Information is the lifeblood of every organization. As in an organization, so in our bodies nutrients get transported from area to area enabling the entire organism to live and more importantly integrate and adapt to its present conditions. No matter what organizational structure exists or the level of organizational maturity, the flow of information determines how successful we are. Rapid response requires information delivery to the functions and people that can solve the issues that arise during execution. Functional managers and personnel need information to implement the strategic decision made by company leaders. Information must flow across disciplines so appropriate reviews are conducted to facilitate identification of issues before they become problems. Information flow is what enables organizations to not only exist but thrive.

The organization’s capacity to perform is constricted when information does not readily flow when needed. Sometimes this is due to an individual’s inflated ego and associated power mongering. Sometimes it’s due to personnel not knowing what information is important and what does not serve the larger system’s performance. Sometimes it has less to do with people than the systems that contain or surface the information. Business systems and more specifically the flow of information between business systems can have a profound positive or negative impact on organizational performance. To illustrate, imagine an organization having multiple divisions where one business location makes sub-assemblies integrated into a product integrated at another location. When an issue with one of those dub-assembly elements is discovered at the integrated product level, investigation ensues costing delivery schedule and money. Finding root cause reveals that the issue was discovered by the team that worked the element many months ago. Having an issue at the integrated level after it was identified by another team represents a failure of information flow. Knowing about the issue when it happened at the element level would likely have prevented the issue at the integrated level.

The same holds true for us personally. We are comprised of many elements integrated into what we think of as our self. Everyone has different levels of awareness of their constituent elements and how they may or may not affect our health, happiness, and life itself. The more we can learn about ourselves, how our bodies, minds, spirits and environment work together enables us to identify potential issues before they become problems. Of course, we often must have some level of experience with the issues before we can bring them into our awareness to pay attention to. However, we are often told by others what our issues are but refuse to ingest the information. To take advantage of what the universe is telling us requires asking how we may be wrong more than looking for ways confirming our unconscious biases. We must evaluate the information, source, and applicability to our situation. We must determine if the information from outside as well as within ourselves if fit for use. To put it in another way, is the quality (i.e. level of fitness for use) of the information we are consuming sufficient surviving, thriving, and improving or is it perpetuating our issues and hastening our end?

We become what we consume.

If you’d like to open a dialog on this or any topic on this blog, feel free to email jacob@bizofyou.com

I apologize for any typos, punctuation or grammar errors.
Feel free to comment and let me know of my errors so I may correct them and better my biz