Collection
Growth and Death

Growth is imperative. Without prospects for growth most businesses stagnate, lose value and, eventually, expire. Organizations, like other living things, face both external obstacles as well as internal barriers to growth. Furthermore, growth is not a simple idea - does it necessarily imply increasing size or can there be development without larger scale? Can an entity grow forever without fundamental changes to its shape or structures? Is growth a process of constant accretion or is destruction a necessary component of development?

This collection explores the dynamics of growth and the ways in which it is both constrained and catalyzed by destructive forces. In many cases, development is intimately linked with senescence and death. Many structures grow and undergo differentiation only through a process of partial death as unwanted elements fall away. But death is not a simple notion either and can take many forms. What does it mean for an entity to die or become extinct and what, if anything, survives? Understanding growth and the intimate relationship between development and death are key to finding sustainable strategies.