THE IDEA
Wholes made of wholes
A cell is a complete system - it has its own structure, its own processes, its own boundaries. It’s also a part of an organ. The organ is a complete system and a part of a body. The body is a complete system and a part of a family. The family is a complete system and a part of a community. At every level, the entity is simultaneously a whole in its own right and a component of something larger.
Arthur Koestler coined the term “holon” for this dual nature - something that is both a whole and a part. Every interesting system is made of holons: nested levels that each have their own integrity and their own role in the larger structure. An employee is a whole person with their own life and also a part of a team. The team is a whole unit and also a part of a department. The department is a whole and also a part of the organisation.
This matters because the dynamics at each level are different. What works for the individual may not work for the team. What works for the team may not work for the organisation. And the interactions between levels - how the organisation constrains the team, how the team shapes the individual’s behaviour, how the individual’s actions ripple upward - are often more important than the dynamics within any single level.
IN PRACTICE
Levels that shape each other
A teacher works in a classroom (one level), within a school (another level), within a district (another), within a national education system (another). Each level constrains and shapes the one below. National policy sets the curriculum. The district allocates the budget. The school sets the culture. The teacher teaches the class. But influence also flows upward: an innovative teacher changes the school’s approach, which influences the district’s policy. The levels aren’t just stacked - they interact.
A small business operates within a local economy, within a national market, within a global system. The business owner makes decisions at their level - pricing, hiring, product choices. But those decisions are constrained by the levels above: local regulations, national economic conditions, global supply chains. And their decisions, aggregated with thousands of similar businesses, shape the levels above in return. The local economy is an emergent property of its businesses, just as the business is an emergent property of its people.
A person trying to change a habit (individual level) within a household that enables the habit (family level) within a culture that normalises it (social level). Working on the individual level alone often fails because the higher levels keep reinforcing the old behaviour. The person eats healthily; the family orders takeaway. The person cuts down on drinking; the social circle is built around pubs. Sustainable change often requires working across levels, not just within one.
WORKING WITH THIS
Thinking across levels
When facing a problem, ask: at what level does this problem sit, and what’s happening at the levels above and below?
If the problem is at your level but the cause is at a higher level, working harder at your level won’t help. A team that’s underperforming because of an organisational restructure above them won’t fix it with better team practices. They need to address - or at least acknowledge - the higher-level cause.
If the problem is at your level but the solution requires change at a lower level, you need the buy-in and capability of the people at that level. An organisation that wants to be more innovative can’t just announce it. It needs to change conditions at the team and individual levels - incentives, permissions, time, psychological safety.
The most powerful interventions work across levels simultaneously. Change the individual skill AND the team norms AND the organisational incentives. This is harder to coordinate but far more effective than working at one level and hoping the others follow.
THE INSIGHT
The line to remember
Every system is a whole that belongs to a larger whole. The problems you can’t solve at your level are usually being caused - or constrained - by the level above.
RECOGNITION
When this is in play
You’re seeing nested systems when individual effort fails because the team structure doesn’t support it. When team performance is constrained by organisational decisions. When a local solution is undermined by national policy. When someone says “I can’t change this from where I sit” - they’re describing a level mismatch. When the same pattern repeats across many units at the same level - the cause is almost certainly at the level above.