Why Looking At A Business As A Machine Becomes Problematic

When many people look at a business...

They imagine it as a machine.

The goal is to get the machine to run as smoothly as possible.

When things begin to go wrong...

You go into mechanic mode...

Find the gear that is not working right...

Replace it.

Want more results...

Just add more gears...

And make the machine more complex.

It seems like a fitting metaphor...

But the truth is that it actually becomes very problematic in reality.

How?

First, when you look at a business as a machine...

You begin to see people as pieces of a machine.

There's another name for that...

Dehumanization.

You do not need to talk to machine parts...

You analyze them and replace them when they do not function.

You do not need to help machine parts grow...

If a part doesn't do what you want, you just get a different part.

You do not need to consider the biological functioning of the productivity of a machine...

You just push a button to make it go faster.

But when you do these types of actions to humans...

What a business is actually run by...

They begin to resent you.

People do not like to be dehumanized...

They hate feeling like they are replaceable...

They despise it when their leaders do not have paths for real growth...

And people stop functioning when they are pushed too far...

Worse...

They might actually revolt against what they perceive as tyranny.

This is not the only problem with looking at a business as a machine.

You also miss opportunities to utilize your workforce at its highest potential.

Why?

When you see people as cogs...

You stop considering what skills and capabilities they have...

Where their strengths are...

Or their weaknesses.

You just try to "force" different cogs into different places in the machine...

Hoping it creates the result you want.

But you absolutely miss the opportunity to find truly high potential...

Because most individuals do not "fit" perfectly into the shape of a cog...

Even if they could create and enhance the organization in ways that no one else could.

So, you overlook talent...

Because they are not the hyper-specific "cog" you are looking for.

There is one other way that seeing a business as a machine is problematic.

Who builds the machine?

The engineer.

Who is the engineer in a business?

The leader.

You know who is not an engineer when you look at a business in this way?

The cogs.

They are dehumanized pieces of an unthinking machine.

What this means is that...

The shape and design of the business is "solely" the responsibility of the engineer.

The engineer does not "expect" the cogs to be able to contribute...

Just as most leaders fail to believe that their employees have anything worthwhile to contribute.

Many leaders "say" they do...

But their actions prove that they clearly do not see employees as anything other than unthinking cogs.

When you subconsciously see yourself as the engineer...

Unable to trust any of the cogs...

You also are the sole architect of every consequence that occurs.

Every failure...

Is yours.

Every missed opportunity...

Is yours.

Every single problem that should have been caught earlier but wasn't...

Is your fault.

You cannot blame anyone else...

Because you have subconsciously created a culture where you are the only engineer who is allowed to think...

While everyone else expects to be seen only as cogs, and only contributes as much as a cog.

I have seen this occur in so many organizations.

Seeing a business as a machine often becomes the basis upon which companies lose their edge.

It prevents them from being innovative.

So, what are we to do?

We need to change the metaphor.

Instead of seeing a business as a machine...

You need to see it as a garden.

In a garden...

Each plant is unique.

You might want to put one plant in one place or a different plant in another...

But they each bring their own distinct expression...

Must be cultivated in different ways...

No two plants are exactly the same, even if they are similar.

They have a way of growing where you might direct, but they drive the change.

One plant may not grow as you imagined...

While a different one suddenly becomes the pride of the garden.

You are developing an ecosystem...

You need to ensure that the plants get the right nutrients...

The right resources...

Are thriving in the right environment.

It is living and breathing...

And that is what you need to understand that a business is as well.

It is not some unfeeling machine...

It is living.

As a leader, when you understand this...

You begin to open up different paths forward.

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