data processing still resembled norms of human activity in

organizations: data were input, processed, and output produced. IBM wasn’t the sole manufacturer

of computer systems that reflected organizational structure, though. The flow of instructions and

data in the UNIVAC, for example, still mirrored the way humans used mechanical calculators, books

of tables, and pencil and paper to perform scientific calculations (Ceruzzi, p. 15), or perform highly

repetitive tasks like making new journal entries, calculating payroll amounts, totaling waybills, or

processing insurance information. But with continued improvements in computing speed, data

transmission, and easier access to software and processing wherewithal, organizations and how they

communicated changed again.


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The Virtual Organization

The Dutch computer scientists Tanenbaum and Van Steern suggest that of all the technological

developments in the mid-1980s, the two most critical were advancements in processing and in high-

speed computer networks (p. 1). In its continuing push towards greater efficiencies, the computer

industry continued to produce CPUs, local memory, and storage devices smaller, faster, more

powerful, less expensive, and all on the order of a geometric progression. First minicomputers, then

servers and laptops became capable of information processing that formerly required several

mainframes—and they became more accessible. Concurrent advances in data-processing means,

multiple channels, conversion from copper wire to fiber media, faster switching speeds, and reliable

data-communication protocols with a concomitant drop in costs meant that users of data-processing

means such as mainframes no longer had to perform their work just outside the computer room

door, nor even in relatively close proximity to it (Ceruzzi, p. 251). The reliance on “dumb” terminals

to connect to a mainframe in time-sharing options (Ceruzzi, p. 251) yielded, alternatively, client-

server architectures, in which much of the processing workload was offloaded from servers to

“smart” client terminals, to laptops in a mode called distributed processing, in which computing

processes were shared across a network of geographically-distributed users, to open systems, “a

collection of independent computers that appear to its users as a single coherent system” (p. 2). The

norm of mainframe processing began to disappear. As work shifted from a centralized point with a

specific protocol, organizational structures themselves shifted to a more “open systems” appearance

as well.

This tendency meant that by the mid-80s, no amount of corporate policy was going to keep the PC

out of the office. Having PCs in the hands of numbers of users, each machine fully capable of

processing information with mainframe efficiency, led to a reaction against “islands of information,”

or many systems disconnected from each other (Gagliardi, p. 16). Workstations, moreover, were

designed from the start to be networked with Ethernet (Ceruzzi, p. 291). Thus by locating data and

office automation software on a server instead of individual machines, organizations could

reestablish some measure of control over their people and how they processed information (Ceruzzi,

pp. 293-94). Doing so continued a corollary between distributed processing and how individuals

process information.

In human biological neural networks, learning is achieved mostly through changes in the strengths of

the connections between neurons. One common way to calculate changes in the strength of neuron

connections is a Hebbian learning rule, in which a change in the strength of a connection is a

function of the pre- and postsynaptic neural activities. The proposer of Hebbian learning, Donald O.

Hebb, placed physiological evidence of behavior into two main categories: the existence and

properties of continuous cerebral activity and the nature of synaptic transmission in the central

nervous system. In a distributed network based on packet switching, continued data processing

depends on one switch modifying its associations with others after receiving a stimulus (a search

result, for example). This process is analogous to brain functioning, and it can be measured in the

same way that brain activity during learning is measured.

The Hebbian learning rule formula is expressed as follows:

Δwij = γ . xi . xj

where xi. represents presynaptic activity, xj represents postsynaptic activity, γ represents learning

rate, and wij the strength of the connection between synapses. Hebbian learning is a time-

dependent, unsupervised “learning” process, and whether human or machine, constitutes an

algorithm that measures associations between stimuli and responses.


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As with the Central Processors, the division of labor into components and the related enhanced

functional specialties in virtual organizations achieve efficiencies. The workload is thus shared in an

environment that values coordination: given that a database, or organizational knowledge, or

information related to any number of business processes may reside in any number of locations,

organizations and its members are called on to work in greater ambiguity. In any neural network,

prepared information is nearly impossible to track; thus organizations cannot rely on a sole process

or a syntax to process information. Business processes do not need to be carried out in proximity to

the information-processing center; in fact, in distributed processing, a central processing entity does

not exist. In open-systems organizations, employees can telecommute, work in geographically-

distributed centers, removed from a home office or headquarters, as seamlessly as if they were co-

located. Those characteristics open an organization towards a virtual standard, less focused on a 9-

to-5 norm, and one that is more broadly exposed to external environments.

The Four Organizational Types Compared

The four archetypes just presented are a new typology that describes organizations by how they’re

structured and how they communicate. They’re pure types, of course, and there are gradations

among them.

But we can place them on a graph according to the extent to which they have a formal structure,

and the extent to which they generate communications, either by sheer volume or the numbers of

channels by which they communicate.

We’ll place them on the graph in the order that they were presented, beginning with the

Monumentals:

The Monumentals, obviously, are very highly-structured organizations: the artifact presented

earlier, the pyramid, reflects the organizational structure itself: narrow at the top with one or a few

leaders, extending downward through successive layers, supported by a broad base of members

who carry out the organization’s work. Communications are comparatively few, because they are


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mainly coordinative: one-way, giving direction or orders, with little need for a multiplicity of

channels to deliver a singular message.

In contrast to the Monumentals, Feudals are much less structured. For one thing, they’re

much smaller, which obviates the need for a strict coordination. There’s no question that there was

a great deal of communication in feudal organizations, but owing to a number of factors—distances

between lord and serf, or varying abilities in literacy, communications are less standardized, often

piecemeal, and delivered through written or oral means, with relatively less opportunity to check for

understanding.

The Central Processors, as pointed out, were largely a reaction to a feudal economy. Once

able to expand the means of production, centrally-located factories demanded a greater degree of

organization and control, and were thence more structured than Feudals. When techniques of mass

production were applied to the processing of data, organizations began to expand the means of

communicating. All communication is essentially visual and aural: telephony and data-transmission

technology added to the channels available to communicate, reliably, over greater distances.

Reflecting the formal structure of organizations, communications were formal, with coding syntax

adopted and widely standardized.


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The last organizational type, the Virtuals, employ the greatest amount of communications

and the greatest number of channels of communication. The growing ability to communicate from

greater distances means that members of these organizations didn’t have to be physically co-

located, which places this organizational type diametrically opposite the Monumentals. The number

of channels available, the volume of communications created, and more open, less-formal systems

of communicating via servers all contribute to greater numbers of smaller groups of employees,

capable of productive endeavor in a geographically- and time zone-dispersed manner.

Open vs. Closed Systems

Katz and Khan pointed out the difficulty in treating organizations like physical entities. As with

physical bodies, organizations, regardless of type, have observable characteristics and tend to

behave in observable and repeatable ways, but unlike physical objects, they tend not to behave

according to physical laws. In fact, “Newtonian physics are correct generalizations but they’re

limited to closed systems—they don’t apply in the same fashion to open systems which maintain

themselves through constant commerce with the environment; a continuous inflow and outflow

through permeable boundaries” (1978, p. 24).

Of the four archetypes, the type that most closely resembles a closed system is the Monumental. To

Katz and Khan, “closed systems are relatively self-contained structures, independent of external

factors” (p. 24). As a broad example, Teotihuacan was a tightly co-located culture that existed

largely separated from its neighbors in the central highlands of Mexico. Self-sufficiency was assured

by arable lands, and it was capable of supporting both technology as seen in the production of tools

and weapons, and by an artisan class. The two, working inseparably, crafted remarkable structures

that have literally endured for millennia.

Such tight control renders an organizational body more closed, and as such, intriguingly subject to

Newtonian physics. For example, the Second Law of Thermodynamics—as a system moves toward

equilibrium it tends to run down—applies to the Teotihuacano. With little purpose after achieving

its architectural goals, Teotihuacano culture disintegrated quickly.

Other organizational types are considered to be “living” systems, exhibiting all the characteristics

and variances of human behavior, and as living systems, are acutely dependent on the external

environment. As such, they must be considered “open systems” (Katz and Khan, p. 24).

If we were to map the position of closed systems vis-à-vis open systems on our graph, it

would look like the following:

It is true that the Teotihuacano were closely aware of their relationship with their environment,

which was the heavens themselves. But unlike an open relationship with the environment noted in

the other organizational archetypes, the Teotihuacanos structured themselves in a way that

observed and mimicked their environment, but without a real interaction with it.


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The Feudals’ focus on the environment, on the other hand, was based in economics. Though

the feudal system was large and complex, existing over the preponderance of the European land

mass, its components were small and existed in a patchwork, like a mosaic. The essence of

feudalism, though, was either on homeostasis, maintaining feudal contracts, or on growth, either

literally by organic means or trade, especially to establish and grow an emerging mercantile class.

(The development of unplanned trade routes connecting market villages may well be a precursor to

Hebbian Learning.) But establishing trade routes and credit could not have occurred without an

active engagement with the environment, or, to employ Katz and Khan’s definition, to import some

form of energy from the external environment.

The same focus applies to the Central Processors. Their productive endeavors cause Central

Processors to be both consumer and producer, actively engaging with the environment to both draw

from and to export to the external environment some energy that will be imported, in turn, by

others: “materials and labor turn out a product that is marketed, and monetary return is used to

obtain more raw materials and labor to perpetuate the cycle of activities” (Katz and Khan, p. 24).

There is a danger in ignoring environmental factors. Once they do so, organizations tend to

fall back on some magical purposefulness. That aspect was clearly manifest among the

Teotihuacano, where evidence of human sacrifice at the hands of a “priest” is abundant. Trappings

of those tendencies exist in Feudal and Central Processor organizations. Martin Luther railed against

the “hordes of devils (that) fill the land;” the Black Death was equated with moral failings. In the

early Central Processor organizations, computer scientists wore the vestments of white lab coats;

system users approached them like supplicants, with carefully-written code prepared to precisely-

defined protocols, hopeful of a successful outcome.

The Virtuals stand as the organizations most diametrically opposed to the Monumentals.

Geographically dispersed, with few rigid protocols, Virtual organizations focus on the

accomplishment of tasks through the work of members in small teams. The geographic dispersion

forces a greater focus on the environment because in addition to being a source of resources and a

market for goods and services, the Virtuals’ environment is also a source of intellectual capital, itself

a form of energy, as well as the recipient of one’s productive output, whether in the form of a

report, information to be shared, or a work component to be further shaped or modified by other

work groups. The resources and the markets served now exist at a global level, beyond the ability

for one to see and touch in a tangible fashion. Their boundaries are the most permeable.

Highly-structured organizations that engage in relatively few communications through few

channels are most reflective of closed organizations, then, while organizations that are relatively

unstructured, using multiple communication channels, are most often “open.”

Coordinative vs. Integrative

As noted earlier, the four organizational archetypes are general indicators of how

organizations are structured, how they communicate, and how they go about performing their

various functions. These are convenient categories, and there is also a great deal of variation in

these factors. Organizations, simply, are organized differently, they communicate differently, and

they go about their business differently, although within these rough parameters. Katz and Khan

addressed this differentiation, saying that as differentiation proceeds, it is countered by processes

that bring them together for unified functioning. They, along with Stephanopoulous (1975),

identified two different paths for achieving that unity of functioning: coordination and integration.

First, “coordination” is analogous to von Bertalanffy’s “fixed control arrangements:” it is the

addition of various degrees for assuring the functional articulation of tasks and rules, such as


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controlling the speed of an assembly line. In large social organizations, coordination is a means for

providing orderly and systematic articulation through such devices as priority-setting, establishment

and regulation of routines, timing and synchronization of functions, and scheduling and sequencing

of events.

“Integration,” on the other hand, often occurs in the absence of tangibles and focuses more

on shared psychological fields—shared norms and values, for example. Integration is more often

achieved at the small-group level. It stands in contrast to throughput, which is easy to measure. In a

coordinative environment, a product or service is created, people are trained, and the good or

service is delivered. But in an integrative environment, it is events that are structured rather than

tangibles that are structured: social structure is a dynamic rather than a static concept, as Hebbian

learning suggests.

The open organizational type is the most integrative, while a closed organization is the most

coordinative. We can explore that concept further if we plot those aspects on our matrix:

Now we’ll use those terms to describe our organizational archetypes, but in reverse order than

before.

Because the virtual organizations are most open and integrative of the organizational types,

the rules of physics that describe the behavior of closed systems over an extended period of time

can’t be applied to them. Less subject to inertia—and less focused on growth as a means to counter

stasis—this organizational type thrives on shared enthusiasms, shared values, and shared norms.

This aspect is essential because given a tendency to be geographically dispersed, virtual

organizations need a strong “glue” to hold them together. Moreover, virtual organizations are

defined by the number of small teams with which they are composed. Small teams are easier to

manage, and their relatively small size enhances the likelihood of shared norms. This is a culture

that its members find engaging.

Of course, the Virtuals have their markets as well as their resources, mainly intellectual, to

draw upon, but unlike the other organizational types their focus is primarily on delivering services.

But providing a relatively greater amount of goods, in addition to some services, is the domain of the

Central Processors, and the introduction of goods into productive output necessarily moves the

Central Processors into a more coordinative role. The Central Processors are still “open systems”

organizations in that they, too, are dependent on external environments, but their focus on inputs-

processing-outputs causes them to focus more intensely on internal functioning. Their “energy,”

directed inward, is on finding ways to find efficiencies, reduce costs, and continually improve the

manner in which they deliver goods or services. Division of labor, functional specialization,

adherence to rules—providing an orderly and systematic articulation—are factors that force the

Central Processors’ function to be coordinative. Coordination is of key importance: one


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environmental factor of which the Central Processors are intensely aware, and over which they have

little control, is their market: the product exported to the environment may not be absorbed.

Continuing to turn out a product depends on the receptivity of the market, a threat that forces

Central Processors to manage costs by achieving and maintaining efficiencies, efficiencies that result

from coordination. To the Central Processors, “processing” is the defining term.

A similar aspect exists among Feudal-style organizations, but the concept is more difficult

because Feudals are much less structured and have fewer communications and communication

channels. Nevertheless, the focus of Feudal-style organizations is on the provision of goods and

services on a much smaller scale than the Central Processors. Feudals need to coordinate their

efforts to meet two demands: first, just as fealty must be paid the lord in a true feudal system, the

small enterprise has to ensure its ongoing capability to pay a lease and pay suppliers just to maintain

itself as a viable enterprise. The second aspect focuses on an ongoing need to coordinate its

wherewithal to consistently provide a marketable good or service of consistent quality. Both aspects

normally preclude innovation, much less increased efficiencies and process improvement. This is an

approach that can be characterized as short-sighted, though not in a pejorative sense. Where

Central Processors can take a longer-term view of production quotas and debt management, the

Feudals’ focus is on daily provision of service and maintaining obligations. A broad characterization

of Feudals, then, is “maintaining.”

The Monumentals, given their placement on our graph and in actuality, are the most

coordinative. Unlike Feudal-style organizations, Monumentals can assume enormous sizes only by

the careful and strict coordination of the resources, usually human, which belong to the

organization. Monumentals are able to mobilize large numbers of people through fairly simple,

straightforward communication, delivered unambiguously and with a shared understanding

practically assured. The logic of the organization is communicated by establishing routines,

synchronizing functions, and scheduling and sequencing of events. Given a relatively stable supply

of resources, monumental organizations depend on a message that can be captured and

communicated in such a way that it provides a source of motivation. The watchword for these

organizations is “compelling.”

Our matrix, then, continues to give us a way of looking at the characteristics of these

organizational types, combining the extent to which they are rigidly structured and how they

communicate. The types vary from

Highly Structured/Low Communications (Monumentals)

Informal Structure/Low Communications (Feudal)

Highly Structured/Many Communications (Central Processor)

Informal Structure/Many Communications (Virtual Organizations)

This matrix is only a means of describing organizational characteristics—but it is also

prescriptive in terms of providing accounts of successful and unsuccessful organizations, and what

might be done to avoid failure or, at best, become more effective. We’re ready now to examine the

salient points of organizational effectiveness that apply to each organizational type.

Monumentals

The Monumentals, a closed, coordinative society, endure by focusing on a compelling ideal: in the

case of the Teotihuacano, the ideal was an understanding of nature, particularly the heavens, that

could be expressed in mathematical terms. Whether or not the mathematical ideals that

defined the dimensions of the pyramids were compelling to all members of Teotihuacano society is

unknown. A reasonable supposition is that they were not, probably owing to relatively few channels


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of communicating them combined with the low likelihood that the mathematical constructs would

be understood. Clearly the means that the recipients had of communicating their understanding

was limited, and thus communications were largely one-way. Nevertheless, the ideal behind the

construction of pyramids was so strong that cultural leaders, in turn, compelled others to follow it.

The rigid control that Teotihuacan exerted over the laborers who constructed the pyramid is what

we now regard as slavery. Thus a powerful motivation was exercised.

Still, we don’t know the exact way in which that ideal was communicated—the spoken

language is unknown, and there is no record of the written word. What does remain of the

Teotihuacano culture is a set of intricate glyphs that are laden with meaning. Whether it is the lack

of other language systems, or whether it is a need to communicate a great deal of information in a

condensed amount of time, these drawings represented one channel through which information

could be directed, quickly, and understandably. It’s as if the icons compensated for the lack of a

widely-held communication system.

The Teotihuacano did achieve a compelling goal; not only was a Pyramid of the Sun

constructed, but also a Pyramid of the Moon, as well as a city arrayed around them in a regular,

planned pattern. But what happens in a closed system once its goals have been met if we apply

Newtonian physics? According to the second law of thermodynamics, as a system moves toward

equilibrium, it tends to wind down, its differentiated structures moving toward dissolution as the

elements composing them become arranged in random disorder (Katz and Khan, p. 24). Whether it

was a volcanic eruption, or invasions from rivals from the North, or whether it was its own inability

to maintain or regain an organizational momentum, the end came quickly, very quickly relative to

the time it took to realize a monumental achievement.

Organization Development Implications for Monumentals.

Removed from external environments with closed, impermeable boundaries, and focused on

coordinating the movements of large numbers of people, a key strength of the Monumentals is

borne by its descriptive name—they endure, and over exceptionally long periods of time.

There is, of course, value in enduring: it suggests effective “management” or “maneuvering”

of labor resources, per Henri Fayol. There are, of course, dangers inherent in this organization

structure, but the high degree of structure itself, coupled with a relatively low level of

communication, suggests that for long-term survival, and to ensure the persistence of a status quo,

Monumentals engage in these practices. We’ll examine them in turn.

Compelling Message.

This is the raison d’être, a motto or slogan that captures succinctly and compellingly two messages:

one, for the members (and candidates) why anyone would want to join them in pursuit of a vision

(or to be compelled to join, per Teotihuacan); and one for its public, its market, and why they should

accept the organization’s goods or services. Slavery notwithstanding, “just because” is reason

enough, but as an inarguable belief that’s held in the buyer’s heart, the goal is to end arguments,

and it’s achieved by staying in character: repeating the message, in few words and without deviating

from character, until it’s part of a lexicon: “Be All You Can Be,” “The Toyota Way,” “Progress is Our

Most Important Product,” “neither rain nor snow…,” etc.

Conservative Management.

New ideas are seen as untested, and typically run counter to an approach that suggests “we’ve been

making decisions this way for 50 years and we have 50 years of results to show for it.” This

approach is characteristic of a closed culture, one that clearly doesn’t welcome ideas from the


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outside, much less outsiders themselves, and with an absolute confidence in the direction it’s taken

on its own.

This is also a culture that perpetuates the prevailing leadership, which is also based squarely on the

leadership that has persisted for a relatively long time. Succession planning consists of preparing a

cadre of leaders who share similar values, have similar backgrounds, and perhaps similar schooling

as the prevailing order.

Chain of Command.

A clear career ladder system is articulated and enforced. Performance standards are enunciated,

positions and competencies rated and communicated, and progress measured against

predetermined standards, indicative of a closed culture. Pay and bonuses are tied to these

standards, and are predictable, with few surprises.

But there is also a message inherent for the Monumentals—there are aspects of their structure and

culture that lend themselves to their eventual dissolution. For Monumentals to survive over time,

they need to counter these tendencies. It’s difficult: this is an organization that engenders a great

deal of conflict. As a closed organization, infighting occurs. This culture also supports a concept of

the survival of the strongest (though Darwin never used that phrase). It also tolerates Machiavellian

tendencies—politics are a factor, and mental toughness valued.

On the strength of their ability to coordinate the functions of a great number of people,

Monumental organizations tend to call a great deal of attention to “teamwork.” But the realities of

a pyramid-shaped structure predominate: advancement to higher levels is necessarily limited.

Greater numbers of employees at lower levels who are motivated to become promoted and assume

greater responsibilities in the prevailing power structure find fewer advanced roles to move into.

Internal competition feeds itself and is counterproductive. When closed organizations like the

Monumentals begin to draw their energy not from external environments, but internally, the

organization gravitates towards more short-term interests despite the compelling ideal that first put

them in motion.

Thus the susceptibility of Monumentals to Newtonian physics. Owing to its highly-structured and

well-coordinated nature, a Monumental will tend to move in one direction for a remarkably long

period of time, mimicking the principle of inertia. But invariably, that motion will start to wind

down.

We can build a parallel case for communication strategies with the Monumentals. For years,

organizations like the Monumentals have paid an extraordinary amount of time and money

promoting “teamwork,” and it is clear that such organizations need to find ways to bring about true

collaboration. The concepts of teamwork are relatively easy to train, witness the number of team-

building activities popular in the 80s and 90s, but lasting effects are notoriously difficult to achieve. A

more effective strategy is a re-focus on core values. Core values need to be openly displayed by all

members of the organization, and performance needs to be assessed against them. A key strategy

to bring about these changes is a wholesale revamping of performance-management systems.

Performance management should also involve building a business case for promotions—a

promotable candidate should have demonstrably performed the job at the next higher level for an

extended period of time before being formally promoted to that role.

Change will be resisted most by the Monumentals. Resistance can be addressed through

effective communications, and that is something that the Monumentals do well. What needs to

change is the content and delivery of the messages that they communicate. Monumentals need to

avoid self-serving rhetoric that employees tend to distrust; managers need to shoot straight with


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their employees and thereby protect their own credibility. Failure to do that will result in a

dissolution with results that resemble something much like the Feudal organization.

Feudal Organizations

The example of the Teotihuacan is telling: while there’s no clear record of what succeeded it, the

archeological record suggests a return to widely distributed, smaller settlements within the Lower

Piedmont much as before (Millon, 1976, p. 228). These are the types of organizations that were

codified in feudal laws of Europe centuries later that shared the characteristics of less organization,

but similar to the Monumentals, relatively few communications through relatively few channels.

Feudals tend to be a reaction to the entropy displayed by Monumentals, and their structure and

how they communicate are, conversely, focused on maintaining themselves. Maintenance is the

most viable option for Feudals: their relative disorganization and the paucity of vibrant

communications deter growth.

Any rules that are set down by whatever prevailing structures exist act as a means to

coordinate efforts on a comparatively small scale. This focus on coordination in Feudals was

exemplified by various grants of land that define a period of service and the nature of the service

(sometimes goods), and the payment of any costs associated with delivering that service. Licensing

agreements and franchise agreements perform the same function. Though the production levels of

one farm, one fief, or one franchise unit is ostensibly directed by grants or franchise agreements, it’s

very likely that those agreements will be administered inconsistently. The relative lack of richness in

communications or a perceived distance from the power center means that members of Feudals

often disregard or ignore stated agreements. Further, as with any small group, the fief or franchise

will develop its own set of shared norms and values. Ensuring that stated services are provided and

monies received as stipulated requires a great deal of coordination, whether carried out by sheriff or

auditor. Thus small-scale coordination is more important than integration among Feudal-style

organizations.

It’s not just the historically-recognized fiefs nor current franchise operations that are the

sole bearers of the “Feudal” mantle, though: any number of smaller businesses—sole

proprietorships, small offices and retail, service establishments—share this descriptor if they tend to

have little formal structure and relatively few means of communication. A shared motive is to turn a

profit, however small, by coordinating whatever resources are needed and available, and continuing

to perform, consistently, over an extended period of time. There is thus little incentive or

wherewithal to innovate or expand productive capacity, another factor that defines the longevity of

Feudal-style organizations. The feudal period itself, recall, stretched from the 9th Century to the

17th Century, equaling that of the Teotihuacano.

Organizational Development Implications for Feudals.

In broad, descriptive terms, the position of the Feudals on our matrix owes to their being

coordinative endeavors, similar to the Monumentals, but their more permeable nature makes them

more open to external environments. Inertia is also a factor, but unlike the Monumentals, where

inertia keeps them in motion for an extended period of time before eventually winding down, the

inertia that the Feudals embody is the converse. These are the organizations whose momentum has

wound down, and that inertia impedes against growth. Attempts to establish a stronger

organization and expand communications are of little interest. What Feudal-style organizations do

particularly well is “maintaining,” something they must continue if they are to remain viable.

Modern management pays relatively little attention to Feudal-style organizations: they’re

the small businesses, or small chains of businesses, some franchise operations, non-profits,


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professional and trade organizations, and labor organizations at the local level. Each component or

unit is relatively small and it communicates comparatively simply through relatively few channels—

there’s simply no need for more. Ironically, these factors, uninteresting as they seem to be to

management science, are the factors that drive the longevity of substantial numbers of

organizations in any economy. They have a number of salient characteristics.

One key aspect that the Feudals partially share with Monumentals is the aspect of a

compelling message. A position can be taken and articulated, in a straightforward way. The ideal of

the “American Dream,” of owning one’s business or carrying on a tradition of a family business, or

even the ability to be one’s own boss resonates across a broad swath of the population, purely and

simply. Philanthropic associations, non-profits, or community-based organizations are similarly

energized by having a sole message, as is the case with labor unions or professional associations. A

message that motivates continues to motivate, and it doesn’t require a multiplicity of channels to

remain so.

Where the Feudals begin to differ from the Monumentals, though, is the degree of openness

to an external environment. Feudals have a more “open” characteristic—more permeable

boundaries—in several ways:

Small businesses, whether a sole proprietorship, partnership, or LLC, have a market. At

some level, market demands for a good or service have to be recognized and acted upon. How the

good or service is priced is also determined by external factors: costs that are set by suppliers, and

prices that competitors charge. A visit to any intersection having at least two gas stations illustrates

this point daily.

Associations, ranging from non-profits through professional associations to labor unions may

not have a market per se, but speak to the aspect of a compelling message by providing an outlet for

the shared enthusiasms of their members. Small organizations at the local level demonstrate a

permeability in two ways: there is a kinship with members of other locals or chapters, and there is

communication, typically coordinative, from headquarters or a home office.

Franchise operations illustrate the Coordinative/Open aspects of Feudals quite handily. A

franchise owner typically has compelling reasons to buy into a franchise operation, a motivation that

is easily shared among employees of that branch. Owing to the nature of Feudals to be relatively

small, franchise operations are largely coordinative: orders (to established suppliers or corporate

sources) need to be timed, duties assigned, schedules arranged, profit and loss accounted for.

Communications is two-way, with reports and funds transfers enacted, but are still mostly

coordinative, with standards, sales goals, and regulations directed from “the top,” as it were. In

these ways, Feudals’ survival depends on a level of permeability to an environment just outside the

franchise’s premises.

But this permeability introduces some factors to the business operations of Feudals that are

threats to their long-term survival. Feudals’ relatively small size and the presence of competing

organizations mean they must identify a market and pursue it. Unlike Monumentals, who may have

no market at all, or are large enough to create a market, the Feudals find it difficult to create

markets, and if they can’t create demand, they must maintain it. Adjusting prices, maintaining an

appealing presence, rendering a good or service of high quality, advertising, retaining employees,

and providing benefits are all expensive. Those costs compel the Feudals to continue servicing

smaller, more localized markets.

The nature of communications among Feudals typically conspires against innovation. As

described earlier, most communication in Feudals is one way, and always has been. From the lord to


115

vassal, from headquarters to franchise, from “home office” to local, the leaders of the overall

organization pass along rules and guidelines ranging from dues and fees through pricing and quality

standards to standards of conduct. The opportunity to pass along innovative ideas “up the chain of

command” is rare: examples of the padded horse collar and curved scythe handle as devices to

increase productivity to the formulation of a special sauce that capture the public’s attention stand

out because of their relative uniqueness.

Despite a relative inertia among Feudals, there’s no shortage of energy within them. Their

permeability sets the stage for them to evolve in ways as medieval organizations did—by allowing

members to aggregate in markets and expand their abilities to deliver services, Feudals can change

their focus by virtue of their longevity: providing humanitarian services on a larger scale or changing

the core membership of political parties. But if these organizations remain static, they run the risk

of either going out of business altogether, as is the experience of some 50% of small businesses that

fail annually.

To remain viable, Feudals need to strengthen their focus on “maintaining:” articulating a

compelling ideal, and communicating it clearly at the local level. Communications within individual

units need to be robust, with sustained face-to-face communications, with a greater emphasis on

two-way discussions and provision of feedback. Innovation needs not to be discouraged as some

violation of company norms or standards.

Feudals are flexible, and ultimately function under a patchwork of local norms with an

intense focus on their local environments. Maintaining that focus, and eventually extending it,

define the factors that continue to drive their long-term viability.

The Central Processor Organizations

Feudals, widespread in reach but each small in size, are antithetical to the monumental

organizations whose demise often precipitates them. They are also antithetical to large

organizations overall: in Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith wrote, “to found a great empire for the

sole purpose of raising up a people of customers, may at first sight, appear a project fit only for a

nation of shopkeepers. It is, however, a project altogether unfit for a nation of shopkeepers, but

extremely fit for a nation whose government is influenced by shopkeepers” (2008, p. 465). And

therein lies a driver behind the creation of the organizational type we’ve defined as Central

Processors, themselves originally a reaction to the original feudal-style organizations.

As more “open” organizations, Feudals interacted actively with their environments,

maintaining their productive capacity at a low level, and in a fashion largely uncoordinated when

compared with the Monumentals. But the sheer amount of economic activity, the ad hoc

development of trade routes, and the increasing collection of wealth, production of goods, and

greater amounts of labor resources set the stage for mass production. While no one feudal

organization had the means to produce goods in mass quantities, risk-takers, well-capitalized

individuals eager to stress the concept of credit, and corporate bodies seized the opportunity to do

so. Mass production called for massive investments and vast numbers of people who were

necessarily co-located, a characteristic of Central Processors.

While the Feudals deliver predominantly services, the function of Central Processors is to

produce mainly goods. Thus, the Central Processors are more coordinative in nature. Ironically,

while the goal of mass production was to produce essentially the same product, conforming to sets

of standards (“they can have any color they want as long as it’s black”), and regarding the customer

as if he or she were all one and the same, Central Processors place very little emphasis on

employees’ sharing personal norms and values. Henry Ford’s insistence on a code of behavior was


116

essentially unenforceable, ceding to Fayol’s preference for the sole ability to perform. Where there

is any conformance to norms in Central Processors, it’s conformance to the norms of a pre-

determined, absolute set of standards, against which individual performance can be assessed

regardless of individual beliefs or values.

As a coordinative organization, the Central Processor is concerned with ensuring that

resources are available when they’re needed, synchronizing and sequencing the means of

production in a fashion that achieves the highest amount of output with the lowest cost. In Central

Processor, even the simple adjusting of the speed of assembly lines affects the process of

coordination.

These same factors describe the production of services, particularly in the “data processing”

function of Information Technology (IT). What’s coordinated is the intellectual capital, not the

muscles, of the people who contribute to the productive effort. Algorithms exist that estimate the

amount of time needed to complete a software project, and when code is written, it must conform

to pre-existing standards of syntax—or the program will not run. Compensation schemes,

particularly the concept of hiring salaried employees, along with bonus systems, practically

guarantee that the agreed-upon work will be accomplished near deadline. IT organizations have

notably diverse workforces, which is, again, a characteristic of coordinative organizations: individual

values and norms aren’t nearly the consideration as is the ability to deliver a service driven by

business norms: on time and within budget.

Finding ways to codify the elements of production, ensuring a ready supply of resources, and

delivering output that meets or exceeds measurable standards is the distinguishing characteristic of

Central Processors, then. But the speed of assembly lines can be adjusted only so much, the

numbers of hours of truly productive intellectual capacity is limited by normal circadian rhythms,

and thus to continue to produce more, potentially with less, better than before and a cost lower

than competitors’, Central Processor organizations have one key focus: processing.

OD Implications for Central Processors.

Despite the stability they seek to bring to their operations, the Central Processors face the greatest

challenges regarding their eventual survival. As an open culture, Central Processors are connected

with any number of external environments: the range of suppliers is usually broader and more

dispersed than those of the Feudals; their customer base may indeed be global. Those factors define

one of the drivers of Central Processors’ successes: it takes a highly coordinated effort to procure

resources, both labor and raw, and then combine them in ways to produce goods or services in

quantities that maintain a balance between surplus and shortage. But in coordinating the efforts of

large numbers of people, Central Processors tend to focus more on meeting production schedules

and managing their human resources than on external environments. When an organization focuses

more on how much it can produce with increasing efficiency, it runs the risk of producing more than

its market can bear. Fewer units purchased or hours billed is usually offset by production cutbacks

or layoffs in an attempt to cut costs, which depresses production until the market rights itself, which

is outside the control of the organization itself. The organization may also continue to produce

largely the same good as it always has, and if consumer tastes or demands change, the Central

Processor is slow to react. Almost everything it does regarding the coordination of its productive

capacity has to be changed: materiel acquired, labor resources hired or retrained, supply chains

reengineered. It’s a costly endeavor—and it takes time.

Hence a double-edged aspect to the Central Processor’s nature: on one hand, the time and

capital investment necessary to become established and grow into a large-scale enterprise can


117

influence demand: there are relatively few competing providers of that good or service. On the

other hand, competition is intense among the few: Central Processors’ position in a market is

tenuous because if one competitor releases something newer, cheaper, or better, the pressure

builds to respond, and quickly.

As a counterpoint to the time it takes to mount and build a Central Processor, it can wind

down in a similarly long fashion over time. Failure to modify its response to changing market

conditions or competitive threats begins to take a toll through gradual losses in market position to

eventual loss of market value. To endure, this organizational type needs to focus on what it does

best: “processing.” Process Improvement is one such strategy, provided that it is capable of

producing observable and repeatable results: CMMI is one example, despite criticism that it

squelches creativity. Central Processors need to avoid being reactionary and jumping into fads such

as belting, Kai-zen, or Six Sigma, all of which have their origins in different cultures and tend to be

short-lived, quickly adopted and abandoned, those processes contrary to the Central Processors’

long-term nature.

Given their position on our matrix as the midpoint of an arc that connects the Monumental

and the Virtual organizations, the Central Processors are on a “cusp” between the two. To remain

viable, Central Processors’ focus is twofold: they first need to survive, and then, to counter the

tendency to wind down. To do that, Central Processors need to incorporate some of the salient

aspects of both the Monumental and the Virtual. Their options are either to reduce the level and

complexity of communications, like the Monumentals, and become more “closed,” then, conversely,

relax their structure, embrace a higher level of communication through a variety of communication

channels, and take on a more innovative aspect.

It is easy for Central Processors to engage in a variety of communications and channels as

they carry out their productive process, hence their position on the matrix: roles and responsibilities

must be communicated, time and schedule demands articulated, production and billable hours

maintained, and often, from an overall perspective, these details may appear to be contradictory.

Clarifying the chain of communications, enhancing the abilities of managers or supervisors to deliver

consistent messages, and having a core set of messages that are repeated and repeated constantly,

all seem to be within the reach of Central Processors. After all, this is the organizational structure

that masters routinization and repetition of tasks. It should well be able to do the same with its

messages, and thus enhance its capacity to be a “closed” organization. Conversely, to adopt a more

innovative and open nature, Central Processors can extend their two-way communications with

customers through surveys, feedback, or other mechanisms to quickly build an understanding of

customer demands.

Central Processors that are more focused on the delivery of services can extend their

presence by moving in the opposite direction, adopting some of the characteristics of the virtual

organization. Leadership of a Central Processor needs to develop or exhibit the confidence or

tolerance to loosen their coordinative tendencies, and adopt an integrative approach by loosening

management control and allowing employees or groups of employees to determine production

goals, billability targets, or to work remotely by utilizing fast communication channels away from

line-of-sight management. This tendency is difficult for Central Processors because highly-structured

organizations are most resistant to change. To counter that tendency, organizations need to

understand cost savings brought about with reduced overhead manifested in physical plant, utilities,

retirement of capital debt, and offsets from increased productivity, ostensibly produced by smaller


118

groups of employees who are more likely to develop and exhibit such normed behavior as shared

enthusiasms and a shared motivation.

The Central Processors originally, and largely continue to be, co-located groups of large

number of members whose efforts are tightly coordinated and synchronized in ways that make

processing more efficient. But ways other than adjusting the pace of the assembly line appeared,

ironically, when the goals of the productive process began to be met, and on a large scale:

technology became cheaper, data transmission became faster, credit maximized, funding

mechanisms streamlined, laborers achieved higher levels of education, and cost-containment

measures favored smaller and smaller “footprints” of capital investment and buildings. The concept

of Central Processor organizations began to fragment as resources could be applied to processing

from greater distances.

Virtual Organizations

The last of the four archetypes is the most open and the most integrative by virtue of its position on

our matrix. As a newer organizational type, and as the most open and integrative, inherent in a

discussion of their characteristics is a set of implications for organizational development. Virtual

organizations, in contrast to Central Processors (and partly in reaction to them) are smaller

organizations and thus are characterized by the mutually-shared psychological fields discussed

earlier. They tend to operate with fewer rules and regulations that define individual conduct and

how and when it is to be displayed because they’re not needed to as great an extent. Intellectual

capital is emphasized, and it may not be developed or trained to the extent as it is in other

organizational types. Rather, talent is recruited and candidates are assessed for their “fit” with

others sharing the same values and enthusiasms.

The Virtual organization, as its name implies, is a fragmented organization, unlike Central

Processors, but more like Feudals. A key difference between Virtual organizations and Feudals,

though, is the degree of openness with their external environments. Where feudal organizations

were largely unaware of broader economic structures beyond the demesne, the virtual organizations

are acutely aware of other organizations, other developments, and broader economic systems

constantly, a defining feature of the permeability of its structures and Katz and Khan described.

One of the defining features of this organizational type is the number of communications it

engages in, and the number of channels through which it communicates. Clearly, what are now

traditional means of communicating are in constant use: telephone, fax, e-mail, themselves

relatively conservative. But the Virtual organizations employ newer and emerging technologies in

ways that define their culture: SMS, IM, webcasts, broadband, virtual meetings, shared workspace,

virtual workgroups. The volume of information transmitted, and the need to share and quickly

create a shared understanding, ironically, causes the virtual organizations to use a communication

device by which a number of words or how-to instructions are captured in small pictures—icons—in

a similar way that parallel the Monumentals’ need to deal with constraints of language.

Further, the low investment in overhead, the lesser degree of standard policies and

operating procedures, and a shared sense of motivation, drawing from the energy available from the

economic environment, mean that the Virtual organizations are the most nimble, capable of

changing direction and focus very quickly, and are the least change-averse of the other archetypes.

The defining characteristic of the virtual organizations is “engaging.”


119

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