Social psychologist Kurt Lewin postulated that behaviour is a function of environment and person. Now, environment is all pervasive, external and internal as well. It surrounds the person, but also exists inside of them. That would mean that influences arising in the environment outside and within the individual psyche would affect their choices.
Survival of the individual depends on the decision-making capability. And decisions often have to be made between alternatives that seem to be in opposition. Lewin, who was born in 1890 in Germany and had to flee to America to escape the holocaust, held that in any environment, opposing forces were constantly at work. The driving forces push towards action in a certain direction, and the restraining forces prevent the action from taking place.
An organization functions in ways similar to an organism. It grows, develops and dies like any other living being. It has aspirations and fears that mould its actions. It also has an identity that grows out of the conscious and unconscious aspects of the organizational process. Driving and restraining forces arise in the conscious, everyday macro-world outside the organization, where interactions are with customers and outside agencies.
The organization’s internal environment constitutes the organizational unconscious, the customs, legends and best practices held sacrosanct, as well as interpersonal interactions between departments and people within the system. Besides this, individual member of the organization brings to the workplace the principles and values of their socialized upbringing. The micro-level driving and restraining variables add to the strength of the larger forces influencing organizational functioning. In the article “Sense of Fear” The Diva quotes Lewin to say that:
An issue is held in balance by the interaction of two opposing sets of forces - those seeking to promote change (driving forces) and those attempting to maintain the status quo (restraining forces.)
Industrialist, sociologist, economist and philosopher, Vilfredo Pareto, was born in Italy in 1848, about four decades before Lewin. He too witnessed political exile, which may have contributed to his dynamic equilibrium theory of society that change in any one unit necessarily precipitates change in other units as well as the total system. Also, change in the external environment diffuses into each micro-unit of the social organization.
Although better known today for the pareto charts and other statistical contributions to economics, Pareto also postulated a theory to explain “non-logical” human predispositions. He identified two distinctive “residues” in people - that is, their basic drives or innate impulses that motivate action. The sources of individual goal-seeking behaviour are their instincts and sentiments.
Deriving from the Machiavelli’s classification, the residues have been named:
- Foxes – “innovators” - the creative, entrepreneurial tendency to break new ground
- Lions – “consolidators” - the powerful, bureaucratic tendency to consolidate position
‘Foxes’ and ‘lions’ have characteristic patterns of behaviour, and their relationship is of reciprocal dependence. Essentially, they are opposing impulses, encouraging change, or resisting it. Any individual has the capacity of identifying with either the fox-type or the lion-type behaviours throughout their life span, or alternating between them at different times in its course.
The fox and lion characterizations are a useful concept in the formation and development of organizations. The “fox” is the entrepreneurial spirit that has the capacity to imagine and create outside the existing structure. In this beginning, people drawn to the venture are all in touch with their innovative fox-like qualities.
Zetterberg explains:
At startup, the founder spearheads movement, leads a small band of people ... Individuals ... join up with the desire to do better or accomplish more. There is little sense in maintaining formalities so though there is hard work and unusual hours, there is a climate of camaraderie, enthusiasm, task commitments and job satisfaction. At this early stage the future seems full of promise; creative excellence is both encouraged and needed for organizational design – and here the fox psyche thrives.
However, their “compulsive, effervescent” natures makes foxes poor organizers, because they are always go-getters. New ideas and environments attract them, and the need for integrity and patience to manage the growing pains of the system is discomforting. Beneath their innovativeness is the inherent fear of settling down and submitting to rules and regulations.
The innovators make novel things and interpretations, put their money in stocks, sell fall out shelters, start new ventures, and negotiate deals.
For the organizational system’s structure to take shape, a different character type is needed. The lion has this necessary ability to lead and manage groups. Zetterberg explains that the lion character prefers:
… to hang on to what he has. In today’s society, the consolidators want old-age pensions, life insurance, fallout shelters, job security, tough divorce laws, closed shops; they put their money in savings banks or government bonds, and they are quick to call the police.
As the number of lions taking up organizational membership increases to about 20 percent of the total strength, the structure building around them becomes visible.
The growing organisation requires structures and procedures to provide it with a stable body, to keep the energy and dynamism from dissipating. Once the lions put in appearance, the system begins to take concrete shape and become operationally viable.
Although foxes may still have leadership, the lions are indispensable to for preservation of space and increasing structure. Further increases in the lion complement changes the organizational size, focus and general attitudes to authority in business. Lions believe in control, and their fears are of disorder and spatial displacement.
Extreme fox-like behaviour is disruptive, causing chaos that destabilizes the system and breaks it apart. Extreme lion-like behaviour means hierarchical control, and rigid adherence to past practices/traditions that resist change, strangulating innovations. Foxes and lions are wary of one another’s influences. The increasing numbers of one raises the awareness of vulnerability in the other.
These two forces set up the cycle of change. As the creative energies reach a peak, the organization has to stabilize or else crumble to excessive change. The lions work to hold the system together and give it a proper shape. In the process of the lion group achieving prominence, the cycle begins a downward turn to attenuate the impact of the foxes.
The lion complement reaching about 80 percent forces out the foxes. They leave for new ventures in new pastures, while the organizational ethos assumes a traditional, bureaucratic hierarchy. When consolidation attains maximum effectiveness, the system needs new life. The cycle of change then turns again, towards an exciting new era of foxes.
But each has an organizational role that is crucial: problem solving by the foxes, and systemic stability by the lions. In theory, the 80:20-ratio triggers change over the lifetime, shifting between the equally important drives of creativity and consolidation. Using Lewin terms, the foxes are the driving forces while the lions are restraining forces. Their dynamic equilibrium determines the health of the organization and its longevity.
Obviously they each require the appropriate space and ambience to flourish or else become inimical to the other. It is necessary to understand the power of these drives/forces and utilize them optimally to initiate and manage change in one’s own life and that of the organization. An interdependent balance gives direction and momentum to action, ensuring survival of the fittest.
References for this post:
- “Sense of Fear” twmacademy.com The Diva column. TWM Academy. Powered by The Working Manager Ltd.
- Zetterberg, Hans L. “Elites: Vilfredo Pareto” European Proponents of Sociology Prior To World War I. Chapter 3 zetterberg.org. Stockholm, Sweden 1993.
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