The speaker discussed how energy flows through nature, humans, and businesses. In nature, there is a flow of "doing" and "changing" to survive and adapt. In humans, there is a flow of "knowing" and "thinking" to acquire and apply knowledge. In businesses, there is an "operations" flow that creates value, and a "projects" flow that evolves the business. The speaker argues that since businesses are sustained by human energy, they are living organisms. Process science can help businesses by identifying and removing barriers to the optimal flow of energy through operations and projects.

1. Think Like Mother Nature: How
Your Business Is A Living Organism
Highlights and Q&A - NYBPP Meetup

2. Hassan Khan
Hassan is the co-founder and process scientist for Cavi Consulting, a process science
consultancy helping businesses to remove obstacles to energy flow and more
effectively automate, scale and grow.
Experience
Hassan has consulted for small-to-enterprise level companies across a wide range of
sectors and verticals, including financial services, legal services, media and digital
services
Education and Certifications
Hassan graduated from the University of Nebraska with B.S. in Neuroscience and
Chemistry
Hassan is certified in Change Management (PROSCI) and Software Product
Management (SPM)

3. Agenda
● Energy flow
○ Nature energy flow
○ Human energy flow
○ Business energy flow
● Why did Business form?
● Is a business living?
● How Process Science can help business organism
● Q/A
○ Among the two states of human energy functionality you defined as knowing and thinking, what
triggers human to transition between these two states?
○ How to identify operation versus project flow and allocate balance among the two?
○ How does the analogy of business as a living thing apply to startup business who might lack
maturity by having a defined operation in place?
○ What are the factors you look at when consulting?
○ When you explain how energy flows through both operating and project flow to support business
as an organism, are you neglecting the impact of environmental factors that often lead to changes
within an organization?

4. Energy Flow
● Process science is the study of how energy flows
through the universe
● Energy flows to create value
○ Scarcity creates value
○ Value dictates direction of energy flow
● The energy that flows through the universe
manifests itself through highly complex details from
the human perspective, but it navigates that
complexity in a very ordered and surprisingly
simple manner
○ Study of phylogenetics
○ Oneness means that there is never any
difference between what the universe wants
and what life is doing

5. ● Changing energy flow is the “experimentation” mode of nature
that is constantly mutating genes and introducing variation in
species to promote their survival and adaptability within their
physical environment
○ Darwin’s theory of natural selection
● Doing energy flow is the “on” mode of nature that is constantly
transforming energy into value by changing the physical
environment
○ Bee’s are in motion (energy) to collect honey for survival
which in return, pollinates flowers (value)
Nature Energy Flow
The universe has two types of energy flow through
nature: Changing and Doing
Changing/evolving
in order to survive
and adapt in the
environment
Doing what it is
biologically designed
to do

6. ● Thinking energy flow is the “experimentation” mode of humans
and the changing process in nature. When we commit energy to
thinking, we contemplate how to evolve by our own will
○ Ex. I always take the C train to work. Today i’ll try
something different, and take the A train and see if I’ll get
to work faster
● Knowing energy flow is the “on” mode of humans and the doing
flow in nature. When we come back from the thinking realm, we
integrate our new knowledge into more productive forms of doing
○ Ex. Say, given the example above, that the A train got you
to work 20 minutes faster. Now knowing this, you will
continue to take the A train for work
Human Energy Flow
The universe has two types of energy flow through
humans: Thinking and Knowing
Acquiring new
knowledge
through thinking
By acquiring the
knowledge she attained
through thinking
(studying) she can now
do business

7. ● Project energy flow is the “experimentation” mode of businesses, the
changing process in nature and the thinking flow in humans. Since
businesses operate in a dynamic environment that is constantly
creating new contexts for success. To remain viable in a constantly
evolving market environment, the business cannot simply maintain
its operating (or “knowing/doing”) process as-is, it must also “think”
in order to evolve its process by adding new process elements
○ Ex. To increase user adoption and retention, Uber reduced the
number of steps the user takes in the app to order a car for
pickup
● Operating energy flow is the “on” mode of businesses, the doing flow
in nature, and the knowing flow in humans. This flow represents the
beating heart of the business. It is what transforms most of the energy
it receives (ex. money) into value (product or services clients want)
○ Ex. Uber receives money (energy) from it’s customers so that it
can produce a service (value) of getting one from A to B
Business Energy Flow
The universe has two types of energy flow through
humans: Projects and Operations
Businesses
evolve, or
improve their
operations by
conducting
projects
Businesses survive in
the market by
continuously
producing value
(product or service)
that customers want
(of who give the
business energy in
the form of money)

8. Nature
Doing
Vs.
Changing
Human Business
Knowing
Vs.
Thinking
Operations
Vs.
Projects

9. Why did Business
form?
● Business formed because humans who have found
passion through their knowing flow were driven to push
their physiological limits of form creation by forming
bonds with other humans to create a new type of process
○ Ex. Imagine a mom and pop shop (like a small
coffee shop run by one person) and then starbucks
(managed by an entire global team - pushing
beyond their physical limitations)

10. Is a Business Living?
● Businesses are living processes that are sustained
by human energy. To suggest that a business isn’t
alive is like suggesting that we are not alive
because the inanimate particles that form
proteins, which form our cells, are not alive. But
everything that is created from living things is
living itself, and by that same logic, business
processes are no different from animal or human
processes. Henceforth, businesses should be
viewed as living, breathing organisms

11. Process improvement is the application of process science in the service of identifying and removing obstacles to
energy flow in business processes. Removing these obstacles automatically increases energy flow through the
business. Increasing flow in turn directly increases value creation. This is what all businesses are fundamentally
seeking when they require process help, whether they can articulate it that way or not. Because of the way business
processes are structured, they require improvement of energy flow on the two dimensions: reducing obstacles to
flow within the human element (human labor enabling the process) and reducing obstacles to its own energy flow at
the business level, which simply means better balancing of its operations and project flows.
How can Process Science Help Business
Organisms

12. ● Energy flow exists due to value. Value exists due to scarcity.
● There are two types of energy flow:
○ Nature: Doing & Changing
○ Human: Knowing & Thinking
○ Business: Operations & Projects
● Businesses formed because humans who had found passion in their knowing flow had to move beyond their
physiological limits
● Since businesses are sustained by human energy, businesses are living
● Process Science is the continuous application of removing obstacles/barriers to a business’s energy flow. By
improving energy flow, the business can produce more value (increase profits, reduce costs)
Summary

13. Q&A
Answering questions from the meetup

14. Question 1:
Among the two states of human energy
functionality you defined as knowing and
thinking, what triggers human to transition
between these two states?
Knowing, aka doing, is the flow of nature. Hence, it is a more
productive state because human are constantly activating
knowledge in response to a process. Thinking, on the other
hand, is a state where human acquire and absorb new
knowledge seeking to make a change in the status quo.
Intuitively, human stop what they are doing when they run
into a problem. Spotting a problem triggers human to
contemplate what was it that went wrong or became outdated
and hence provokes the thinking mechanism to conjure a
solution.

15. Question 2:
How to identify operation versus project
flow and allocate balance among the two?
Recall that value equals benefit less cost, although business
organism needs project work to support its operating
functionality, it is only when benefits reach certain threshold
that justifies the need of a project. After all, a project itself is
not valuable. Rather, it is how a project responds to the need
for value creation and how its outcome could further be
integrated back to the operating process that justify the
necessity of a project.

16. Question 3:
How does the analogy of business as a
living thing apply to startup business who
might lack maturity by having a defined
operation in place?
Many startups often begin with one line of operational
incubation. Their make or break crucially depends on their
project selection. Although project flow in comparison to
operating flow is a less productive way to create value,
startups in infancy stage rely heavily on projects to nurture its
business organism to grow and evolve into an ecosystem that
is adaptable and balanced among these two energy states.

17. Question 4:
What are the factors you look at when
consulting?
Looking at an organization’s finance at a high level often
unfolds a lot of details about a company’s operation. From
there I usually ask questions to investigate whether a compan
has a good PMO setup and begin to measure the factors that
bring down value creation in its operation. Once the areas of
decline are spotted, always make sure to look at the market to
see why the operation is weakening so that the state of
disarray could be accurately captured.

18. Question 5:
When you explain how energy flows
through both operating and project flow to
support business as an organism, are you
neglecting the impact of environmental
factors that often lead to changes within an
organization?
Unpredictable external factors certainly trigger the renewal
process within an organization. However, when you unveil the
mechanism that activates the renewal process, it all ties back
to how the project flow translates its outcome back into the
operating state. Take Netflix as an example, its core operation
started off as DVD-by-mail rental. When Netflix first launched
its streaming functionality, it was simply a project flow that
they deemed would support their operating flow in value
creation, i.e. the viewership. As Netflix adapt and rebalance
energy between their operating and project flow based on the
market change, the benefits of once a project outweigh its
expectation and streaming gradually evolves into Netflix’s
core operation nowadays. On the contrary, Blockbuster who
was once Netflix’s major competitor did not survive the
market as they failed to respond to the market change with a
resilient and adaptable business organism.

19. Thanks for coming!
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● Finally, check out more process insights at:
○ www.caviconsulting.com