What Is An Organization

As silly as it may sound, the question is definitely an interesting one. If you go by the text book or an academic version, you will end up defining organization as a group of two or more people working together to achieve a common goal. And there is nothing wrong with it. However the definition does tend to take a key element out of focus. 

Before we go on to this key element, let us take a slight detour and visit Thor who is about to loose Asgard to Hela, his elder sister. Having lost an eye while battling his sister and watching Asgard go down, a helpless Thor has a vision of Odin. 

Odin ridicules Thor, asking him if he really is Thor the God of Hammer? The hammer was just to help him control his power and focus it, and not the source of his power. Likewise, Asgard is not a place, it never was. Asgard is where our people stand, and it can be anywhere, asserts Odin.

That is the key element that defines the Organization. The People. 

The people make the Organization. You take the people away and there is nothing left. The organization is where its people stand. So systems, processes and technology are to help the organization focus and leverage its power, not the source of its power. It's the People.

But rarely is the fact acknowledged in practice other than in annals academia and management literature. Time to redefine and re-emphasize the people element in Organizations.