The Elephant in the Room: How Relationships Make or Break the Success of Leaders and Organizations

EIGHT

Disrupting Patterns

When life gets creative, it has a tendency to gravitate toward certain recurring patterns, whether those patterns are emergent and self-organizing, or whether they are deliberately crafted by human agents.

—STEVE JOHNSON¹

When a relationship critical to a firm's success could put that success at risk, it may be time for a change. Fifteen years into their relationship, Dan Gavin and Stu Fine suspected their time had come. For two years, the firm's top leadership had been transforming Merrimac² from a professional services firm into a group of businesses that combined these services with innovative new products. CEO Gavin ...