Mind · Strategy
ShapeMassInformation
Risk in organisation growth is the balance of three trading-off ingredients: control of shape, addition of mass and growth of information
Definition
Mechanism
Any organisation that grows, whether a cell, an organism, a company, a project or a model, manages risk by mixing three ingredients: ShapeControl (keeping a desired form), MassAddition (investing in the information it holds) and InformationGrowth (taking in information valued for itself). They trade off. Adding mass to a fixed shape amplifies that shape's error, so keeping control of shape as mass grows requires adding corrective information. Pursuing mass or information for their own value deforms or abandons shape. A strategy is a characteristic mixture and rate of the three: a decision freezes shape and then adds mass; a delivery drone adds mass slowly while correcting shape; a fighter pilot or an immune system grows information and changes shape to exploit it. Decision-making is therefore one kind of organisation growth, not the basic unit of risk.
Invariants
- All three ingredients are present in any organisation growth, in some proportion
- Adding MassAddition without adding information makes ShapeControl harder in proportion to the mass added
- Pursuing InformationGrowth or MassAddition for its own value reduces control of shape
- No single ingredient is the measure of risk; risk lies in the balance between them
Risks
Failure modes
Treating risk as the control of shape alone and so missing failures to add enough mass or to integrate new information
Seeing the three as independent objectives to hit, rather than as forces that interact
Assuming every situation reduces to gathering information up front and then committing to a decision
Relationships
Builds on
References
Adding new information that has value in its own right, even when exploiting it deforms or abandons the current shape
Committing investment (money, matter, energy, people or action) to the information an organisation currently holds
Keeping an organisation, model or trajectory close to a desired form or target, with information serving that form
Nothing in this library builds on this pattern yet.