Waiting for Godot...

This working mother has been in a state of introspection this week - wondering about life and organizations. She believes that Organizations in various stages of evolution can be very simplistically categorized as -

1. The organization going through the growing pains of getting created
2. The organization going through the excitement of growth
3. The organization going through the chaos of change
4. The organization going through the turmoil of obliteration
5. And the not so rare Organization that is in limbo or waiting for change to happen

For an Organization to get from the state of limbo to a state of dynamism what is required is strong powerful leadership, crisp directives (see I don’t use touchy feely words such as vision and mission here)…and action…then will the elephant dance.

It is very easy for an Organization or a person to get into a state of “Anomie”…a mindless state of just being …reminds me of a play I had read ages back in a literature class. The play was titled “Waiting for Godot” by Samuel Beckett. It was about two sad men – Estragon and Vladimir and it follows two days in their lives while they wait expectantly and unsuccessfully for someone named Godot to arrive. They claim him as an acquaintance but in fact hardly know him, admitting that they would not recognize him were they to see him. To occupy themselves, they eat, sleep, converse, argue, sing, play games, exercise, swap hats, and contemplate suicide — yet they are afraid to even take that final step of suicide…what if the belt or the rope broke…they were plain afraid…still waiting for Godot. It was a simple play which our English teacher had us enact and dissect and yet what remained twenty years later were memories of those two sad men…waiting, afraid and in limbo…