The Living Company

One of the most courteous individuals I have ever met, Arie is nonetheless known for his stubbornness. This must have made it difficult to work for him, on occasion, when he was Coordinator of Shell's Group Planning Department. But as an author, it translated into a keen form of integrity. No sentence would pass unless he felt thoroughly comfortable with it. I spent much of the book's gestation period working with Arie in his home outside London, tramping across the country lanes and pilgrim paths nearby, ostensibly for the sake of walking his dog. I think the dog was actually walking us.

The thesis of The Living Company is that long-lived companies eschew return on investment to shareholders as their goal. Instead, like all living entities, they seek to grow, thrive and (although Arie doesn't say this) to reproduce. He identifies four key characteristics of "living" companies:

• They learn (that is, they build capabilities and adapt to their environment.)
• They have a coherent identity (which he calls their persona, a term borrowed from the German philosopher William Stern.)
• They tolerate diversity around the edges (which signifies that they are ecologically aware);
• They are frugal with financing, which signifies that they are conscious of their need to evolve into new forms.

When I wrote my book Who Really Matters, I borrowed several concepts from Arie, including the idea of parasitic Core Groups. It wasn't until I was almost done that I realized that the idea of a Core Group, itself, owed a great deal to a question Arie asked during our conversations: "When we say, 'We,' about a company, who is the 'We'?" Or, in other words, "Who belongs?"