We have seen how the previous 4 laws of decline can bring an organization or a country down. The 5th and final law, of Orrin Woodward‘s Five Laws of Decline, plays a different role in my opinion. This law won’t bring about a decline, but it does keep the current decline from the previous laws in place, which includes the momentum of that decline. If only 10% of leaders are good leaders, as per Sturgeon’s Law, this law will make it difficult to make things better. If everyone has ways to get something for nothing as per Bastiat’s Law, this law makes it extremely difficult to stop the beneficiaries from getting their special deals. If people are being rewarded for doing things that wrong, as per Gresham’s Law, this law will make it very difficult to stop the behavior. And if you have a growing bureaucracy and getting fewer things done due to the law of Diminishing Returns, this law will stop you from reversing that trend, if not decreasing the returns at the same momentum.
The Law of Inertia
This law comes from Newton’s first law, which as Orrin Woodward explains in Resolved ‘Every body remains in a state of rest or uniform motion, unless it is acted upon by an external unbalanced force. In layman’s terms, an object at rest tends to stay at rest, and an object in motion tends to stay in motion unless acted upon by another force.’ (more…)
Leadership to Freedom 