Monday, December 22, 2014

Constant Innovation

The demand for change is one of the most disastrous conceptions of the present time and the cause of incessant upheaval.   Many who are fond of calling themselves "innovators" demand change, simply for the sake of making a change, on the assumption that anything different would be more likely to produce a positive outcome than the present system.

The psychological basis of an unspecific demand of any kind is emotion devoid of intelligence.   The sense that the present situation is unsatisfactory is largely a construction, though it may be rationalized by selecting certain observable facts that support a case for discontent.   But the discontented are not often clear on what, exactly, is causing their discontent - nor are they clear on the manner in which making a specific change would produce a better outcome or, for that matter, what specific outcome they wish to produce.

In extreme cases, it is more readily noticeable.  It is very common for dysfunctional individuals who experience negative emotions to seek a cause for those emotions, and when they are unable to find a rational chain of causation then an irrational one will suffice. The paranoid schizophrenic sees himself beset by imaginary foes, or suggests that any passing stranger is conspiring against him, or that unseen spirits or inanimate objects are the cause of his discontent.

In the same sense, those who demand change without reason seek to blame and set themselves upon systems to which they assign a failure to achieve the results they desire, or otherwise campaign for a random selection of adjustments to those systems that will remedy their  or otherwise campaign for laws to remedy their imaginary insufficiencies - all without understanding the real causes of the present situation or assessing whether the changes they demand will be effective in achieving a positive outcome.

The history of many companies is marred by such behavior: there are incessant changes, each of which "is a little revolution" that seeks to effect an improvement - but because neither the cause nor the solution has been analyzed to any appreciable degree, their schemes very often fail and more changes are necessary to mitigate the consequences the changes made of the day before.

And if the outcome of ill-conceived improvements is not detrimental enough, the mere fact that constant change is being made does significant damage.   A rapidity of change means that even a promising plan is abandoned before it has a chance to be fully implemented and that there is constant effort and little progress to show for it.   The result of this is not improvement, but chaos.

Particularly in large organizations in which politics often subvert rational criteria for evaluating initiatives, there is constant strife among conflicting parties that prevents any effective decisions to be made.  Or when a party builds sufficient momentum to make a decisive maneuver, it is nullified the by next party to take control before it is effected, or often even implemented.   The net result of doing, undoing, redoing, and then trying something else is at best stagnation and decay, and at worst a series of grave mistakes that provides a speedy route to unprofitability.

This penchant for constant change has spread from the a few selected sectors to virtually all industries - and while consumer spending is often blamed for the current condition of the world economy, the decline of performance is of a much greater magnitude than lack of revenue would suffice to explain.

While it is claimed that something as significant in scale as the world economy makes slow progress by taking small steps in the right direction, it is more accurate to observe that it makes no progress by taking small steps in random and contradictory directions.   In such a situation, the stagnation and collapse of economies is inevitable.

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