Most of us haven't yet worked in an irresistible growth
enterprise, one that prospers regardless of external
business conditions. As a result, it can be hard to
imagine what allows an irresistible growth enterprise to
succeed. To help you appreciate what's involved, let me
present two metaphors for ways that nature and inventors
have created such usefully flexible adaptations to the
external.
Nature provides an intriguing example of how individual
adaptability expands success chances for larger groups of
individuals in an organization. According to John Tyler
Bonner in the December 1984 issue of Science '84, a type of
amoebas, known as cellular slime molds, display some very
valuable characteristics in the face of daunting
circumstances that affect their survival, their
irresistible forces.
Normally these amoebas live individually on the forest
floor, and are limited in their potential to grow and
prosper by the local supply of food they can reach in a
fixed position. The size and location of the food supply
serves as an irresistible force for the amoebas. For most
organisms that are essentially stationary, high death rates
follow the exhaustion of food sources.
When food sources are scarce, the individual amoebas also
have the capability to group together as slime molds to
move to where there is more food. These temporary clumps
of amoebas creep across the forest floor to warmer, sunnier
areas where food supplies are more plentiful -- something
they cannot do individually.
In time, some of these clumps will then further change
physical form and create a multi-celled stalk culminating
in a spore sac filled with dormant amoebae spores. When
animals and people brush against the sac, the dormant
spores attach themselves and are carried to other new
locations beyond the range of movement for the clump in
order to find further additional sources of nutrients.
Organized slime molds are able to be much more successful
as a species in survival and growth than individual amoebas
are, by the cooperation they employ.
Imagine how your organization would have to change in order
to have the same ability to adapt successfully to
irresistible forces, and how much more would be
accomplished if that were the case.
Human beings can do better than slime molds because we have
the physiological and psychological agility to take
advantage of even unpredictable change. We are far ahead
of all but a few of the most sophisticated biological
adaptations.
For centuries, people have relied on windmills to generate
power. Originally, windmills were built to face in only
one direction. If the wind blew in the right direction,
great results occurred. If not, either little or no power
was generated. That's the way it is with many
organizations: If things do not go just as planned, we
simply get no benefit from our resources, time, attention,
and effort.
Windmill inventors got the message about the benefits of
planning for perfect, timely use of the unpredictable and
went on to develop the pivoting windmill. This wonderful
invention serves to turn the face of the windmill into the
wind so that the greatest amount of power is produced,
regardless of which direction brings that wind.
You need to make a similar adjustment to give your
organization the same ability to generate and use power
from its potential.
Copyright 2008 Donald W. Mitchell, All Rights Reserved
----------------------------------------------------
Donald Mitchell is chairman of Mitchell and Company, a
strategy and financial consulting firm in Weston, MA. He is
coauthor of seven books including Adventures of an
Optimist, The Irresistible Growth Enterprise, and The
Ultimate Competitive Advantage. You can find free tips for
accomplishing 20 times more by registering at:
====> http://www.2000percentsolution.com .
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