The Nature of the Force For Success And Failure

It is fascinating how physics applies to the mind. Newton proclaimed a body will continue in a straight line or uniform motion unless acted upon by an external force. So a vicious force must act for failure to occur. I had explained the vicious force that leads us to folly and the organization to destruction in my blog of Feb 6^th, 2011: Transforming The Enterprise - 3 . If there is a natural vicious force then there had to be a natural virtuous force to guide us to what we want.

Senge presents the virtuous force as the gap between the Vision and the Reality or the Creative Tension. But that was not enough. What derailed this force? Why did it have to be organized? I had to go beyond Senge and that made me foray into academia. The journals had the answers but it took me 4 years to reach my conclusions.

The answer lay in paradox theory. Paradoxes are endemic to the act of organizing. It has been observed by Stewart Clegg: “most management practices create their own nemesis”. Academia has of course researched much beyond this statement and identified the paradoxes that arise. Understanding of the related tension leads to the nature of action necessary to resolve it. It became clear that paradoxes blur the vision. Their resolution was necessary for a clear vision so that the natural virtuous force could take effect.

The real satisfaction was the realization that both the Vicious and Virtuous forces are a produce of tension and dialogue was key to surfacing tension for constructive action. My breakthrough is a reliable means for dialogue.