Re[2]: Strategy Planning via Computer
GAWNE, SEAN (gawnesm@songs.sce.com)
Mon, 16 Jan 95 11:28:02 PST
Daniel - if I might add a bit of my own theory to complete your cycle,
the opportunities to rebuild or create something new generally occur
only because of the collapse of the old. A simple example that we can
all understand (and many of us have experienced firsthand) is the
amazing creative energy unleashed by the former employees of a
business that fails. In many cases the old system had simply become so
bureaucratic and cumbersome that it could no longer survive. But all
the ingredients for success are still there, and ofttimes these
ingredients go off and spontaneously combine to form new businesses.
Until the old business finally collapses, however, increasing amounts
of limited resources were directed at preserving the status quo. To
paraphrase Dr. Peter (of Peter Principle fame) we often preserve the
status quo long part the point where the quo has any status.
Sean Gawne, gawnesm@songs.sce.com
(If I may offer my opinion about the nature of competition, I would
propose this: competition of the sort we practice - i.e. comparative -
leads to the destruction of part or all of the existing order - an
essential role in improvement. But necessary though it may be, this
effect is not *sufficient* for improvement; the old must be torn down and
the new must also be built. The building is not addressed by
competition, but must be found elsewhere - in the creative impulses of
individuals and groups. A muscle cell exercised by weightlifting breaks down
under the stress, but given rest (and the body's building processes) it
is rebuilt stronger - hence the benefits of exercise. But if it is not
given what it needs to rebuild, it weakens and weakens, detrimentally
affected by the continued stress. The tearing down I think of as an
effect of competition: essential but also in need of its complement to
prevent the pathologies of back-stabbing, cheating, and taking advantage
which can emerge from "a war of all against all" when competition is
understood as that.)
Daniel Aronson
dacce@world.std.com