A 'Rhizomic' Model of Organizational Change and Transformation: Perspective from a Metaphysics of Change (Chia, 1999)

A 'Rhizomic' Model of Organizational Change and Transformation: Perspective from a Metaphysics of Change (Chia, 1999)

Robert Chia

British Journal of Management, Vol. 10, 209-227 (1999)

JLJ - A better title for this work might have been: "A Practical Philosophy for the Analysis and Management of Change". Chia tries to give credit to Deleuze's conceptualization of organizational change and transformation as similar to a 'rhizome', which unfortunately is not easy to understand without explanation. From Wikipedia we first understand what a 'rhizome' is:

In botany and dendrology, a rhizome (from Ancient Greek: rhizoma "mass of roots", from rhizoo "cause to strike root") is a modified subterranean stem of a plant that is usually found underground, often sending out roots and shoots from its nodes. Rhizomes may also be referred to as creeping rootstalks or rootstocks. Rhizomes develop from axillary buds and are diageotropic or grow perpendicular to the force of gravity. The rhizome also retains the ability to allow new shoots to grow upwards.

If a rhizome is separated into pieces, each piece may be able to give rise to a new plant. The plant uses the rhizome to store starches, proteins, and other nutrients. These nutrients become useful for the plant when new shoots must be formed or when the plant dies back for the winter. This is a process known as vegetative reproduction and is used by farmers and gardeners to propagate certain plants. This also allows for lateral spread of grasses like bamboo and bunch grasses. Examples of plants that are propagated this way include hops, asparagus, ginger, irises, Lily of the Valley, Cannas, and sympodial orchids. Some rhizomes are used directly in cooking, including ginger, turmeric, galangal, and fingerroot.

" 'There are no points or position [JLJ - other sources use the word 'positions'] in a rhizome, such as those found in a structure, tree, or root. There are only lines' (Deleuze, in Boundas, 1993, p. 31). These lines of development are never simply predetermined in any strict causal sense. They merely express the fields of possibilities for becoming to take place. Change, renewal and transformation develop along locally identified lines of least resistance rather than according to any pre-designed template." -Chia

Even if we scrap the odd-sounding Deleuzean 'rhizome' 'rheference' [sic], we still have a philosophy which is useful as a foundation for situations where change is front and center. Such as, we cleverly suggest, in the playing of a competitive board game, where each side is in control of a position in continuous process of 'becoming', and therefore should be managed accordingly.

Humans playing competitive games construct diagnostic tests of the adaptive capacity to mobilize coercion almost by instinct - plausible moves 'appear' in the mind, generated from subconscious processes which monitor causal effects such as constraints, and critical success factors. Higher level thought then acts to consciously stitch these 'musings' together to form plausible move sequences, practically ignoring (out of necessity) those moves which do not grab our attention. Perhaps an artificially intelligent agent should do likewise.

By the way, my copy of this article has 'Rhizomic' in the title, other citations on the Internet use 'Rhizomatic', which sounds like a kitchen device for chopping and slicing food. I wonder which one is correct?

p.209 We are not good at thinking movement. [JLJ - perhaps you need to take a class in ballroom dancing, Robert. They are not all that expensive.]

p.209 we live in an age of unprecedented change and transformation... organizations are increasingly finding themselves under constant pressure to creatively adapt and respond to such changes in order to remain... viable

p.209 There is... a growing realization that our current theories of change are not sufficiently 'process-based' to adequately capture the dynamics of change.

p.210 the dominant approach to the analysis of change continues to view the latter as something 'exceptional' rather than as a sine qua non of all living systems, including especially social systems. There has been little attempt to understand the nature of change on its own terms and to treat stability, order and organization as exceptional states.

p.210 A metaphysics of change acknowledges the existence of an external fluxing reality, but denies our ability to accurately represent such a reality using established symbols, concepts and categories precisely because reality is ever-changing and hence resistant to description in terms of fixed categories. All representational attempts, according to this view, are forms of human abstraction emanating from our will to order.

p.210-211 we offer a rhizomic model of the change process... it is argued here that, thinking in terms of the heterogeneous becoming of organizational transformation, the otherness of organizational outcomes and the immanent continuity of organizational traces, will enable us to develop an alternative set of conceptual lenses for understanding the inherently creative nature of change processes occurring in organizational renewal and transformation.

p.214 Heraclitus, a native of Ephesus in ancient Greece emphasized the primacy of a changeable and emergent world, whilst Parmenides, his successor, insisted upon the permanent and unchangeable nature of reality.

p.217 It is this resurrecting of the primacy of movement and change over that of stabilised entities and end-states which provides a radically alternative view for understanding movement and change in general, and organizational change and the emergence of novelty in particular. According to this revised perspective, our experience of the world around us... is one of inherent becoming and perishing.

p.217 process metaphysics... insists that 'things' are no more than 'stability waves in a sea of process' (Rescher, 1996, p. 53).

p.218 In Process and Reality Whitehead makes this point succinctly:

'...how an entity becomes constitutes what that actual entity is; so that the two descriptions of an actual entity are not independent. Its "being" is constituted by its becoming. This is the principle of process.' (Whitehead, 1929, p.28, emphasis in the original)

p.218 relationships, process, transformation and the heterogeneous becoming of things are construed as fundamental aspects of reality.

p.218 The actual world is fundamentally in a continuous process of becoming... transition is the ultimate fact.

p.219 What is not immediately perceived cannot be deemed to exist unless it can be rendered present to us... For causal analysis to succeed, it must first be possible to locate and isolate both causal factors and their effects.

p.223 'There are no points or position[s] in a rhizome, such as those found in a structure, tree, or root. There are only lines' (Deleuze, in Boundas, 1993, p. 31). These lines of development are never simply predetermined in any strict causal sense. They merely express the fields of possibilities for becoming to take place. Change, renewal and transformation develop along locally identified lines of least resistance rather than according to any pre-designed template.[JLJ - and how do we arrive at the line of least resistance? It seems that we have to try multiple, likely lines, and have a competition to determine which one produces the best results.]

p.223 Because of the inherent instability of change and transformation, we can no longer chart out a single trajectory along which change will occur. Instead we need now to think in terms of the multiple trajectories of 'probability clusters'.

p.223 Surprise... arises only because our models are unfaithful to the dynamic and evolving character of nature. It is this surprise of otherness, of unexpected and unanticipated outcomes which is intrinsic to our comprehension of change... Chance and necessity... implicate and structure the possibilities for one another.

p.224 postures... serve to orient us towards our environment and towards others in our social interactions.

p.225 The forces of change are immanent in each phase of an entity's becoming and perishing.

p.225 Simplification of the dynamically complex and the consequent economizing of effort in action are thus the ultimate aims of the impulse to organize.

p.226 Change always implies 'surprise' and otherness because of its essentially indeterminate character.