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- O r g a n i z a t i o n a l _ I n n o v a t i o n -
Layne Cannon
The May 6, 1995, edition of "Science News" contains an article called "HIV Attack Destroys Immune Innocence."
The article states, "In a world where it is best to 'know thine enemy,' naivety should be a fatal flaw. But cells of the immune system need a certain innocence in order to fight new invaders. After the battle, they carry a 'memory' of their bacterial or viral foe and remain alert for its next attack."
Only Naive T-cells can attack a new invader. Once they are exposed to an antigen, their "memory" limits their ability to fight other antigens. HIV- infected individuals are deficient in Naive T-cells and HIV may disrupt the production of these cells in the thymus.
In the corporate organism, there are also systems that protect it from attack.
These attacks come from competitors, new technologies, new cultural influences, new regulations. An immune system develops to defend against these attacks. When the organization is young, this immune system is quite "naive" and prepared to respond to a multitude of attacks. But after some time, the corporation becomes adept at recognizing and responding to attacks, developing a large number of "Memory" agents.
There is an illness, however, called Efficiency which attacks all unspecial- ized agents while leaving Memory agents healthy. Once the level of Naive agents drops beyond a critical level, the corporation is then left unprotected from new environmental influences and may ultimately die from a mutated strain of what might otherwise be considered a childhood disease.
Keeping these Naive agents healthy requires a strong dose of curiosity, a
willingness to fail, a continued exposure to new elements and influences, a diversity of organization populations, and a vaccine against Efficiency which is always fatal if the infection spreads too far.
Layne Cannon with Novell Corporation can be reached at 801-222-5111; e-mail: layne@novell.com