An organization’s reason for being, like that of any organism, is to help the parts that are in relationship to each other, to be able to deal with change in the environment.

The quote frames an organization not as a machine built to execute fixed plans, but as a living system whose primary function is adaptive coordination. By likening an organization to an organism, Kelly emphasizes relationships—feedback, communication, and mutual adjustment among “parts” (people, teams, processes)—as the core of organizational purpose. The “reason for being” becomes enabling collective resilience: helping interconnected components sense environmental shifts, learn, and respond without collapsing into rigidity. Implicitly, success is measured less by static efficiency and more by the capacity to evolve—maintaining coherence while continually reconfiguring in response to change.