Healthy Leadership Prescriptions: Do You Have an Oxbow Organization?

Often, when I fly over the country, I'll look down over some of the great rivers below like the Missouri or the Mississippi. I've noticed a curious formation in several places – an "oxbow" in the river. These are found along the path of a river where you can see how clearly, over time, the river used to bend at an extreme angle. But now the river is running in a different channel. The main flow is cut off from the oxbow. The oxbow is a bend in the river where the river has passed it by. That cutoff bend forms a stagnant lake, which over time, continues to fill into a boggy swamp.

So my question for you is this: "Is your organization in danger of becoming an oxbow?"

All along a river's path, dead river oxbows that have fully filled in can be helpful for agriculture as their fertile planting soil is wonderful for growing. However your organization is not a farm, and there's no reward for you becoming extinct! Keep reading

Photo: David Metcalf, Creative Commons License