Counting Enterprise-Years

I have been fascinated by abstract patterns. Repeating, in your face, obvious, geometric patterns do not interest me. I am interested in patterns that are multi-dimensional and integrate many aspects of something that has a repetition due to some deep inherent nature or some unknown universal truth, rather than because of conscious human thought or design.

I remember reading Gail Sheehy’s “Passages: Predictable Crises of Adult Life” in the early 1980s. In this book, she explores the passage of time through one’s life and inherent behavioral patterns that we all tend to fall into. She codifies these patterns during the various phases of our lives like the twenties, the thirties, and so on.

• In the Piggyback Principle, for example, she says, “The assumption is: we can piggyback our development by attaching ourselves to a Stronger One.”
  
• In the Urge to Merge introduction that deals with how girls and boys differ in their approach to early romances, she states: “Until recently, seeking has been done primarily by boys and merging by girls.”
  
• In Seeking an Idea to Believe In, she states: “We seek an idea to believe in; heroes and heroines to copy, and we begin to rule out what we don’t want to do with our lives.”
  
• In “The Complete-Me Child”, (where young women rush to have babies) Gail suggests: When it becomes imperative in the late teens to prove that one can do something, make something work on one’s own, the easiest place for a young woman to turn is to her uterus.”
  
  Gail Sheehy talks about behavioral patterns. Her discovery was that much as we think we are unique and different, our exhibited behavior can be codified into rough patterns that have a predictable evolution over the passage of time.
  
  I go back to the patterns of our own middle-class South Indian Brahmin upbringing and the passages that fit the SIBA upbringing:
  


• You went to a good school and studied, well, most of the time. You were there to study, not to have fun!
  
• You got into a good college and took up some professional field: medicine or engineering, and hopefully graduated near the top quarter of your class. Again, you were there to study and graduate, and not have fun!
  
• You graduated and got a good job. You were there to work and advance, and not to have fun with the money you were making or the vehicle you just bought!
  
• You married by advertizing your family connections, your employment potential and your portfolio made up of lack of “bad” behaviors: smoking, drinking, and womanizing. You were there to be responsible and not to have fun with the partying and the freedom of twenty-something singlehood!
  
• Two years later you had your first child. You were there to start planning for college, and bear the responsibilities of fatherhood and not to have fun with mindless but exciting funscapades!
  
• Four years later you had your second. More responsibilities and less fun!
  And then you concentrated on your job for the next thirty years while reliving the patterns in your children – they were supposed to study and not have fun too- just like Dad!
  
• And then you retired/died and it was too late to have fun!
  
  I definitely believe that many tired and creaking enterprises have degenerated into my SIBA pattern – a lot of work, no fun! Companies like Apple and Google seem to have broken the pattern – they have balanced hard work with hard-driving fun – it shows in their products and in the smiles on their faces when they review their quarterly financials. But others seem to be destined to sink into oblivion, laden by responsibility, debts and hopelessness.
  
  I wonder whether there are “Passages” to an enterprise and consequent predictable crises. Whether there are the one, ten, twenty –year anniversaries that mark the milestones that herald change in behaviors, change in strategies, change in mentalities, change in leadership, and reinventions?
  
  If I look at Silicon Valley startups in their first 1-5 years, they are like the teens in Gail’s book when they start up– full of rebellion and anti-status quo and disruption and irreverence and rebellion.
  
  When they turn into the tens and teens, have they started to change their world-view and defined norms, specialties and a sense of security that is not based on reaction and rebellion?
  
  When they start graying at the temples in their twenties, will they still act as if they are in their early years? What about mergers and acquisitions? Are these similar to marriages during the teenage years, or marriages in the twenties or the thirties or even the rebound marriages of the forties and fifties?
  
  Enterprise years vs. Human years, there is an interesting thought. I have heard of dog years and horse years in comparison to the human lifespan, but Enterprise Years?
  
  I believe that people do not start companies with a longevity anatomy in mind. Most Silicon Valley startups are looking at a 2-4 year life before they go public. Very few of these companies have achieved the longevity or venerability of an IBM or a General Electric, or a Procter and Gamble, or a McDonalds, or .. Going public is only one of the “predictable crisis” in a company’s passage. Staying profitable, satisfying customers, creating durable brands that people have faith and trust in, these are the hallmarks of a long lived player. And enterprise architecture needs to pay attention to this facet of the enterprise!