Rise and Fall of Nations and Organisations

Special trees and wild mushrooms reminds me of Lord of the Rings and the hobbits - they love mushrooms in the shire. Makes me think about the rise and fall of nations, and the rise and fall of companies. (lots of Tolkien and Jim Collins there.)

A thought - when other companies and countries are researching and breeding new species of mushrooms and trees, and exporting these highly prized unique new varieties around the world, and we hold on only to one species, we end up being irrelevant. One day, our forest of special trees might not be as unique and prized anymore if there's only inbreeding. We might one day be like China during the mid-Qing Dynasty - so strong was its belief in its self-reliance and superiority, it rejected all things from outside or any criticism, and look at the humiliation China suffered for 150 years because of that pride. Incidentally, that rejection of new technology etc happened during the so-called golden age of Emperor Qianlong, when China thought it was invincible and so rejected the British ambassador and advanced western new technology. Qianlong said, "Great Qing is a great and vast nation. We have everything here, and there is nothing we have to learn or acquire from the barbaric primitive west." And look where that led China. Then, tradition-bound inertia and preservation politics of the Qing court thereafter blocked and stopped any hopes of renewal and rejuvenation of that country. And on hindsight today, it was group-think by the mandarins of the court, all selected from the same eons of Confucian-based Imperial Exams, and their ostrich mentality towards the west (in contrast to the Japanese Meiji Restoration) that sunk China in the Late Qing era, not just Empress Dowager Cixi.

That is but one example of the fall of great nations. Look at Rome, at Venice, at Spain, at Portugal, at the UK. All rendered obsolete because they became entrenched and all-too-blind in believing in the invincibility of their own factors of success. They stopped evolving. Or perhaps that's the natural rhythm of the rise and fall of nations, communities, organisations, companies when people become entrenched in the ways of yesteryears. That's how IBM failed to microsoft, and how microsoft is failing to apple/andriod-goggle etc. They try to make rectifications and innovate from within, but frankly, engineers and managers who have been in these companies for years, and their recruited cohorts, how different can they be? A leopard is too old to change its spots, even if it wants to. So what do companies do? They do re-orgs, they import people from outside, they try to shake up the company. Some manage to reinvent themselves, others are simply replaced by new nimble ones. Some take a bruise and languish for a while after being dislodged from top market position, begin to explore new fields, and suddenly emerge again a new leading force - just like Apple.

Even as we are so confident in our trial and tested systems, should we not avoid being over complacent about our invincibility? Evolution shows what prevails - selection and adaption, not 'shut the door and make our own cars'.

I do worry about that complacency.