Schlagwort-Archive: Borders

Let Loose Borders

In times of the classic chain of command, many links wanted more openness. The stronger the participants are concatenated, the longer and more inflexible the companies are moving. With the introduction of computers, the interaction was accelerated by virtuality. However, at the same time, each component was refined more and more and the number of connections increased. As structuring progressed, there was a call for more openness – more flexibility, more contact opportunities and more cooperation internally and externally. Today, digital transformation enables companies, groups and individuals to network globally. In turn, this openness scares many people nowadays – there are no clear boundaries, no opportunities for identification and no framework for action. Stiff does not work and open does not work. What can be done? Let Loose Borders.

Let’s take a look at how stiff openness can be imagined. Let’s work along the words “Let Loose Borders”.

  • Borders
    This word defines a system with certain characteristics that makes some feel committed and excludes different ones. The cohesion is determined by common goals, rules, and beliefs.
    What makes the difference in this case is the permeability of the borders – closeness by insurmountable dividing lines; permeable openness in both directions.
  • Loose
    If you bundle a lot of individual parts lightly, you get a charge that is processed in one swing. This could also be a number of incidents that fluffily rain (un)advantageously down on somebody. Or the starting shot without rigid standards.
    What makes the difference in any cases is the action that is executed decisively – doing something and facing the consequences.
  • Let
    The willingness to get involved in something or to allow oneself to get involved has a great influence on the impression of the close- or open-mindedness of a system. Stress arises when cohesion gets tensed and aggressively defends its boundaries. And also, when the cohesion dissolves through unlimited influx of the unfamiliar.
    What makes the difference is the growth – the healthy balance between content-related stiffness and dissolution.
  • Borderless
    The avoidance of borders goes hand in hand with the loss of identity. The feeling of belonging results from common values and rituals. Without the definition of boundaries, individuals cannot find their place or exchange ideas.
    The difference is the form of demarcation – dogmatic borders create violence; unconditional openness leads to unfulfilled self-confidence, and eventually also to violence.
  • Let Borders
    Simply opening boundaries is awkward, as the members of a group are not necessarily happy about the lack of boundaries (see above). Ignoring the delimitation, we are driven by our genes to defend our territory.
    The difference makes tolerance – walls do not have to be immediately torn down, but only need appropriate passages and rules to exchange ideas.
  • Let go
    One should not stick to what limits thoughts and action or insist on the traditional. A new way of thinking is only possible if one at least allows the familiar to pause. This creates openness and the necessary meeting points to improve and expand due to new ideas.
    The difference arises with the continuous expansion of the system – systems that do not open will collapse; systems that use openness for their own development grow sustainably.

Bottom line: Whether you now let go the boundaries or leave them borderless is up to the reader. The mixing of the words has hopefully made clear that it is about the gray zone between boundlessness and the iron curtain. Systems have no chance to survive, if they encapsulate or fractalize themselves borderless. Let Loose Borders – the interpretation is in the eye of the beholder.

P.S.: Whoever recognizes the limit of today’s drawing has understood.

The pendulum – the ideal metaphor for framework

The provision of energy is crucial for the movement of the pendulum. It occurs immediately by pushing the plummet. It is also possible to move the string, in order to bring the plumb bob in oscillation. If you loosen the plumb bob from the string, it falls on the ground like the Newtonian apple and stops swinging. If you transfer the characteristics of a pendulum to other facts, you get an intuitive understanding of the possibilities that we have in daily life, in the economy, and as society.

pendel

Let’s limit the behavior of a pendulum to the following three characteristics.

  • Engine
    The strength of the provided energy determines the areas that are reachable for the pendulum. A lot of momentum leads to a large amplitude and small pushes result in to close circles. If more and more energy is steadily added, the whole never stops.
  • Unpredictability
    The actual oscillation of the pendulum cannot be predicted, since the influence factors could be so small that they are not purposefully measurable or controllable. This leads to random results.
  • Borders
    At the same time the range, where the pendulum can move, is firmly given by the string. As long as the weight dangles at the end of the thread and is hanging at the same place, the deflection and courses take place within a clearly defined space.

The opportunities that you have personally, or your team, or your company, are likewise determined by the framework that resembles that of a pendulum.

People can do with their life, what they want. How far or close the borders are, is determined above all by the energy that you spend. The more you exert, the more effect is happening. If you stop adding energy, the opportunities will shrink likewise. The incentive for this you find at best within yourself. In advance, of course, it is difficult it to predict, what the outcome will be. But you can affect the direction. If you feel limited by the current options, perhaps you have to overcome your limits, by changing your suspension and find your opportunities somewhere else. The new scope of oscillation offers new starting points, but again limited by new borders.

A work group consists of many individuals, who bring along their possibilities. Depending upon that variety of characters and abilities the team covers a larger or smaller surface. Contrary to the usual approach of putting similar people into a team, it is better to integrate completely different people, in order to get the maximum deflection possible. The driving forces of a group are those which give the other people the energy, so that they keep on moving. Even with best planning it cannot be said in advance, how far the group can get. At least with the right setting the course is aligned. With the appropriate suspension the space of possibilities is determined. If you take it out of the usual environment, the borders dissolve until they are fixed again by appropriate rules. Because of this, besides other things, agile teams are effective.

An enterprise generates advantages from a strong energy source. This does not have to be the ingenious head á la Silicon Valley. This can also be the appropriate culture that loads with large efforts each individual employee, each team and each department with energy – the attracting vision, the intriguing goals for all or the pleasant work environment. It is also valid here: the more varieties that you allow, the larger the possibilities. The future is uncertain, as long as you do not prepare it pro-actively. Who lets oneself drift, falls behind – even if some desire this position. The border for an enterprise is the world. More is not available yet.

The pendulum swings continuously – from centralization to decentralization, from anarchy to dictatorship, from growth to the stagnation, from determined too open. The borders, within which we move, do not simply arise, but are the result of the possibilities of all participants. The pendulum swings again and again back and forth. Actually the patterns should be clear. But it never swings back into the previous position, but into a slightly different one – but nevertheless similar.

Bottom line: On the basis of the pendulum the basic conditions that we have to deal with daily can be clarified. Without continuous provision of energy everything stops. And what will happen is difficult to predict, although it moves within certain borders. Perhaps the pendulum helps us looking further ahead within the search for our possibilities, by finding the required energy sources, by looking ahead more generously and by being aware of the borders.