continuity and change

[Christine Brinkley]

I have been lurking in the background for a while and wanted to add my two
cents.  I read the ideas on yesterdays mailings and then got on a plane and
began to read an article by James Collins and Jerry Porras titled "Building
Your Company's Vision."  (They also wrote a phenomenal book titled Built to
Last, if you are interested).

Anyway, Collins and Porras posit that companies that enjoy long term success
do so because they have a strong sense of purpose which continually guides
them through change.  The authors claim that the purpose is not something
that can be fulfilled, but is more like a "guiding star on the horizon--
forever pursued but never reached...although purpose itself does not change,
it does inspire change."

As Joe indicates, the purpose is then unchanging, and perhaps comforting, to
employees constantly dealing with flux and change.

Christine Brinkley
Sapient Corporation
1 Memorial Drive
Cambridge, MA 02142

> -----Original Message-----
> From: FamilyFirm at aol.com [SMTP:FamilyFirm at aol.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, October 28, 1998 2:11 AM
> Subject:      Re: OS in low trust environments
>
> Sounds really good to me Karen.
>
> Brigitt you asked me to say more about continuity and change.  (that
> phrase is
> very much with me because I put on a confernce that Harrison Owen
> facilitated
> for us called Continuity and Change: Expanding the Possibilties. It was a
> huge
> success and as the co-chair of the conference it was  the high point of my
> professional life so far.  Giving the gift of Open Space to the most
> important
> people in my professional life lifted me into the currents of something
> much
> bigger than the narrow limits of my life, or profession I am a part of).
> Anyway,  I think you are right they are intimately linked.
>
> I experience the two as levels in an organization (or a person).  At the
> core
> where deep purpose abides change is very slow.  On the surface, especialy
> in
> these times, change is almost continuous and the capacity for change is a
> survival requirement.  I think that the capacity to sustain continuous
> change
> may lie in connectedness to the core.  And to the ability to articulate
> deep
> purpose, to live it, and to others through it.
>
> So seen in this light the capacity to change may be intimately linked to
> clarity about the core, that which abides.  The deep purpose that is
> relatively uneffected by the changes on the surface.
> Joe