A couple of months ago I wrote a post about the boom-stalemate-decay phenomenon and had no idea why it is a fact of life. I went as far as suggesting how to deal with it, even though I could not put my finger on what caused it.
I just might be getting closer as to the reasons why, but still with no solution in sight. My theory is this, when a business, government department etc is started by a keen, vibrant and innovative leadership, success is guaranteed. If the demand for service offered or products sold exceeds supply, the logical step is to expand and meet the demand. Almost everyone is keen to be part of the expansion. You only have to look at Google and the number of wannabes that are constantly trying to get a job with Google.
What tends to happen during expansion is an oversight of recruiting inexperienced personnel, friends and/or family into key positions, which I believe is the start of the problem. “A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump”. These incompetent people get hooked to the money and/or fame and will start recruiting their own kind in order to cover their inadequacies i.e. there is a shift in focus where the workplace gets dominated by backstabbing and endless meetings. The skilled workers get frustrated and many of them leave. This affects productivity and then the restructuring starts, one after the other, with massive injection of capital in the hope of returning to the “good old days”.
And of course once decay sets in, it is unstoppable … sadly it is like someone who is terminally ill. It seems to avoid such, one has to start early and ruthlessly weed out any signs of decay. Failure to do so would result in a mess, which is almost impossible to untangle. The best way sometimes is to trash the whole lot and start anew. The chilling fact is that many government departments and private businesses are caught up in the stalemate-decay phase and no wonder the whole world seems to be moving at a glacial pace in responding to climate change mitigation. It seems nothing short of a catastrophe will push us into action. I wish it would be different.
Fast Tube by Casper
Anyway, what do you all think about this out there?
