Strategic

CHAPTER 9Organizational Foundation

“Nature uses only the longest threads to weave her patterns, so that each small piece of her fabric reveals the organization of the entire tapestry.”

—Richard Feynman, American theoretical physicist

The earliest forms of navigation took place on land and sea and enabled people to move on, over, or through an intended course. Inherently, navigation is shaped by flow. Flow is to move along or circulate. Anything that inhibits flow in turn inhibits navigation, which prevents the movement from here to there.

The recurring patterns in nature, including neural networks, trees, lightning bolts, circulatory systems, and tributaries, all follow the constructal law of organization, which states, “For a flow system to persist in time it must evolve in such a way that it provides easier access to its currents.”¹ From the maple tree on your front lawn to the organizational structure of your company, all structures evolve to facilitate the movement of the things that flow through them. As Adrian Bejan, professor of mechanical engineering at Duke University and author of the constructal law, writes, “Life is movement, and all movement is physics. It's about moving stuff from here to there. The constructal law observes the natural tendency of everything to evolve freely to keep moving. When the movement stops, whether it's a human being or a dried riverbed, it is ‘dead,’ according to thermodynamics.”²

Organizational Structures

Thinking of your business ...