Introduction

Robert Maxwell was the head of one of the most powerful publishing corporations in the western world in the 1980s, Maxwell Communications Corporation. He died suddenly in 1991 and his empire collapsed within a few months. He was renowned for his authoritarian approach to managing his business. Everything was centralised in his hands. Shortly before his death the story was reported that he had asked a new young executive straight out of business school if he had heard of Murphy’s Law. The young man said ‘Yes, I think it’s the law which states that if it can go wrong it will go wrong.’ Maxwell said, ‘Yes that’s very good, and have you heard of Maxwell’s Law?’ The young man astonished said ‘No, I am afraid I haven’t heard of that one.’ ‘Oh,’ said Maxwell with disdain, ‘what do they teach in business schools today? Maxwell’s Law is that Murphy was an optimist.’ Whilst not being quite so pessimistic as Maxwell, Kanter (1989) suggested that ‘the idea of at least modest change everywhere in the corporation is becoming orthodoxy’. Tom Peters went further and argued that organisations face a challenge of thriving on chaos.