"The organization and the environment are in concert"
About this Quote
Kelly’s longtime project, from Whole Earth thinking to Wired-era techno-optimism, treats systems as living, adaptive networks. In that context, the line reads like a quiet rebuke to the fantasy of total control: strategy decks that assume you can set a direction once and execute it in a vacuum; leaders who talk about "culture" as if it were a poster you can print. He’s pointing to feedback loops. Your hiring practices, incentives, tools, and norms are not internal details; they are sensors and outputs in a larger environment of markets, media, regulations, and technologies that mutate in real time.
The subtext is a shift in moral responsibility, too. If organization and environment are intertwined, you don’t get to blame "external conditions" for what your institution becomes, because you’re helping author those conditions. It’s a sentence built to dissolve the alibi.
What makes it work is its restraint. No Silicon Valley hype, no doom. Just a deceptively gentle phrase that forces you to ask: if we’re in concert, who’s conducting, and who’s pretending not to hear the music?
Quote Details
| Topic | Wisdom |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Kelly, Kevin. (2026, January 16). The organization and the environment are in concert. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-organization-and-the-environment-are-in-104294/
Chicago Style
Kelly, Kevin. "The organization and the environment are in concert." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-organization-and-the-environment-are-in-104294/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"The organization and the environment are in concert." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-organization-and-the-environment-are-in-104294/. Accessed 18 Feb. 2026.







