The Cat and the Elephant

Last night I read this post by @ned which covered Steemit's last year's successes and acknowledged some of the failures. It mentioned some upcoming developments and very importantly, some new official hires to fill some key positions of CTO and CFO. It was a refreshing change in style from the normal communications of late. Thank you @ned and Team.

It reminded me however of something I had written quite a while ago so this morning I thought I would post a section of it as I think it is relevant to Steemit, especially when they seem to have moved to an agile approach for development. My hope is that Steemit and the tech can be a lot more cat than elephant but to do so, it needs to solve problems quickly and decisively, a challenge in a decentralized environment.

The Cat and the Elephant

Jumping easily up to and walking the top rail of a fence, the cat moves purposefully on its exploration of its world. Aiming to satisfy the endless curiosity that directs its actions, the journey leads to a gap between fence and roof. The cat being a cat, trusts in its own abilities and makes the leap. Today though, either judgement was poor or legs tired after a full morning of sleep - and feet fail to find a hold on the slippery surface. After a short, futile scramble, the cat drops many times its own height, down to meet the hard pavement below...

As a company grows in size, structure is implemented to maintain standards in quality, resources, logistics, people and culture. Optimization takes place and variances in the system are weeded out to create a strong and stable environment. As the company grows further, size attracts hires that are looking for a solid and secure place of employment. With the right conditions, careful planning and a little luck thrown in, growth continues and the company becomes an elephant. Strong and powerful, a force to be reckoned with.

But deep beneath the thick skin, an unseen weakness lies hidden as the weight of growing obligation bears down. The process of building consistency resulted in a loss of flexibility and adaptability with organic trial and error growth replaced by spreadsheet based direction. The low variation environment grew complacency and the strong hires looking for stability are now resistant to change. The dynamic creativity of the wide-eyed child has become the do it the same as yesterday habits of the adult.

The operating environment shifts - Competition innovates ahead, legislations change, global instability, the economy crashes. Oversized limbs move slowly, course correction has a wide curve and decision-making is road-blocked by uncertainty and internal conflict. With limited resources, a hungry system begins to starve and the atmosphere fills with fear as spreadsheets begin to throw wild numbers never before seen.

Back to the cat...
It lands softly on all fours, takes a slight pause, and then resumes its journey. A small error in judgement brings thoughtful consideration, but the fear of the fall is soon forgotten as curiosity returns with a fresh focus on the opportunities that lay along a new path. Eight lives intact.

An elephant can't jump - as the landing would crush it. Perhaps this is why an elephant never forgets.

All systems are influenced and affected by external events but it is the speed of action and ability to bend in new directions that is often the deciding factor between landing on feet or broken bones. Usually, the larger and more complex an animal, the more susceptible it is to variations in its habitat. In adversity, the natural world looks to strengthen itself through the selection of suitability to a changed environment.

Not too different from that of the business world really.

Taraz
[ a Steemit original ]