Jan wrote:
> I believe that organizations are governed by the "laws" of evolution, as
> all life is, working through "punctured equilibrium": making sudden shifts
> in numbers and types of species and then selecting, testing and
> multiplying the succesful again.
Thought #1:
Personally, I think you have just described the results of most the
recent presidential elections. Jimmy Carter was elected primarily
because Americans were looking for some sort of stability after the
Nixon/Ford years, Ronald Reagan was elected for the sake of stability
following Carter's lack of success with the economy and the Iran hostage
situation, and George Bush was elected to maintain that homeostasis.
About every 30 years or so, Americans decide, however, it is time to
move forward, and I believe that is why Bill Clinton was elected. When
it appeared that he disrupted the homeostasis too much during his first
two years in office, people elected a Republican Congress, and when they
appeared to disrupt the homeostasis in the opposite direction, the
electorate rebelled again in 1996. Despite a few obvious examples,
Americans mostly rejected extremists this year in favor of centrists
(i.e., "homeostasians").
Thought #2:
What about chaos theory? I know one CEO who believes that his job is to
constantly disrupt the homeostasis in the organization. He leads, not
with vision, but by constantly challenging and disrupting the status
quo. Anybody know much about this approach?
Robert Ingram
Ingram Communications
--Robert Ingram <ingram_b@ix.netcom.com>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>