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Structure is Destiny: The Dandelion Paradox

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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!