Throughout the Leadership Ecosystems series, I’ve explored what coral reefs, savannas, forests, and tide pools offer for (re)thinking how we might enable coordination, adaptation, and growth in human systems. These are not metaphors without practical application. They work.
In this post, I share examples of organizations that have implemented these approaches—with demonstrable results. Many will be familiar names. Maybe a few new ones for you. And if you have more examples, I’d love to hear about them.
While I can’t say that any of the entities below have modeled themselves after a specific ecosystem, their practices demonstrate that biomimicry in organizational design is not only possible but transformative.
Coral Reef Leadership in Action
Coral reefs provide a model of structural foundation supporting specialized roles and symbiotic relationships. I know of two organizations that exemplify these principles particularly well.
Buurtzorg
Buurtzorg, a Dutch healthcare provider, has revolutionized home care by creating a minimal structural foundation that supports extraordinary specialization and autonomy. Their model features self-organizing nursing teams (typically 10-12 nurses) supported by a minimal “calcium carbonate” structure of coaches and technology infrastructure.
With just 50 administrative staff supporting 15,000 nurses, they’ve achieved exceptional patient outcomes while reducing care costs by 40%. Like coral polyps building upon a shared foundation, each team operates autonomously within a supporting structure, developing specialized capabilities based on the needs of their particular patient community.
For a deeper exploration of Buurtzorg’s evolutionary journey and how they navigated their own messy, non-linear path, see this post.
Haier
Similarly, Haier, the world’s largest appliance manufacturer, restructured itself into 4,000+ “microenterprises” connected through internal market platforms. This “reef structure” creates a foundation where specialized teams can evolve to meet specific market niches while maintaining connections to the larger ecosystem.
Each microenterprise develops symbiotic relationships with others, creating mutual benefit arrangements similar to reef organisms. Just as the reef’s physical structure enables diverse specialization without centralized control, Haier’s platform allows remarkable diversity to flourish within a coherent overall system.
Savanna Leadership in Practice
Savanna ecosystems highlight the value of distributed vigilance, migration intelligence, and seasonal adaptation. These principles appear in organizations that distribute sensing capabilities and embrace natural cycles.
Patagonia
Patagonia has implemented “sentinel systems” throughout their supply chain, distributing vigilance about environmental and labor practices across all levels rather than centralizing it in a sustainability department. Their Footprint Chronicles program mirrors savanna species’ collective awareness, creating transparency that allows problems to be spotted from multiple vantage points.
They also embrace seasonal rhythms and migration patterns through their product development cycles, moving resources to different priorities based on changing conditions rather than maintaining rigid allocations. And like controlled savanna fires that prevent larger conflagrations, Patagonia periodically sunsets products and processes that no longer serve their purpose, creating space for innovation.
Spotify
Spotify implements distributed vigilance through their “squad health check” model, where teams regularly self-assess their health across multiple dimensions. Like zebras and wildebeests combining sensory strengths, this creates a collective awareness system where issues can be detected from different perspectives.
Their famous (though often misunderstood) squad model also embodies the savanna principle of “leadership as a distributed function,” with different roles (product owner, chapter lead, etc.) serving different coordination purposes rather than creating a traditional hierarchy.
For a deeper exploration of Spotify’s evolutionary journey and how they navigated their own messy, non-linear path, see this post.
Forest Succession Leadership in the Real World
Forest ecosystems demonstrate patience, intergenerational thinking, and invisible connection networks. These qualities appear in organizations that take truly long-term perspectives.
IKEA
IKEA demonstrates forest succession thinking through their 100-year vision and “democratic design” principles that have evolved over generations. Like forests developing through stages, they’ve grown from a small mail-order business to global corporation while maintaining core principles.
Their “Testament of a Furniture Dealer” serves as genetic material passed between organizational generations, ensuring continuity while allowing adaptation. Their approach to product design mirrors nurse log thinking—older products become the foundation for new developments, with materials and ideas constantly recycled into new forms.
(Deeper dive coming soon)
Toyota
Toyota exemplifies mycorrhizal networks through their knowledge-sharing systems. Their improvement kata and coaching kata act as connective tissues, transferring learning throughout the organization. Their approach to leadership development mirrors forest canopy layers—junior leaders grow in the “understory” for years before reaching senior positions, with mentorship throughout.
Their famed production system wasn’t installed but emerged through decades of carefully cultivated conditions. Like a forest that develops through succession rather than blueprint, Toyota’s methods evolved through patient experimentation and adaptation.
Tide Pool Leadership on the Edge
Tide pools demonstrate the power of boundaries, specialized adaptations to constraints, and rhythmic cycles. Organizations that embrace these principles create protected spaces for remarkable innovation.
W.L Gore
W.L. Gore & Associates (makers of Gore-Tex) created a “lattice organization” with small, bounded teams (never exceeding 150-200 people) that develop specialized adaptations to their particular challenges. Like tide pools existing at edges, these units maintain connections to the larger organization while developing unique capabilities.
When a unit grows too large, they split it rather than allowing it to lose its adaptive capacity—maintaining the tide pool size that enables both intimacy and innovation. Their approach to leadership also mirrors tide pool dynamics, with leaders emerging based on their ability to attract followers rather than formal appointment.
Netflix
Netflix embraces “controlled chaos” through high-freedom, high-responsibility practices. Their famous culture deck describes boundaries that enable rather than constrain—clear principles within which remarkable adaptations emerge.
Their approach to resource constraints (limiting certain teams to accelerate innovation) parallels how tide pool limitations drive specialized adaptations. They also practice rhythmic adaptation through their regular “keeper test” reflections, creating cycles of evaluation and renewal that match the natural rhythms of organizational life.
(Deeper dive coming soon)
Distributed Leadership Without Centralization
Nature’s “distributed leadership” finds parallels in organizations that coordinate without traditional hierarchy. Examples include:
Morning Star
Morning Star, the world’s largest tomato processor, operates entirely without traditional managers. Coordination happens through colleague commitments and agreements rather than hierarchy. Like a starling murmuration or ant colony, sophisticated collective behavior emerges from simple interaction protocols and environmental signals.
Their “Colleague Letter of Understanding” process creates clear agreements between interdependent roles, allowing complex coordination without centralized control. Like nature’s distributed decision-making systems, authority resides where information exists, not in predetermined positions.
Valve
Valve Corporation, the video game developer behind Half-Life and Steam, embodies stigmergic coordination, where work artifacts guide further work without managerial direction. Their “Cabals” form and dissolve around projects based on interest rather than assignment.
Their office design includes movable desks so teams can reconfigure themselves based on current needs—environmental modification guiding behavior. Their employee handbook famously describes how coordination emerges through attraction to important work rather than direction, mirroring how natural systems achieve coherence without centralization.
Cultivating Conditions for Emergence
The examples shared above demonstrate that ecological principles aren’t just theoretical concepts but practical approaches that can thrive in competitive markets. Embracing them in organizational design can create remarkable results:
- Greater adaptability to changing conditions
- Enhanced innovation through appropriate constraints
- Higher engagement from people experiencing agency and purpose
- More sustainable performance that doesn’t deplete organizational resources
- Reduced coordination costs through self-organization principles
Importantly, none of the organizations achieved these results by implementing mechanical frameworks or copying best practices. Instead, they cultivated the conditions where natural organizational behaviors could emerge and adapt—exactly as our ecosystem metaphors suggest.
Your Ecosystem Journey
I invite you to consider:
- Which ecosystem metaphor resonates most strongly with your organizational context?
- What “pioneer practices” might you introduce into your unique environment?
- How might you begin creating conditions where healthy organizational patterns naturally emerge?
A journey from mechanistic to ecological thinking isn’t a simple transformation but an ongoing evolution. It requires patience, careful observation, and a willingness to work with rather than against natural patterns. But as the examples shared here demonstrate, the potential rewards—in adaptability, innovation, engagement, and sustainable performance—are well worth the effort.
Like a garden that thrives through proper conditions rather than forced growth, our organizations can become places where people and ideas naturally bloom. And in doing so, we might create not just more effective organizations but more harmonious relationships with the living systems that sustain us all.
