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Fractals - Systems within systems

Fractuals are self repeating structures within structures at different levels. Lessons that apply at one level (e.g. The individual level) also apply at the next level (e.g. the team level) and the next level (e.g. the organisation level).

Thinking of the organisation in terms of a system is a major part of G.U.T.s.. Or more correctly, as a series of living systems which (like Russian dolls) fit within each other.

There are several interesting things about this view point:

1. It's not the dolls themselves that are so interesting, it's the gaps in between the dolls where the really interesting stuff happens. In other words it's the relationships and how one level interplays with the others and draws energy. There is a critical need in business to see these levels as closely connected and integrated into a whole which is more than the separate dolls.

2. Seeing each doll as a system, reduces the complexity because at each level each system follows some fairly predictable laws of systems. The most important of these are the Law of Entropy and the Law of Self Organisation - two critical areas where I do a great deal of consulting work.

3. One of the things that science tells us is, what's true at one level is also true at other levels. So if processes are true at the level of the individual, they are also going to work at the level of the organisation, the community and the society.

This perspective greatly simplifies our understanding of organisations. What many people see as a complicated mishmash becomes far more simple when we start to see things in terms of systems, or rather a series of living systems which (like Russian dolls) fit within each other.