Accidental Light

I have long been struck by the truth in this verse from An Indispensable Man by Saxon N. White Kessinger. I came across it through an article about Clive Woodward the ex England Rugby Coach and how he kept a copy in his wallet.

Take a bucket and fill it with water,
Put your hand in it up to the wrist,
Pull it out and the hole that’s remaining,
Is a measure of how you will be missed.

It can easily be read as implying that no one individual is at all important to a company or organisation and therefore misread as an individuals contributions, energies and talents being of no importance to an organisation.

I prefer to read it as a commentary not on the hand and wrist as it were but instead as a commentary on the water.

Organisations have a continual ability to astound with their capacity for self-healing like white blood cells streaming to the point of infection or like .. water filling a hole. I have seen this a number of times in IT and in the business side of Investment Banking where individuals, groups and teams of great importance have left and the organisation carries on almost as if nothing has happened. In the instances where gaping wounds have been left I see individuals stream to the point of injury and actively deal with the problem in many pro-active ways. An organisation is a living organism - the comparisons are accurate.

Like nature, an organisation abhors a vacuum.

It is also possible, if you are brave enough, to deliberately fracture an organisation to force individuals out of a lethargy and back into thinking as they employed to do and as they want to do. I don’t think I’m brave enough for this
Having said all that, there are some individuals that if they removed their hand and wrist the hole in the water would remain. Steve Jobs at Apple, maybe. He left a massive hole when he left years ago that was only really filled when he returned. These instances, though few, do exist.