#264 chimneys

One of the books I read that really made me think was The Age of Unreason by Charles Handy.  I read this in 1989, but his concepts about change have stayed with me all these years.

One of his first examples was about something we see every day but ignore.  He stated, "the chimney may have caused more social change than any war."  

Handy theorized that chimneys allowed spaces to grow beyond a room with everyone huddled around a single fire, and allowed for the expansion of individual units, then "dwelling units into the sky" that allowed for modern day cities and buildings as we know them.

Today, technology has advanced so much that homes such as mine don't even have a chimney, but the evolution of this piece of architecture altered the structure of communities away from cohesive tribes.

Handy also foresaw other changes we now experience: "The telephone line has been and will be the modern day equivalent of the chimney, unintentionally changing the way we work and live."  Maybe the telephone line portion is a bit off, but his assessment is spot on accurate about the phone.

He laments that central heating (derived from the chimney) and telephones now allow people to be more isolated and scattered, instead of being forced together by necessity.  

What is your organizational chimney -- the fundamental shift that may alter how you do your work?  How are you striving to maintain community as the social environment shifts due to this change?  Today, more so than in 1989, it is the age of unreason and leaders would be wise to pay attention to the beginnings of trends.

-- beth triplett
leadershipdots.blogspot.com
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