The concept of a Legacy is misunderstood as something having to do with a large organization achieving recognized successful outcomes. It does not. A Legacy is a progression level higher than success. A Legacy means that in future history a large organization will be remembered, not for its success, but for the significance of its impact on societal evolution in its time.
It is not enough for an organization to have a mission and vision statement to intentionally achieve a Legacy. If a large organization aspires to be historically significant, it must also develop a Legacy statement along with a strategic plan on how to execute it. A Legacy statement for any organization is understood through the universal and scalable objective of:
Abundant resources will be used and wasted on attaining what is scarce.
At the macro level, within the cosmological organization, the resources of energy and time are abundant. So those resources are used to create billions of complex galaxy systems, each having billions of suns and solar systems. The abundant resources of time and energy are wasted on the creation of these systems in order to attain what is scarce. That scarce objective is the small quantity of evolving sentient life on habitable planets. That is why iconic physicist Fred Hoyle noted: “The notion that not only the biopolymer but the operating program of a living cell could be arrived at by chance in a primordial organic soup here on the Earth is evidently nonsense of a high order.”
There are about 2000 enzymes on Earth. The chance of obtaining them all in a random trial by accident is impossible, even if the rest of the cosmos consisted of (which it does not) an “organic soup”. So at the macro level, there is clearly an intentional strategy being executed to waste abundant resources to attain what is scarce. That is a Legacy at the level of cosmological evolution.
At the micro level, within any large human run organization, the resources of proprietary goods, services, skills and access to capital are abundant. The low price point of the resources dictates their status as abundant. Once those resources are identified, the large organization needs to decide what scarce objective it will waste its abundance on. It does not mean the entire organization needs to do this. A division thereof will do. It also does not mean the venture should lose money. Huge profit is possible.
But to date there has been no intentional strategy for any organization to waste abundant resources to attain what is scarce. That is why throughout history there have been instances of large organizations that only incidentally achieved what we now recognize as a Legacy. Those organizations did not have that as their objective but they achieved a Legacy none-the-less. Here are some examples of what their Legacy statements may have stated if those organizations had that as their intentional objective:
Alexander III of Macedon’s (Alexander the Great) organization: The Macedonian military will use their resources to uproot stagnant fiefdoms in order to impact vast regions with significant cultural diffusion and innovation.
Gandhi’s organization: The Indian people will use their bodies and volition as resources to force out subjugation in order to impact on world consciousness how structured non-violent disobedience can be employed instead of armed conflict.
Google’s organization: Google will use their resources to facilitate world-wide prompt access to constantly updated relevant information in order to impact human ability to learn and assimilate that information into new ideas, concepts and understanding.
History has shown us that the success and effect most organizations have on society, no matter how large they become, is short-term. But now the reason has been unmasked to why some organizations are able to achieve a long-term impact, far beyond their existence.
A path to earn a Legacy has been outlined. If you are part of the leadership team of a large organization, then you have an opportunity to intentionally achieve eternal significance; a Legacy. OIsource ( oisource.com ) can help you create that Legacy statement and the strategy to achieve it.