More thoughts on the development spiral...

My simplistic interpretation of Guns, Germs and Steel is that when two societies interact with each other, the society that has travelled further along the spiral of development will, in the end, become the dominant society.

I find myself wondering if this inter-society interpretation also applies when you look at what is going on inside a society. Say for instance, at the company level. And if so, how do the observations in Clayton Christensen's "The Innovator's Dilemma" apply? Could it be that each company follows its own spiral model of development. And in following their own spiral they run the risk of remaining at a particular point on the greater spiral, rather than growing with it. As though we were perfecting the best hand gun in the world, whilst the upstart down the road was busy working on something called the "tank".

And I find myself thinking about the observation that this development spiral need not be an expanding one - it can also contract. You can make decisions to abandon a developmental path that should have been followed. Guns, Germs and Steel teaches that if you are isolated this will not have any affect. But if you are interacting with competitors who made different choices then they will have the edge over you. And in time you will be theirs. A point confirmed by "The Innovator's Dilemma".

BTW, a Michael McGoodwin has prepared a terse on line summary of Guns, Germs and Steel.

7:59:23 PM