Moore, Mark wrote:
> I also agree in the "the beauty is the balance of all elements" point of
> view. But where are the scales placed that determine the balance? Are
> the various constituent pieces of one business arranged on either side of
> the scale, trying to create a balance of positive and negative energies
> within one organization?
--snip-- and
> I would argue that my company will be more successful if the majority of
> the groups (departments, teams, work-groups, self-actualized
> high-performance tribes, self-directed hordes, or whatever subdivision you
> care to use) are positive instead of negative.
--snip---
Mark, my sense of 'balance' is that it is at that place that exists
between chaos and entropy, which is a narrow precipice, indeed. One can
sense an organization (or artwork, or artifact, or eco-system) that's
well-balanced. There's order to its' complex and bewildering interplay of
structure, pattern and process. One senses that it's alive and
thriving--which takes me to your next point.
> How abstract can this comparison get? For my company to be successful,
> must some other company fail? Maybe, maybe not. In actuality, the vast
> majority of companies fail. Their failure isn't always directly related to
> the success of other companies.
--snip--
I think that success relies on how well an organization meets the
challenges of its' environment (adaptability and flexibility) and its' own
internal requirements (sustainability).
> There is danger in becoming too abstract in trying to apply the
> characteristics of life and the natural world to the business world. The
> two are different. Natural organisms are almost exclusively focused on
> physical survival (the first plane in Maslo's Hierarchy of Needs). The
> human organism in a business environment is very seldom focused on this
> level. Many characterizations of the success of a business are made by
> identifying the level on Maslo's pyramid that has been attained by a
> business' culture.
I believe that there are common threads that run through both the natural
and contrived worlds. I'm not sure that Maslow's hierarchy is pertinent
to either, as better explanations or descriptors have been developed. I
think the point is that complex organizations simply exhibit
characteristics similar to complex organisms. This (for me, anyway) offers
another method of viewing or understanding our world. The fact that
organizations display biological traits seems to me a very natural
phenomenon, and one that can extend our understanding of organizational
behavior.
--snip---
> So, if a company's customers are too far and
> remote to intervene in the company's business, it is because the company's
> employees are not fulfilling their responsibilities as representatives of
> the customer.
I can't agree too much with this statement. It's a concept which so many
organizations fail to embrace through their culture, standards and
expectations.
Thanks for sharing!
regards,
Doc
-- Richard C. "Doc" Holloway Visit me at <http://www.thresholds.com/> Or e-mail me at <mailto:learnshops@thresholds.com> Mailing Address: P.O. Box 2361 Phone:01 360 786 0925 Olympia, WA 98507 USA Fax: 01 360 709 4361Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>