Metaphor-Organization as a Brain

Each week we learn more about metaphors and organizations. Of course, the metaphor that describes organizations as machine still is the most easily to understand for me. Now we will look at organizations as a brain. In class we discussed that the brains links machine and organisms. With the machine you have set ways to do the job and with organisms you have the need to adapt. Both of these are important factors for an organization but now we will include the brain.

When I think of the brain I think of it as an essential part of our body. This can also be true with a company. It has the main parts that I would call the brain such as upper management and CEO's. They are the ones who send out the information to all the other parts of the company just like in a brain. There has to be open lines of communication for this to be successful. They will let the others know what is needed to make the company operate as needed to be profitable.

The brain also has two sides the logical and the creative. Organizations usually have two sides also. They have to be logical to carry out day-to-day operations. They need to be creative in order to develop new products or update existing products.

If you look at the negative parts of an organization being a brain it can lose focus. This happens to companies that do not have a strategic plan in place. The organization forgets exactly what it is they want to accomplish. So maybe in this case it would not be good to be compared to a brain in an organization.

The most negative comparison would be that a brain sometime fails to communicate with others. This can happen in an organization also. The employees do not communicate with each other, which causes problems. There should always be an open line of communication between all employees in an organization in order for them not to fall into this category.

In conclusion, I would say that using the metaphor- organizations are like a brain could be true. There are similar parts of the brain that could be used to describe and organization. By being the brain it is an important part for a company.