ABSTRACT
The business is a group of five distribution companies of which the author is the chief executive and a significant shareholder. A business partner is also executive and shareholder in the group and there are two external investors. Increasingly, theories and approaches used to describe complex physical, chemical and biological systems are being found to have relevance in understanding group dynamics. Many of these theories were developed to explain systems such as weather, where patterns emerge driven by interdependent forces of pressure, temperature, humidity and wind speed – all of whose interdependencies are defined by non-linear relationships. Dynamic stability was restored when the board moved from paranoid-schizoid to a depressive state. Directors accepted that there was opportunity as well as threat and recognized this by agreeing to new primary task. The principal modality used to execute these plans were cross-functional high performance teams (HPT). HPTs comprised various subsidiary directors as well as members of management and staff in the subsidiaries.
