The Donut and Terror

by Rob Paterson

October 5, 2007 at 1:41 pm · Filed under 2.0 Design Thinking, Business Model, Charles Handy, Conflict, David Kilkullen, Donut, Enterprise 2.0, Sponsored Post, Terror

I have been writing about how the “Donut” will replace the traditional organization.

Here is Kilkullen on how the “Donut” works in the Terror context:

I find it fascinating when I find that someone I don’t know has seen the same as I.

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4 Comments »

Paula ThorntonOctober 7th, 2007 at 2:56 pm

While represented visually with ‘hard edges’ and using hard labels, the model is fundamentally the same as any social structure. Try this test…put Nazi-era Jews in the middle and see how the model fills out.

Rob PatersonOctober 7th, 2007 at 3:11 pm

Of course Paula - that was my aha too - so this is not just an idea but a reality.

But what organization thinks this way? They all go off and do their Mission Vision thing and miss the point.

I see the story by the way right in the centre of the Sun - what organization even thinks like this? Al Qaida has a story that is worth dying for. Their story gives hope to the hopeless just as early Christianity gave hope. I bet the Romans thought that the Christians were nuts.

Paula ThorntonOctober 7th, 2007 at 6:52 pm

Actually, organizations naturally operate this way (as opposed to what they profess/prescribe), only not in a single instance but a collection of instances. Every relevant ‘identity’ (esp. role) forms a core. Indeed, the schizophrenic tendancies of a culture is traceable in the degree of mismatch between the natural models and the prescribed models.

Hope is an interesting dimension. See if your perception of hope changes when considering the following.

The greater the degree of the gap between reality and individual preference or personal mores, the more readily individuals will seek others with whom they can create an ‘alternate’ reality. The more controls are imposed to manage behaviors, the stronger the attraction to the safety of alternate realities — isolation and differentiation is increased as a means of self-preservation.

Hope suddenly takes on an element of strength and resolve that those outside of the group are not likely to identify with. It’s all relative.

This is fundamental to the disconnect of those who insist that principles of economics are not sound because people do not behave rationally. Individual behaviors are rational to each individual within the context of their reality. Understanding lies in individual patterns of reason, and the collective reason of the groups they identify with.

2.0 frameworks expose realities, allowing the gap to be called out for what it is and challenged.

Paula ThorntonOctober 12th, 2007 at 1:02 pm

I’d actually be really curious to get feedback from the Disney guy who spoke at FASTforward07. On a panel, he talked about how they had identified and were making sure they were accounting for floaters, swimmers and divers, in their social/participation designs.

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