As a huge fan of Apple, I was saddened to learn about Steve Jobs' untimely departure. Of course, the question on everyone's mind is whether or not the company can survive without an individual so central to its ethos. When I read the Sunday papers today, I found an interesting article on the subject. Steve Lohr examines the role that "great men" have played in history and organizations. Some key insights:
- The greatness of individuals is often determined by chance. Churchill may have been the right man to guide Britain during World War II (one can imagine no other) but he spent many years in the political wilderness in order to do so. One might also point out his responsibility for the unmitigated disaster at Gallipoli as well.
- Nations and organizations in transition are often defined by great individuals, but can thrive long after their departure.
My comments: in sociology the classical progression involves a transition from charismatic authority to routinization and bureaucracy. Charismatic authority--a pre-modern form of authority--often works best in small tribe-like organizations with primal strategies rooted in the often single-minded desire of a people. These strategies are simple, non-intellectual, and do not require an elaborate mechanism for implementation. Manifest Destiny, for example, is a form of primal strategy. It is best described as a form of inertia. As Fabius Maximus details in the linked essay, primal strategies can be incredibly effective (and cannot be manufactured).
But primal strategies can also lead a people to destruction. As confused as Israeli strategy has been, Palestinian strategy (if one can call the fractured decisonmaking strategy) since 2000 has been a primal strategy. But as T.X. Hammes detailed in the The Sling and the Stone, this strategy has backfired so far because it leaves Israel no exit. The ferocity of a state's response to insurgents is constrained by international and domestic norms. But if a state perceives (rightly or wrongly) that it's basic survival is at stake, it will adopt a Roman solution. The failure of Fatah or Hamas to develop an clearly articulate an "exit" for the Israelis prevented them from using this a means of coercion.
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