International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics

J. WARFIELD (pers. comm.) defines coherent organization in a most general way as "a virtual organization, furnishing a context in which complexity is very often located, and wherein it must usually be dealt with, if resolution of complexity is desired".

This is in fact a practical consequence- and should be a practical application- of ASHBY's Law of Requisite Variety

A frequent drama is that the implicit incoherence of a given organization becomes evident only when some unforeseen crisis or disaster emerges.

It is of course a result of what Warfield himself describes as underconceptualization in the minds of the managers of the organization.

It is in fact a model of meta-organization through which the different levels of an organization, or the interrelations between a number of different organizations can be described.

This should be in fact a practical application of ASHBY's law of Requisite Variety

WARFIELD comments: "It is even possible that the inability of the individual to comprehend complexity, imprisoned by a constraining institutional setting, is responsible for what has been described as a "flight from science and reason". (P.R. GROSS et al.) and for ascendency and popularity of management gurus"(J. MICKLETHWAIT & A. WOOLDRIDGE)

WARFIELD explains: "The coherent organization is a virtual organization with three organization levels. Any conventional organization can be thought of as a changing collection of such virtual organizations".

He distinguishes a Level 3, the producing level… "in which goods and services are produced". Most of the population of the organization belongs to this level. Level 1 is "the strategic level, the level in which broad goals are enunciated, where most of the authority lies, and where the survival and growth of the organization is pondered ". It is in fact the "managers level".

"The intermediate level, Level 2, is the Mediating Level. At this level, the Level 3 activities and the Level 1 strategies are mediated.

In order for this mediation to be effective, people in the Mediating level (let us call them "middle managers") must be aware of what is happening at both the lower and the higher level" (pers.comm.). The level 2 people must convey the general vision elaborated by level 1 people to the producers at level 3.

They must also convey the practical realities faced by level 3 people to managers at level 1. All this is in fact a feedback network between levels.