Corporations are People, Too! [Matt Schlegel]

A US Supreme Court decision on January 21, 2010 has re-ignited buzz about the rights (and responsibilities) of corporations. When this buzz happens, and it periodically does (here is an example from 1886), I wonder why it is that we humans are inclined to organize ourselves into ever larger groups? What do those groups afford us? And, what can we learn from this behavior about how organizations solve problems?

When I think about these questions, I first think about what it means to be an individual. The brain is a good place to start thinking about this (literally!) Each of our brains (and I am including all vertebrates here) detects our individual needs and communicates those needs to us in the form of feelings or actions. Satisfying those needs is the problem that the brain is constantly endeavoring to solve. A big part of the brain is dedicated to understanding the problems of one part of the body, and then translating and transferring that information to other parts of the body to help solve the various problems. Our individual brains enable us to be good at solving some problems and not so good at solving others.

Some of the needs identified by our individual brains are best met in collaboration with other individuals and their brains. (2 heads are better than 1!) Our brains figure out what other individuals are good at, and we tend to collaborate with other individuals that help us meet our needs. In that way, collectively we are able to accomplish more and meet each other’s needs better than if we worked individually by ourselves. And, this characteristic is scalable. As the collection of neurons in our brains grows more numerous, and those neurons communicate better with each other, the better the brain becomes at solving problems (fish, reptiles and birds, mammals, culminating in the human brain.) And, this appears to be true for collections of those brains (schools of fish, flocks of birds, herds of animals, organizations of people.) I suppose it is not surprising that brains will tend to use the same successful formula for both internal scaling and external scaling.

When, as individuals, we join a larger group, we create an identity associated with that group. In a sense, as we become part of it, it becomes part of us. As the organization takes on members, it starts to reflect the traits of the individuals. Often, like-minded individuals attract one another, and these individuals may share similar characteristics, including similar strengths and weaknesses. Those strengths and weaknesses can be reflected as strengths and weaknesses of the organization. In the coming blogs, I will share with you some of my experiences about the strengths and weaknesses of organizations for whom I have consulted and show how those strengths and weaknesses affected the organization’s ability to solve problems. Remarkably, the tools that I use for analyzing individuals seem to work very well for analyzing larger collections people. Maybe corporations really are people.

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Matt Schlegel developed his problem-solving methodology over the past decade. He continues to use this methodology to help companies solve big challenges, and he folds those experiences into the refinement of the process. He also consults for companies developing products jointly with Asian companies. Matt can be found at http://www.sakinoconsulting.com/.