Consistency

This chapter on Consistency is an attempt to write a piece starting from Calvino’s possible source of inspiration, i.e., Herman Melville’s Bartley, the Scrivener, for his last Norton Lecture. Calvino’s idea—we believe—was to depart from Bartleby’s reluctance to accept any new tasks with his laconic ‘I prefer not to’ to deepen the notion that being consistent for its own sake may lead to death and highlight that consistency requires elements of inconsistency to enable people and organisations to live through time. The juxtaposition between consistency and inconsistency characterises the life—and death—of organisations: pretending to ‘stick to the way we do things here’ to survive entails transforming tradition in traditionalism and eventually die. The cases of Nokia and Kodak, to name recent, emblematic examples, do indicate that introducing elements of inconsistency in a consistent, long-term vision is key in order not to be disrupted by competition. The generative tension between consistency and inconsistency constitutes another layer on which to build a grammar of innovation. Organisation theorists, strategy and innovation scholars found puzzling—yet interesting—the ‘stability and change’ dynamics that characterise firms and organisations more in general.