Why copy
Success Formula Failure?
Find out how to Isomorphic Mimetics creates companies that "look" modern but do not work, and learn to navigate complexity using emerging practices.
Based on the works of Dave Snowden, Michael Polanyi and Lant Pritchett.
The Appearance Trap
Many organizations suffer from Isomorphic Mimetics: they copy the form (structures, positions, agile rituals) of successful companies, but fail in replicate function (the actual results).
" We believe we can buy an 'already grown plant' (Best Practice) and put it in Any solo. But innovation requires gardening: preparing the soil and cultivating."
- ✓ Difference between Tacit (Experience) and Explicit (Manual).
- ✓ The risk of creating "Capacity Traps."
Form vs. Function
When there is no previous map
O Cynefin Framework Helps us understand what ground we're stepping on to choose the right tool.
Sorted / Complicated
Cause-effect relationship is clear. The domain of experts.
Tool: Best Practices
Unexplored / Complex
Unpredictable. The cause is only seen in retrospective.
Tool: Emergent Practice
"Safe-to-fail experiments"
Chaotic
No visible patterns. Immediate crisis.
Tool: Quick Response
Cultivating Real Solutions
Communities of Practice (CoPs)
Tacitus knowledge (such as cycling or tasting wine) is not written, socialized. CoPs are groups that learn together.
- ☕ Lean Coffee: Meetings without a fixed agenda.
- 🐟 Fishbowl: Open debates.
- 🏥 Clinics: Solving real peer problems.
Evolutionary Design
Instead of planning everything at the beginning (when we know less), we make decisions at the "last moment responsible" to keep the cost of change low.
Audio Library
Debate Organizational
A Discussion on the tensions between control and autonomy in modern companies.
Critical & Analysis
A Review critical of common failures in the implementation of agile models.
Deep Dive: Isomorphism
Diving deep in the sociological concepts of DiMaggio & Powell applied to management.
The Organization as Living Kitchen
To understand knowledge management and organizational change, we must abandon the image of organization as a Mechanistic assembly line and adopt it as a Professional cuisine of high gastronomy.
While a factory seeks absolute standardization, a kitchen is a complex system and adaptive, where the result depends on the living interaction between talents, environment and Unexpected.
1. The Alchemy of Ingredients: Tacit and Explicit Knowledge
The Written Revenue × Explicit Knowledge
A revenue is the knowledge encoded, documented, transferable. It contains proportions, times, temperatures — the organizational equivalent of process manuals and documented agile methodologies. But a recipe for a Michelin chef's risotto does not guarantee that you reproduce your dish. Why? Because revenue captures only the explicit dimension knowledge.
Chef's Gesture × Tacitus Knowledge
When an experienced chef judges the point of a sauce, he applies years of knowledge incorporated. He feels the texture, observes the color, listens to the boiling. This one. tacit knowledge is personal and contextual. In the organization, it is the senior dev who "feels" that the architecture won't climb. This knowledge emerges from repeated practice, not from manuals.
The SECI Cycle in the Kitchen:
- Socialization: The apprentice observes the master, absorbing gestures and rhythms (osmosis).
- Outsourcing: The chef creates metaphors ("like baby skin") for explain the point of mass.
- Combination: Merger of recipes and techniques from different schools.
- Internalization: Repeated practice until the technique becomes memory Muscle.
2. Local Ingredients and Terroir Organizational
Trying to replicate the Toyota (Lean) system in a Brazilian startup without considering the context is how to try to make authentic sushi in the Amazon without adaptation. The ingredients local (culture, history) change the result.
O isomorphic mimicry It happens when we copy the form (Scrum, OKRs) without understanding the principles. The result is hollow imitation.
The solution is the Glocalisation: respect cultural terroir and use "native ingredients" (local collaborative practices), creating conscious hybrids instead of Forced imports.
3. The Kitchen Brigade: Community Practice
The classic brigade is a community of practice. Knowledge lives in coordinated action.
Participation Legitimate Peripheral
The Newbie (commis) begins with simple tasks (washing vegetables), absorbing culture and the quality standard. This legitimate progression allows for low risk errors before take on critical responsibilities. Play beginners straight into the "fire" without this acculturation is a common fatal error in companies.
4. Mise en Place: Total Preparation
"Mise en place" (everything in its place) is a state of mind of readiness. Ingredients cut, tools clean, team aligned. Creates fluid execution without hesitation.
Essential to this is the Psychological Safety. In kitchens of fear, Mistakes are hidden. In learning kitchens, the chef says: "Burned? Let's understand why and Do it again." It turns mistakes into learning, not trauma.
5. Continuous Tasting: Feedback Loops
A good chef never serves without proving it. It tastes constantly and adjusts in real time. This is a high frequency feedback loop.
After the service, the debriefing (Retrospective) Systemically analyzes what It worked, creating improved routines. Customers returning dishes are environmental sensors crucial: ignoring this data is suicide.
6. The Complex Domain
Error is to treat complex problems (innovation, culture) as complicated, seeking "recipients universal magic. The context is everything.
7. Routines and Traps
Organizational routines (muscle memory) save cognitive energy, but can turn around Capacity Traps (Capability Traps) — look great at doing something obsolete. It's necessary to balance Exploitation (classical refinement) with Exploration (Testing new dishes via "Search Routines").
8. Leadership as Orchestration
The tyrant chef (mecanicist) creates dependence and kills the initiative. O chef enabler understands the complex system:
- Sets enabling restrictions ("use an Amazonian element", does not say which).
- Crop self-organization.
- Practice Manege (drive/orquest) instead of just Manage (controlling)
- Reads the system and amplifies weak signals of innovation.
9. Social and Paradox Discomfort Abilene
O Abilene Paradox: The group decides something no one individually wants, to not generate conflict. In the kitchen, they create an exhausting menu that nobody wanted. The solution is create safe channels for dissension and detect subtle discomforts before they see dysfunctions.
10. GenAI: The Sous-Chef Digital
AI accelerates the outsourcing of knowledge and acts as a sous-chef who has read 10,000 books. But caution with homogenisation (all with the same taste) and the loss of judgment human (tact). AI suggests, human validates.
11. Dissipative Teams and Energy
Kitchens (and agile teams) are dissipative structures: keep order consuming energy (workflow, motivation). If energy stops, entropy wins (degradation). Controlled disorders (invited chef, rotation) are required to renew the system and avoid stagnation.
12. Participatory Design
Instead of top-down imposition, co-creation. The chef proposes the theme, the brigade suggests the dishes. That. generates ownership and quick wins, because the team knows the real restrictions of operation.
Conclusion: The Final Plate
Organisations living ecosystemsNot machines. Excellency. emerges from distributed mastery, knowledge lives in practice and constant adaptation is survival.
When leaders understand that, they stop seeking magical recipes and start cultivating abilities adaptive. The result is a unique experience, impossible to replicate mechanically.
"Bon appétit organizational."