Interesting take. It sounds though like you're saying less that selection pressures are playing a role in relationship decline and more that relationships are naturally initiated at a relative high point and thereafter often dissolved when the relationship returns to the mean. I hadn't considered it that way and it's certainly an intriguing thought to apply to something like the rise and fall of empires.
I'm not sure that's all there is to it though. There's an old joke that I've long found has a kernel of truth to it: "A woman marries a man believing that he'll change; a man marries a woman believing that she won't. Often, neither are correct." Given that divorces are overwhelmingly initiated by the wife, I'm inclined to think an awful lot of relationships started in an overlap state of what he considered an acceptable ceiling and she considered an acceptable floor and end when she realizes this fact.
Just random thoughts though. Good article, very thought provoking.
Agree, Steven. I've often thought of the 'old joke' you cited although I didn't know it was considered a joke; more, a wise saying. I recall thinking many times that my boyfriend of 5 years and I had our best conversation the day we met. [Yet we still got along well enough to stay together that long -- we didn't go on to have great convos, but it was companionate enough.]. And women initiate 69%. A majority, yes.
This is so serendipitous - I was just thinking about how an issue more generally is that with post-modernist thinking, we are more inclined to change our strategies situationally. While this is a great vehicle for critique, it also means that partnerships are not indexing on the same strategies. This, in effect, means we are unable to promote accountability, learn and make progress. Shared strategies only work if they are in fact, shared!
Isn't a lack of selection and the impossibility of purposeful, guided change inherent in the notion of a 'world mono-culture'? How could something without any competition undergo selection? Or are you saying drift is inherent to the concept? And when has the world ever had an adaptive world mono-culture? How could such a thing possibly be measured, even in hindsight?
I would point to two other basic concepts from biology as likely involved in company mortality: high infant mortality and senescence. Both are fairly well understood phenomena and both apply to companies much as they apply to organisms. Senescence includes some drift-related concepts - such as mutational load - and a number of other factors as well.
So if we were to split the world into lots of subcultures again, instead of having the world be a single monoculture, what would a good method for cultural selection be?
I don't think it is. It is perfectly reasonable for a firm to have a limited life from the get go (eg. until the mine is exhausted, or the tolling concession runs out, or the patent expires). It is the people in it who tend to try to keep it alive for a number of reasons - eg. they don't want to be associated with a company going out of business or shrinking in value, or they have an allegiance to their colleagues, or probably many other reasons.
I would go further here and say that the culture of the firm also affects how it competes and how efficiently it operates. A culture of shirking because it is "good enough" can drag down a very successful group, or a culture of "send us weekly updates on forecasts and risks that we will never look at but take you hours to get together" steals the time of workers. Even just process drift as people come and go and lose track of how things are suppose to be done. Lots of things can go wrong, none of which are obvious at the time.
I have seen a lot of those myself over the years. Rob Axtel has a good paper on the shirking aspect causing companies to rot away as well.
What of those companies - Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Ford - which seem to thrive for longer than this - over a hundred years or more? John Kay argues that their marketing focus keeps them dynamic and adaptive, but there could be other explanations..
Interesting take. It sounds though like you're saying less that selection pressures are playing a role in relationship decline and more that relationships are naturally initiated at a relative high point and thereafter often dissolved when the relationship returns to the mean. I hadn't considered it that way and it's certainly an intriguing thought to apply to something like the rise and fall of empires.
I'm not sure that's all there is to it though. There's an old joke that I've long found has a kernel of truth to it: "A woman marries a man believing that he'll change; a man marries a woman believing that she won't. Often, neither are correct." Given that divorces are overwhelmingly initiated by the wife, I'm inclined to think an awful lot of relationships started in an overlap state of what he considered an acceptable ceiling and she considered an acceptable floor and end when she realizes this fact.
Just random thoughts though. Good article, very thought provoking.
Agree, Steven. I've often thought of the 'old joke' you cited although I didn't know it was considered a joke; more, a wise saying. I recall thinking many times that my boyfriend of 5 years and I had our best conversation the day we met. [Yet we still got along well enough to stay together that long -- we didn't go on to have great convos, but it was companionate enough.]. And women initiate 69%. A majority, yes.
This is so serendipitous - I was just thinking about how an issue more generally is that with post-modernist thinking, we are more inclined to change our strategies situationally. While this is a great vehicle for critique, it also means that partnerships are not indexing on the same strategies. This, in effect, means we are unable to promote accountability, learn and make progress. Shared strategies only work if they are in fact, shared!
Yes, modernists don't share as much of a world with each other.
Isn't a lack of selection and the impossibility of purposeful, guided change inherent in the notion of a 'world mono-culture'? How could something without any competition undergo selection? Or are you saying drift is inherent to the concept? And when has the world ever had an adaptive world mono-culture? How could such a thing possibly be measured, even in hindsight?
I would point to two other basic concepts from biology as likely involved in company mortality: high infant mortality and senescence. Both are fairly well understood phenomena and both apply to companies much as they apply to organisms. Senescence includes some drift-related concepts - such as mutational load - and a number of other factors as well.
So if we were to split the world into lots of subcultures again, instead of having the world be a single monoculture, what would a good method for cultural selection be?
Thanks robin. Not sure why you think firms mostly fail because of cultural shift as opposed to market shift.
The job of a firm culture is to adapt to changing markets.
I don't think it is. It is perfectly reasonable for a firm to have a limited life from the get go (eg. until the mine is exhausted, or the tolling concession runs out, or the patent expires). It is the people in it who tend to try to keep it alive for a number of reasons - eg. they don't want to be associated with a company going out of business or shrinking in value, or they have an allegiance to their colleagues, or probably many other reasons.
I would go further here and say that the culture of the firm also affects how it competes and how efficiently it operates. A culture of shirking because it is "good enough" can drag down a very successful group, or a culture of "send us weekly updates on forecasts and risks that we will never look at but take you hours to get together" steals the time of workers. Even just process drift as people come and go and lose track of how things are suppose to be done. Lots of things can go wrong, none of which are obvious at the time.
I have seen a lot of those myself over the years. Rob Axtel has a good paper on the shirking aspect causing companies to rot away as well.
That may not always be possible. A shift can cause your assets to be worth less than your liabilities.
What of those companies - Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Ford - which seem to thrive for longer than this - over a hundred years or more? John Kay argues that their marketing focus keeps them dynamic and adaptive, but there could be other explanations..
Any trend will have a few exceptions.
I am shocked sir, shocked, that you of all people would suggest marketing might be helping those companies survive!
I am also quite happy to see you have a substack I can subscribe to :)
Why would a marketing focus keep a company dynamic and adaptive?