Effective Organization is a System of Four-Dimensional Evolutionary Coordination

This paper develops a theoretical lens of evolutionary intelligence (“EI”) that establishes a generalizable systems framework of both effective human organization and strategic resilience. Grounded in practice, EI was serendipitously conceived in hindsight via the microhistory research method. Evolutionary coordination mechanisms are increasingly needed, yet no theory of organization or strategy has incorporated the multidimensional competition complexity that evolution requires. EI is developed to fill this gap via a four-by-four concentric typology of independent dimensions of organization that continuously interact, conflict, and integrate with each other in a multicyclic evolutionary process narrative. The well-known DIKW pyramid is effectively extended into a fully evolutionary strategy framework, where actions generating raw data are progressively transformed into information, then knowledge, and then finally into the new concept of organizational wisdom. The core theory contribution of this paper is to present a compelling four-dimensional multicyclic process narrative that can credibly internalize all core evolutionary mechanisms within a single organization. Previous evolutionary theory lenses applied to both Organization & Management (“Organization”) and Strategic Management (“Strategy”) rely on at least some core Darwinian evolutionary mechanisms being outside of the organization – particularly the strategic competition for resources. As a result, they can only attempt to explain evolution at the industry or higher level of population analysis. By contrast, if evolution itself can be “organized” entirely within a single organization as EI describes, then that would arguably imply a radical redefinition of “effective organization” as a management concept.