Arie DeGeus.The Living Company: Habits for Survival in a Turbulent Business Environment.Harvard Business School Press. Boston, Massachusetts. 1997.

Quotes

Dealing with the future can never be delegated. It is the uncomfortable component of the manager's job.

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Jay Forrester - System Dynamics

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Imagine, instead, if managers asked themselves, "What would we do if such-and-such happened?...Answering these questions, or questions like them, would allow managers to work out one or more of David Ingram's mental time paths. It would allow us to build ourselves a series of memories of the future -- anticipations of events that might or might not take place. Thereafter, we would be prepared.

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The Persona has an influence on the world around it as an example, a "role model," but it can never equalize the worlds values with its own. On the other hand, neither can the world completely impose its values on an individual country. Moreover, the mutual influence is weak in the present. The most important effect of the radiation of the persona on society and the invection of the persona by society will take place in the future. The examples given by ideas and work need time to be absorbed.

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The underlying contract between the company and its members (individuals and institutions) is that the members will be helped to reach their full potential. It is understood that this, at the same time, is in the company's self interest. The self-interest if the company stems from its understanding that the members' potential helps create the corporate potential.

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If corporate health falters, the priority should be on mobilizing the maximum human potential, on restoring or maintaining trust and civic behavior, and on increasing professionalism and good citizenship.

Contents

• Foreword (Peter M. Senge)
• Acknowledgments
• Prologue: The Lifespan of a Company
  • Some Companies Last Hundreds of Years
    1. long-lived companies were sensitive to their environment
    2. long-lived companies were cohesive, with a strong sense of identity
    3. long-lived companies were tolerant
    4. long-lived companies were conservative in financing
  • Defining the Living Company
    1. sensitivity to the environment
    2. cohesion and identity
    3. tolerance and its corollary decentralization
    4. conservative financing

Learning

• 1 - The Shift from Capitalism to a Knowledge Society

  • Economic Success versus Learning
  • When Success Is Based on Learning

• 2 - The Memory of the Future

  • Changing to Match the Outside World
  • Theory 1: Managers Are Stupid
  • Theory 2: We Can See Only When a Crisis Opens Our Eyes
  • Theory 3: We Can See Only What We Have Already Experienced
  • Theory 4: We Cannot See What Is Emotionally Difficult to See
  • Theory 5: We Can See Only What Is Relevant to Our View of the Future

• 3 - Tools for Foresight

  • Planning and the Illusion of Certainty
  • Shell's Scenario Experience
  • The Bridge between Scenarios and Action
• 4 - Decision Making as a Learning Activity
  • The Reality of Decision Making
    • 1 Perceiving
    • 2 Embedding
    • 3 Concluding
    • 4 Acting
  • Learning by Accommodation
  • The Problems with Conventional Learning
    • They are slow
    • They close options
    • They depend on learning by experience, instead of by simulation
    • They breed fear
  • Learning to Play, and Playing to Learn
  • Building the Manager's Lego Set
  • What Computers Couldn't Do
  • Why Don't We Play All the Time in Business?

Persona (Identity)

• 5 - Only Living Beings Learn

  • The Persona of a Living Being
    • The persona is goal-oriented
    • It is conscious of itself
    • It is open to the outside world
    • It is alive, but it has a finite lifespan
  • The Ladder
    • Individual - Team - Work Group - Division - Company - Corporation - Society
    • criteria for a living persona
      • each nested unit is goal-oriented
      • each unit of the company is conscious of itself
      • each unit is open to the outside world
      • each unit of a company, while alive, has a finite lifespan
  • Introception
  • When the Persona and the World Don't Match
  • Who Belongs?
• 6 - Managing for Profit or for Longevity: Is There a Choice?
  • The Boundaries of Identity
  • Common Values
  • Joining the Flow: Recruitment Policies
  • Development of People
    • generation 1 - recruits to early 30's developing abilities
    • generation 2 - late 30's to 40's exercising leadership in the company
    • generation 3 - 50's senior managers setting the course for the company
  • Assessing Human Potential
  • Trust and the Human Contract
  • Outsiders
  • Exit Rules
  • When a River Company Changes Course

Ecology

• 7 - Flocking

  • Wilson theorized accelerated anatomical evolution happens when species have three characteristics
    • Innovation
    • Social propagation
    • Mobility
  • The Titmouse and the Milk Bottle
  • Flocking in Organizations
  • Job Mobility
  • Social Propagation
  • Innovation and the Dilemma of Freedom

• 8 - The Tolerant Company

  • Decentralization and Tolerance
  • The Parable of the Chilean Potato
  • Tolerance and the Ecology of Companies
  • Balancing Freedom and Control
  • The Management of Tolerance
• 9 - The Corporate Immune System
  • Acquisitions and Mergers
  • Parasites
  • Corporate Symbiosis

Evolution

• 10 - Conservatism in Financing

  • Money as the Governor of Evolution
  • Money as the Measure of Corporate Success
  • Money as the Expression of Corporate Reality
  • New Governance Forms in a Living Company
  • Why Not Let Corporations Die?
  • The Price of a Company's Death

• 11 - Power: Nobody Should Have Too Much

  • An Ethic of Distributed Power
  • The Implications of Distributed Power
  • Upward Impediments
  • The Living Company Needs New Governance

• Epilogue: The Company of the Future

• Notes
• Index
• About the Author