At this writing, the question of whether the Scots go their own bonny way has yet to be decided. Ironically, as I took in more news on the subject, the song “When a child is born”, popularized by Johnny Mathis, sprang to my mind.

What happens when you think of a child being born? Do you have feelings of joy, hope and great expectations? I suppose so. We all do, don’t we? And yet throughout history we know that many children have been born in times of war, famine, devastation and great unrest. They have been born of hope and they have been born of despair. Whatever the case, they had no say in the shaping of the world they were to come into. They were born, and the world was there.

In some ways, nations are birthed like that. No doubt, nations start from families, then clans, then tribes, then perhaps communities and then perhaps nations. We have no choice about which families we belong to, nor indeed which nations. In the case of nations, geopolitical forces perhaps shape them more than we are conscious of. Imperatives of having access to resources for living well, coupled with the need to protect them, will tend to shape nations according to the dictates of geography. However, nations also conquer, annex as well as break up and divide. How they do so may or may not make sense as to available resources and their defensibility, but they do so anyway.

Similar things happen in companies, in organizations, in corporations. There are mergers and acquisitions, “takeovers” and there are breakups. These all give birth to new entities, and those entities may find themselves in circumstances that may be favourable to them or actually work to kill them.

It is all because of an “Us versus them” mentality. Leaders who are covetous have always played on this in order to stir mobs to action, which may or may not include physical violence and clash of arms. If the leaders were just and saw to the encouragement of increased value exchange by all those they were responsible for, covetousness would be kept in check and the tendency for fragmentation is reduced.

Thinking of leaving your company and setting up your own? Perhaps taking your followers with you? Or are you thinking of spinning off a part of your business? Whichever it may be, what are your reasons for doing so? Would the new entity formed be born of hope, or of despair? You have the power to decide!