Ten years ago there was a huge fire in Yellowstone. For more than a hundred years the Park Service imposed equilibrium by quickly extinguishing fires. (Remember the "only you can prevent forest fires" campaign?) The natural rhythm of fire and re-growth was denied. Debris and deadfall built up throughout the park. Then suddenly lightening, helped by drought and winds, devastated Yellowstone.

What happens in nature also happens in business. While equilibrium is a precursor to disaster, companies resist doing things that pull them out of the familiar they know how to do so well. Sears, for example, was the juggemaut of retailing. But then it began its equivalent of "Only you can prevent forest fires". Equilibrium took over and it missed everything in the marketplace. Sears' demise took decades but everything now hits the fan more quickly. We see it in our industry as Amazon in a flash redefines bookselling.

There are four unconventional ideas that make up the heart of this book, all drawn from observations about the parallels between the livings systems of nature and the way business has to operate: 1)Equilibrium is death. 2)Innovation usually takes place on the edge of chaos. 3)Self-organization occurs naturally. 4)Companies can only be disturbed, not directed.

These are the principles on which living systems innature operate. And they are brilliantly -- and practically -- applied to the world of business through case studies of Monsanto, Royal Dutch Shell, the US Army, Sears, Sun Microsystems British Petroleum, and many others. Seeing companies as living systems is not a "maybe", not a "sort-of". It's a deal breaker. Continuing to view a company or a business as a machine or an engine -- or yourself as a cog in that machine -- means assigning yourself the same fate which a species faces in nature when it fails to change as it's environment evolves. Change or die. The choice is up to you -- whether you're managing your own career or running a company.