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TEMPLATE DISPERSAL IN LIVING SYSTEMS

Lane Tracy
Department of Management Systems
Ohio University
Athens, OH 45701

Abstract: The template of a living system provides instructions for building and maintaining the system. Genetic templates tend to be dispersed throughout the system but memetic templates (i.e., charters), which are characteristic of groups, organizations, and societies, are often closely held by the top echelons of the decider subsystem. This paper examines the advantages and disadvantages of template dispersal

All living systems possess a template, which Miller [2] defines as "the original 'blueprint' or 'program' of their structure and process from the moment of their origin." For cells, organs and organisms the template is composed of genetic material (e.g., DNA); at the group level and above it consists of an implicit or explicit charter expressed in symbolic language. The unit of charter information is called a meme and the charter will be referred to as a memetic template. The template, whether genetic or memetic, establishes the relationships among components of the system and may also provide instructions for producing those components [2].

The genetic template of organs and organisms is dispersed throughout each living system. Consequently, it is theoretically possible to clone a new organism from the genetic information contained in a single cell. On the other hand the template of a group, organization, society or supranational system tends to be centralized. The written charter, if any, as well as unwritten relationships retained in human memory may be accessible only to one person or a small cadre of people who are in positions of leadership. Leaders have the information necessary to maintain or reconstruct the system, but the average member may not.

Although genes and charters serve the same function in their respective living systems, they differ greatly as media of information concerning structural relationships. In genes the information is built into the chemical structure of the DNA molecule. DNA molecules are relatively impervious to change, can make copies of themselves with great fidelity, and are uniformly dispersed to every cell of an organ or organism [1]. Information in charters, on the other hand, is carried by symbols such as words and pictures recorded on various media, including human memory, paper and magnetic tape. Charter information can be changed quite easily, is subject to considerable error in copying, and tends to be concentrated in or near the top echelon of the system's decider subsystem.

This paper examines the dispersal of the template in groups, organizations, and nations as a primary factor in the long-term viability of these systems. After discussing the advantages and disadvantages of template dispersal and developing a proposition linking dispersal to system survival, the paper concludes with suggestions for strengthening social systems through wider dispersal of their templates.

Advantages of Dispersal

Dispersal of the template seems to offer advantages for survival of the system. Some organisms are able to regenerate lost parts, because the instructions for doing so are retained in the surviving parts. Democratic societies that foster universal education are relatively hardy because the basic concepts of governance are widely dispersed throughout the populace. Large organizations that invest heavily in training and maintenance of an organizational culture are able to expand rapidly and spin off subsidiaries easily.

Many small business firms, on the other hand, tend to fail when the entrepreneur who started the firm retires or dies. Only three out of ten small businesses in the United States survive into a second generation of leadership [5]. Only 16 percent of all family enterprises make it to a third generation [6].

Most small businesses lack any explicit plans for management succession. Entrepreneurs often do not write down the plans they have for the business, nor do they train anyone to succeed them in a leadership capacity. Poe [4] cites three reasons for this: Owners are too busy keeping the business alive; they don't have any real confidence in family members or others who might replace them; and they do not see continuation of family ownership as a major concern. Consequently, much of the basic template of the organization is lost with the death or retirement of the founder.

Larger firms that have developed a managerial cadre are not so vulnerable. There is a tendency in such firms to disperse knowledge of the organization's goals, technology, structure and strategic plans among several of the top executives. As bureaucracy develops in the firm, written documentation is maintained on all major plans and decisions. In corporations much of the template may also reside within the board of directors. Even a plane crash that kills several top executives at once probably will not greatly affect the template of a large corporation.

Like small business firms, voluntary organizations and political movements sometimes dissolve when the leadership of the founder is lost. Yet other, very similar organizations survive and prosper. Someone else in the organization picks up the banner and rallies the members to carry on. The ability to do this suggests that the template of the organization has been dispersed downward to the members, perhaps through socialization processes.

Problems of Charter Dispersal

There is no inherent reason why the charter cannot be communicated to every member of a group, organization, society or supranational, as genetic information is dispersed throughout organs and organisms. There are several factors that may militate against charter dispersal, however. First, energy is required to disperse and maintain the information. In organizations, for instance, the dispersal process may require training sessions, regular communication of reminders, and provision of opportunities to practice management skills.

A second problem is that errors may occur in sending and receiving the information. Dispersal of charter information is subject to all of the difficulties of transmission (e.g., encoding, noise, and selection of proper media) and perception (e.g., selectivity and bias) that are common to the communication process.

Third, charters are more mutable than genes. Information must be updated whenever a change is made in the charter. In comparison to dispersal of genetic information, this increases the cost and likelihood of error.

Finally, if the charter information is closely held by one person or a small group of people, it becomes a source of power. Thus, leaders may be motivated not to disperse the charter widely. Dictators often hold onto power on the pretext that they are the only ones prepared to lead the country. At the same time they take care not to prepare anyone for succession.

Entrepreneurs may likewise not wish to train anyone in the secrets of the business. Entrepreneurs typically succeed through the quality of their innovations rather than through managerial expertise. Thus, entrepreneurs may not know how to pass on what they know about the organization. If they do succeed in training others, they may find themselves displaced by someone who possesses superior management skills. That appears to be what happened to Steven Jobs when he was replaced by John Sculley as head of Apple Computer, Inc.

Another fear for small business owners, and for large corporations as well, is that members who are fully trained in the basic structure of the business will be able to resign and form their own rival firms or sell their knowledge and skills to a competitor. Chrysler Corporation certainly benefitted from Lee Iacocca's inside knowledge of how Ford Motor Company operates, when Iacocca took over the helm of Chrysler. Many firms employ headhunters who specialize in luring experienced executives from their current employers in order to provide the hiring firms with an infusion of new managerial ideas and expertise, as well as trade secrets and contacts.

Using Dispersal to Advantage

Some large Japanese firms, as well as U.S. firms such as IBM, have learned to take advantage of the phenomenon of employees going into business for themselves. The "parent" firms maintain cordial relationships with their "offspring," often contracting with them to supply goods and services more cheaply than the parent firms are able to do for themselves. Because the heads of the new firms know the system of the parent firm, they are able to tailor their products and services to its needs. The former employees may even retain a sense of loyalty to the parent firm.

Franchises are a special case of template dispersal A good franchising system requires accurate and detailed dispersal of instructions for building and maintaining a franchised business. Thus, MacDonald's maintains extensive training facilities for store managers and provides each franchise and company-owned store with a thick book of rules and regulations specifying exactly how to run a MacDonald's restaurant. Indeed, for such organizations instructions on how to disperse the template become part of the template.

The genius of franchising organizations lies in recognizing that, rather than hoarding template information and remaining small and centrally controlled, the organization has more to gain from "giving birth to offspring" and disseminating the template widely. For every Colonel Sanders or Ray Kroc there are probably hundreds of small business owners whose ideas and businesses have died with them. On the other hand, if some calamity befell the corporations underlying the Kentucky Fried Chicken and MacDonald's franchises, it is likely that many of the individual franchise restaurants would survive and prosper, because they possess the necessary template information.

A Proposition

From the discussion above a general proposition about living systems can be derived:
Proposition. The more widely dispersed is the template of a living system throughout its components and subsystems, the greater is the system's potential for survival, growth, and/or dissemination.
It is difficult to test this proposition with respect to cells, organs, and organisms, because these systems do not vary with respect to dispersal of the template. Groups, organizations, societies, and supranationals do provide opportunities to test the proposition, however. We could ask questions such as the following: Do the members of groups that survive the removal of the leader have broader or more widespread knowledge of the group's purposes and structure than do the members of groups that disband? Do franchising organizations that expend more energy on training and communicating the system grow more rapidly than those expending less energy on template dispersal? Do nations that expend more energy on educating citizens as to how their government operates last longer than those that concentrate this knowledge among an elite? Recent events in Eastern Europe may provide a test of the last question, if we regard a new form of government as constituting a new nation.

There are subtler implications of the proposition. We might ask what we mean by survival of the system. When a revolution occurs or a business firm is bought out, does the old society or organization survive, or is a new living system formed?

This question is similar to one raised by Dawkins with respect to organisms [1]. When an organism reproduces, the new generation carries much of the same template as the old one. From the point of view of the genes this represents survival, even though the old "survival machine" (i.e., the original organism) eventually expires. Should we view survival from the point of view of the template or of the living system that it creates?

It is clear that dispersal of the template favors survival of the template, so long as dispersal does not endanger the living system as a whole. An entrepreneur's handiwork may survive in the template of his/her organization, as represented by organizational structures and behavioral patterns of continuing employees, long after the entrepreneur is gone. Vestiges of the "old ways" linger long after a revolution. Indeed, groups may spring up dedicated to preserving the old template or leading a counterrevolution. In this sense a template is hard to kill, once it has become sufficiently dispersed throughout a living system. The system may be modified and new instructions may be grafted onto its template, but the old information remains, perhaps in a dormant state. Thus, humans carry in their genes many DNA fragments that are also found in other species related to ancient common ancestors.

The same sort of survival and propagation of fragments occurs with respect to memetic templates. The legal system of the United States, part of the nation's template, preserves many elements of English common law. This occurred because knowledge of the common law was fairly widely dispersed among the early American settlers. Our universities carry on certain traditions that originated with universities in Europe hundreds of years ago, because the founders of early American universities were educated in Europe and indoctrinated in the templates of those institutions.

American business firms share many common characteristics that tend to differentiate them, as a group, from business firms in Japan. These national business characteristics probably occur partly as a result of the retention and spreading of bits of template as businesses merge and employees transfer from one firm to another. Yet as more Japanese firms take root in the United States and as features of the Japanese templates are disseminated by our journals, business schoals, and consultants, the distinctions are becoming blurred. The process of amalgamation is aided by the conscious attempts of most Japanese managers to teach their American employees the "company way." Thus does template dispersal lead to growth and dissemination of new systems.

Conclusions

The proposition stated above has yet to be tested. The illustrations and arguments that have been presented are suggestive, but they certainly do not constitute proof. Nevertheless, a few tentative recommendations seem in order.

First, it is suggested that a nation should educate its citizens as widely as possible in its basic structure and processes. The more broadly the culture and traditions of the society are disseminated, the greater is the chance that something of the nation will survive despite war, occupation, annexation, and other disruptions. The reemergence of Lithuania as a nation after more than 40 years may be a case in point.

Second, business executives who are concerned for the long-term survival and growth of the firm should spend time and money in educating employees about what makes it work. Once the template is widely understood throughout the firm, it tends to become self sustaining, because old employees pass it on to new employees in word and deed. The findings of Peters and Waterman [3] with respect to the importance of leadership vision and a distinct corporate culture in excellent firms underscore the need for top management to communicate a clear picture of how the system is supposed to operate.

Finally, however, a warning: The more dispersed the template is, the harder it will be to change, when change is desired. In an autocratic system where only the elite understand its structure and processes, change is a relatively simple, top-down process of issuing instructions and backing them with authority. Subordinates receive only isolated pieces of the template, which lack the support of fit with other pieces. The down side is that the change is likely to require constant reinforcement.

Employees who have been given the broader picture, on the other hand, will resist change unless they are allowed to see how the new pieces fit into a new picture. Changing the culture of a democratic organization, for instance, is a slow process involving a great deal of participation and discussion. More than likely it also means that the change in the template will not come out exactly the way it was designed. There is a good chance that the template will be the better for the process, however. The new set of memes will have been tested in the market of opinion, just as new genetic combinations are tested through natural selection.

[1] R. Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, 1987. New York: W. W. Norton.

[2] J. G. Miller, Living Systems, 1978. New York: McGraw-Hill, pp. 18, 55.

[3] T. J. Peters and R. H. Waterman, Jr., In Search of Excellence, 1982. New York: Harper & Row.

[4] R. Poe, "The SOB's." Across the Board 17 (May 5, 1980): 23.

[5] "Succession planning in closely held firms." Small Business Report, 12: 52.

[6] J. L. Ward, Keeping the Family Business Healthy, 1987. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, pp. 1-19.