Insatiable the Unsustainable

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You may have seen this already, since Seth Godin's blog is one of (or the?) most widely read blogs on the interweb. If you're not subscribed, I highly recommend it. The words below are well worth considering, looking at the parts of ourselves that are insatiable and where in our work or organizations is this happenening as well. How do we move out of the compulsion for more, our global compulsion and also the subtle ones within ourselves? 

Insatiable

Long-lasting systems can't survive if they remain insatiable.

An insatiable thirst for food, power, energy, reassurance, clicks, funding or other raw material will eventually lead to failure. That's because there's never enough to satisfy someone or something that's insatiable. The organization amps up because its need is unmet. It gets out of balance, changing what had previously worked to get more of what it craves. Sooner or later, a crash.

More fame! More money! More investment! Push too hard and you lose what you came with and don't get what you came for.

An insatiable appetite is a symptom: There's a hole in the bucket. Something's leaking out. When a system (or a person) continues to demand more and more but doesn't produce in response, that's because the resources aren't being used properly, something is leaking.

If your organization demands ever more attention or effort or cash to produce the same output, it makes more sense to focus on the leak than it does to work ever harder to feed the beast.

-Seth Godin

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