Musings on the topic of 'Growth' - Part 2
growth paradigms
[Part 2 of a series including the following tentative headings:
permanence of freedom [Part 1]
growth paradigms [Part 2]
growth strategies [Part 3]
purpose and meaning [Part 4]
but there is growth, and there is growth… [Part 5]
expanding the paradigm] [Part 6]
[This is Part 2 of a six-part article on the topic of ‘Growth’. Parts 1, 3, 4, 5 & 6 are available here: [Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4] [Part 5] [Part 6]]
growth paradigms
Examples of behavioural patterns that effect substantial and wide-ranging negative growth consequences on society are not scant. The post-event summary reports following the Deepwater Horizon crisis of 2010 give a clear indication of what influence habits have on our lives.
“The first progress report (May 24, 2010) concluded: ‘This disaster was preventable had existing progressive guidelines and practices been followed. This catastrophic failure appears to have resulted from multiple violations of the laws of public resource development, and its proper regulatory oversight.’”
“The second progress report (July 15, 2010) concluded: ‘…these failures (to contain, control, mitigate, plan, and clean-up) appear to be deeply rooted in a multi-decade history of organizational malfunction and shortsightedness. There were multiple opportunities to properly assess the likelihoods and consequences of organizational decisions (i.e., Risk Assessment and Management) that were ostensibly driven by the management’s desire to “close the competitive gap” and improve bottom-line performance. Consequently, although there were multiple chances to do the right things in the right ways at the right times, management’s perspective failed to recognize and accept its own fallibilities ...’”
“The third progress report (December 1, 2010) concluded: ‘Once the blowout occurred, additional weaknesses in the system’s barriers and defenses were exposed and exploited to develop the Macondo well disaster. Investigations have disclosed an almost identical sequence of developments resulted in the Montara well blowout that occurred 8 months earlier offshore Australia (Montara Commission of Inquiry 2010).’”
The analysis of the factors influencing the disastrous outcome in the Gulf of Mexico distinctly points to the nature of habit creation and perpetuation (not learning from mistakes and failure to continually improve in this case) that we all know well and that we have all experienced first-hand either as managers or implementers within the realms of business but also within relationships. The conclusions are stark:
“Analysis of the available evidence indicates that when given the opportunity to save time and money – and make money – tradeoffs were made for the certain thing – production – because there were perceived to be no downsides associated with the uncertain thing – failure caused by the lack of sufficient protection. Thus, as a result of a cascade of deeply flawed failure and signal analysis, decision-making, communication, and organizational - managerial processes, safety was compromised to the point that the blowout occurred with catastrophic effects.”
and
“At the time of the Macondo blowout, BP’s corporate culture remained one that was embedded in risk-taking and cost-cutting – it was like that in 2005 (Texas City), in 2006 (Alaska North Slope Spill), and in 2010 (“The Spill”). Perhaps there is no clear-cut “evidence” that someone in BP or in the other organizations in the Macondo well project made a conscious decision to put costs before safety; nevertheless, that misses the point. It is the underlying “unconscious mind” that governs the actions of an organization and its personnel. Cultural influences that permeate an organization and an industry and manifest in actions that can either promote and nurture a high reliability organization with high reliability systems, or actions reflective of complacency, excessive risk-taking, and a loss of situational awareness.” [1][2]
While freedom and the growth associated with freedom remain primary attributes of humanity and pre-exist the habit formation patterns associated with ‘good’ and ‘evil’, paradoxically, such latent, underlying foundation of growth in liberty, when closely identified with habitual models of behaviour and with the laws societies create for themselves, allows humans to iteratively assume an illusory sense of self-determination and independence through concentration on the building of the self by attending to its material needs at all costs, and by establishing its supremacy, if at all possible, over the environment and the selves of others.
Consequently, this persistent tendency reinforces the grounds for potential ongoing conflict and an eventual personal or societal demise. What goes around, comes around.
Conceptually therefore, it may be said that the permanence of freedom that inherently provides the energy and pulse to the human being in his/her growth journey, appears to carry with itself a corresponding tendency to curtail, reduce, and restrict the practical application of liberty in the realms of persistent or recurrent conflict.
Ultimately, a triumph in human affairs, ‘success’ according to the regulatory standards of the world (of habit, not of growth) lies in the development of the lower intelligence, that is, success is attained through trickery or advantage-taking. Achievements are arrived at by means of confusing, luring, misleading, striving with, usurping, short-cutting, and/or deceiving another for temporary self-gain or advantage; in other words, by attributing and facilitating the known causes of negative growth to those individuals and enterprises seen as competing for the same or similar objectives. Why else would we persist in calling for a blanket equality we so often cite and yet find so hard to realise?
The factual and historically rich analysis provided by A.J. Pennings on what is perhaps the most quoted business school case study about advantage creation and strategic business foresight, should suffice to illustrate the import of the above statement.
“…, in one of the biggest business blunders of all time, IBM did not get an exclusive contract for PC-DOS. Gates pushed for an agreement that would allow them to license the OS to other manufacturers.”
and
“In one of the most extraordinary business arrangements in modern history, Microsoft leveraged its knowledge of the Intel microprocessor environment to outmaneuver IBM and establish its operating system as the dominant operating system for the PC. In a strategy Microsoft executive Steve Ballmer called, “Riding the Bear,” Microsoft worked with IBM to the point where it was strong enough to go on its own, ultimately becoming one of the richest companies in the world by having their software on nearly every PC in the world.” [3]
Who among us has not dreamt of or indeed put into practice similar advantage-taking tactics within business or in relationship building endeavours?
[This is Part 2 of a six-part article on the topic of ‘Growth’. Parts 1, 3, 4, 5 & 6 are available here: [Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4] [Part 5] [Part 6]]
[1] https://ccrm.berkeley.edu/pdfs_papers/bea_pdfs/DHSGFinalReport-March2011-tag.pdf pages 5 and 6
[2] There are several well-known instances of the effects of what the Macondo Disaster Report calls the corporate “unconscious mind” evidenced in catastrophes such as: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-report-of-the-hillsborough-independent-panel, https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/infected-blood-inquiry-response-expert-group-summary-report, https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/post-office-horizon-it-inquiry-2020.
[3] http://apennings.com/how-it-came-to-rule-the-world/microsoft-and-the-ibm-pc-case-study-the-deal-of-the-century/