Last week I was writing about how it should be every companies goal to eventually become obsolete as fundamental parts of their DNA in order to make sure they are working on something with high social impact - instead of just financial gain. The ignorant person I am, I totally turned a blind eye on the survivability-feature every system must have; if they don’t they eat themselves up over time. Which is especially true for companies.

The theory behind this is the idea that systems become complex and unstructured as part of a defence mechanism to survive; in order to argue its existence every system strives for universality. You can find that easily when you have a founder talk about their new startup and how it is also applicable here and there and there, too and anyway it is basically going to rule the world. And because of that feature systems expand very quickly, even over fields where they are highly inefficient and even ineffective.

But at the same time if the system wouldn’t enforce its rules upon every area it involved in, it would quickly become obsolete as people would simply not stick to the rules and take those short cuts that make things actually happen. So in order to survive every system needs to ensure it has rules and they are taking into account. But another thing it needs, is defenders of those rules. Because if you had no one to look after those rules, the system would become obsolete.

So, in order to be able to have a company that is highly efficient and effective and is able to change quickly and is able to dissolve in case it simply reached its goal - which does not at all mean, those people don’t work with each other anymore btw. - stay away from those system defenders. People, who takes systems and their rules more serious than the actual effect they are aiming for. Only this way are you able to move quickly and stay lean even with many people in your team.