In the natural world, an organism must participate in a system of exchange with other organisms and resources in order to meet its own needs.
In business we used to call this the market, and it’s now trendy to call it what it is — an ecosystem!
Take this snippet from an introduction to the management and leadership conference Peter Drucker Forum 2019.
Ecosystems are everywhere, not confined to natural environments — increasingly, we see businesses, public sector institutions, and third-sector organizations all moving beyond their traditional operational borders and creating or participating in new, flexible, and adaptive networks of…
Life depends on chemical reactions to produce energy and to consume nutrients. While the plants and animals we eat come to our minds easily, there are organisms which rely on chemical reactions with non-living materials for nourishment.
Coral and Lichen are good examples. Take Lichen, an organism so successful and diversified that it covers an estimated 6% of the earth’s land.
That’s 2.2 trillion acres.
Lichens are often the first to settle in places lacking soil, and are therefore referred to as a ‘pioneer species’. …
The word organ is an evocative word when describing life, but we don’t think twice about organisations as ‘life’.
Note how close the word organism is is to ‘organisations’.
Organs are (usually) self-contained providers of vital functions.The -ism suffix is used to form nouns of action or process based on the verb.
Organ-ism is therefore literally a noun for creatures which are in a continuing process of being self contained and alive.
Congratulations on being an organism right now, you’re totally nailing it.
The -ation suffix is added to words to denote a state or quality of being e.g. exhilaration.
It could therefore be argued that ‘Organisation’ is literally the state or quality of being self-contained and alive. …
Alex Denne
I write about what business leaders can learn from the wildest places on Earth
