Is Organisational DNA a broken metaphor?

In the current business jargon the term "organisational DNA" is more and more used to describe the culture an organisation embodies. It is not a new term, as it was used already in the 1990:s. I consider the term somewhat misleading. I have no idea why this term was adopted as a suitable metaphor, but perhaps it was chosen because DeoxyriboNucleic Acid (DNA) is seen as the ultimate source code for all living things and that was what people would have liked culture to be for organisations. 

Perhaps the vision is to communicate that there is a role for central control and order, like in eucaryotic cells, where the DNA is stored in the cell nucleus. All DNA is however not stored in the nucleus. Even part of our euaryotic cell DNA is located in mitocondria. Bacteria will not even have any nucleus. Bacteria also has DNA in plasmids. DNA can even be found outside cells as a result of DNA break down.

Is order something that is associated with DNA? Could the vision hence be that DNA is seen as ordered but complex, like culture? I would argue that as culture has more diverse manifestation than DNA, as DNA is only built out of 4 bases repeating in a certain pattern holding a message. Although computationally combinatorially complex the basic structure is simple. DNA naturally is a double helix consisting of two strands corresponding to each other in an antiparallel sense. Adenine (A) pars with Thymine (T) across on the other strand. Cytosine (C) pairs with Guanine (G). This base pair sequence has meaning. Comparing to culture, I wonder if there is either simple building blocks or pairing.

The processes surrounding DNA are highly complex and subject to tight feedback restricting and promoting the processes. Replication is one thing, producing an exact copy of the DNA in order to split the cell in two. Transcription is the process by which the DNA sequence is copied into RNA with Uracil (U) in stead of Thymine (T). Expression is a subsequent step which results in translation of RNA to proteins. Proteins in turn constitutes part of the cells. Only messenger RNA is used to produce proteins. Non encoding RNA, ie t-RNA and r-RNA is used for translation, kind of adding one amino acid at a time to the protein chain as the m-RNA base pattern defines. Other DNA has regulatory effects on these processes.

Proteins can be structural or mediate a chemical reaction, for example breaking down chemicals for metabolism or transporting signals. In this respect I also don't see any corresponding mechanism in how organisations embody a culture. 

With normal living beings some aspects are inherited from our DNA while other attributes are learned. Learned attributes does not become part of the DNA sequence, except for methylation. Culture would in this view perhaps belong more to what is learned, at least in terms of higher beings, while structure is more encoded in DNA. For viruses and less complex organisms the role of learning would perhaps be of less significance, but then again they do not exhibit any higher order of culture.

Although organisational DNA can be seen to propagate, inheritance is not something organisations exhibit. Culture typically spread from one part to the next in an organisation, from one person to the next, so this should perhaps be seen as more as infection than reproduction... Taking this idea further would give a problematic view of organisations as being primitive, simplistic and perhaps a bit sinister on the side infecting other cells... 

Well, anyway, some viruses have DNA, except RNA viruses of course where the situation is even more complex. For a virus to spread it requires also what cells ultimately produce from DNA: Proteins. Messenger RNA is only a step on the way. The replication requires a machinery that cells provide which is subject to tight feed back loops. I don't see the same level of tight feedback in regards to organisational culture.

DNA can be read, or sequenced, to identify the constituting base pair pattern in a sequence of DNA. DNA can be analysed and used to identify species, relationship between samples and identities. I do not know how to elucidate the constituents of Organisational DNA, although Dr. Westrum describes three types of organisations. The constituents i would however say are very unlikely to be sequential or produce a pattern.

DNA does provide a well known acronym that perhaps lend credibility to the organisational ideas in relation to culture. Perhaps nothing more than this is required as an explanation. Nothing wrong with metaphors, even bad ones can be useful, but it is unrealistic to think that everyone will be on board with your metaphor. 

Over all, knowing a bit about DNA makes the organisational DNA metaphor seem superficial and fluffy, perhaps just like culture generally is viewed. For more on organisational culture i would in stead suggest you go to the podcast interview with Dr. Ron Westrum by Gene Kim at ITRevolution.