Dave Pollard on large organizations: “The problem is not one of level of autonomy, resource allocation or decision-making. The problem is inherent in large organizations, public and private: As the size of the organization grows linearly, the complexity, and opportunities for conflict, misallocation, inefficiency, error, miscommunication, fraud and sub-optimal decision-making increase exponentially. Whether these megaliths are centralized or decentralized really doesn't matter -- wait long enough and they'll cycle around anyway. The only reason large organizations are so dominant in our society is that size is power -- power to unduly influence governments and consumers, power to form oligopolies and trusts, to fix prices, to monopolize sources of supply, and to buy, sue or crush smaller competitors out of existence.”
Echoes of something I've read recently (The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell, especially the section on Gore Associates) and something I've read a long time ago (the Unabomber's Manifesto; note to self: re-read this, but this time without listening to Rage Against the Machine at the same time), the above piece along with the business case for the Caring Enterprise Coach are necessary for understanding Dave Pollard's business philosophy, a philosophy I find increasingly appealing.
