Structure is Destiny: The Dandelion Paradox [Paperback]

Joel Orr (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 25, 2004

Most organizations do not foster greatness, either in themselves or in their members. Why? How can you create a business that helps everyone be great?

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Since 1974, Dr. Joel Orr has been advising organizations large and small about coherence, harmony, and technology. A mathematician by training, Orr has focused on helping people live lives of integrity in the face of accelerating change. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 218 pages
• Publisher: Lulu.com (April 25, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1411606906
• ISBN-13: 978-1411606906
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,629,003 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Liberation!, April 22, 2004

By 

"nomi2ma" (Chesapeake, VA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Structure is Destiny: The Dandelion Paradox (Paperback)

Reviewer: nomi2ma from Chesapeake, VA USA
What's paradoxical about the dandelion?

It's that one of the most successful living things on earth is also one of the most despised. Why? Because of its ågreat characteristics it's virtually unstoppable.

Joel Orr shows that the same qualities that make the dandelion unstoppable can make a business that adopts them unstoppable: It will be firmly rooted in human nature, and use everything that comes along to further its survival. And that's what is needed in these changing times: A structure that supports survival--whether our own, or our organization's.

The dandelion structure in human relations has enabled people and organizations to survive millenia of disasters--both natural and man-made. But the key to this survival and strength has largely been lost in our high-tech day. This book brings these principles back into our awareness.

When people have instinctively structured themselves or their organizations like the dandelion, they began to experience the power of their own natural greatness--in their lives, and in the lives of those around them.

Businesses that had structured at least part of themselves like the dandelion were termed "excellent" in "In Search of Excellence." That was a great book that defined "excellence." But it neglected to tell us HOW to be excellent because the study it described purposefully set out to ignore the structure of human relationships within the organization!

So when those companies called "excellent" tried to further improve themselves, they didn't know what it was they had done to make themselves "excellent" in the first place. So many of them eliminated the messy-looking dandelion parts of their organizations, and lost their greatness in short order, according to a Business Week study.

My three favorite features of "Structure is Destiny: The Dandelion Paradox" are:

1. the interviews with people who have applied these principles of greatness to their personal lives and their companies, and

2. the way these principles are described in detail, and from many points of view, so they can be applied by anyone, and in any situation, and

3. the personal anecdotes.

The liberating effects of releasing greatness into the world are heady stuff. And this book shows a clear path to doing just that--for yourself, and for your organization.

Thanks, Joel!