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Uranus in Pisces – Cisco Systems

Sep 23

Posted by Ellen in Businesses in the news, Uranus in Pisces | 1 Comment

Cisco_logo_svg

AUDIO VERSION:  Uranus in Pisces – Cisco Systems Audio File

Cisco Systems is a name we all know, but few of us know exactly what they do.   During the dotcom boom Cisco was the supplier of most of the gear that guides data through the internet, like switches and routers.  In March 2000 it was considered the most valuable company in the world. Then during the dotcom bust in 2001 much of its stock market value was lost.  In the last seven years, it has responded not only by diversifying its businesses but also reworking its organizational model to meet the new realities of today.

Branching out

A company in the Mature Stage of the business life cycle,  by 2001 Cisco’s core business had already peaked and would never again reach the annual average growth rates it once had.  So the company has developed a strategy to move quickly into new businesses, businesses that can capture the higher rates of growth that are expected at an earlier point in the business life cycle.  This branching out has become institutionalized in the company culture in the last seven years.

The company calls new areas of growth “market adjacencies”.  The CEO of Cisco, John Chambers, gives an interesting clue for this kind of diversification.  Of the thirty or more market adjacencies the company is exploring and investing in, he says he hopes that at least half will be successful.  (Clue #1 for small businesses:  don’t expect everything you try to pay off.)

Cisco’s biggest current bet is on video communication, which it believes will increase tenfold by 2013.  (I believe so too, with Neptune moving into Pisces in 2011, but that’s a different post.)  And Cisco’s not waiting passively by for someone else to develop the technology.  It is planning to push its own video communication tool, TelePresence, into homes, and give “match-day experience” in people’s living rooms. 

Cisco’s TelePresence utilizes high-definition screens, spatially sensitive microphones, custom video-processing technology and networking equipment.  Cisco already uses the TelePresence technology at an impressive rate in its own business, turning videoconferences into approximate face-to-face meetings, 5,500 times a week.  These updated, upgraded videoconferences offer the nuances of body language and tone of voice, allowing coordination and cultivation of relationships among employees across the globe.

“Welcome to the human network”

In addition to and really more fundamentally innovative than diversification into adjacent business lines is Cisco’s restructure of its management process.  Cisco has continually restructured internally, first operating in divisions according to lines of business, then changing to a functional structure.  (The company has a Sun/Uranus conjunction in its chart which indicates its leaders, symbolized by the Sun, are engaged constantly with change, Uranus.) 

Now Cisco has developed an elaborate system of cross-functional committees to bring new products to new markets.  Some of these committees function without a formal leader although there is documented “replicable processes” for how groups are set up and how decisions are made.  Jay Galbraith, a noted management consultant, calls Cisco’s system a “culture of collaboration”. 

There have been drawbacks to this though.  Some people can flourish in a structure like this; lone wolves, as talented as they may be, cannot thrive, and loss of talent ensues.  A fifth of Cisco’s leadership has left the company. 

But Uranus in Aries is coming!

So what do we see here, from an astrological point of view?  This is an excellent example of a company using innovation (Uranus) during the mature and transitional stage of the business cycle (Pisces).  Natural Pisces attributes abound in the story:  diversification to deal with new market forces, committee leadership, and collaboration, as well as global connection, dissolution of structures, termination of hierarchies.

And the risks to this strategy?  If I were their astrologer I would tell them, good job!  You used the Uranus in Pisces time well, taking the last seven years to restructure your business innovatively, both in products and internal culture.  But Uranus in Aries is coming!  The innovation during the next seven years will come through the start-up phase of the business cycle, from the efforts of the entrepreneur, the lone wolf that you just forced out.  The committee/matrix structure will not lead to ongoing innovation.  And the diversification strategy which worked so well with Uranus in Pisces will need to find a single overriding focus as Uranus moves into Aries during the next year.

Over the next two years, we’ll watch Cisco as we go through the transition between Uranus in Pisces to Uranus in Aries.  My hunch is that the current management will not be able to be weather the shift in focus under the weight of all those committees.  They will be forced to segment the company into smaller units to retain innovation and competitive edge.

We’ll wait and see…

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Uranus – Change Agent

Sep 3

Posted by Ellen in Saturn in Virgo, The Planets, Uranus in Pisces | 4 Comments

Unpredictable.  Erratic.  Unforeseeable.  Disruptive.

When you read these words, how do you feel?

How about these?

Innovative.  Original.  Ground-breaking.  Unconventional.

 

These are all Uranian words, and all attributes of change.  It’s been said many times that the one certain thing in this world is change.  Change is possibly the most fundamental attribute of our lives. 

How does a business person respond to the inevitability of change and the fact that some changes are utterly unforeseeable?  What does “built to last” really mean?  Does it mean that we build a structure, an unchanging edifice for our businesses, and depend on it to always remain? 

Since denying, resisting, or avoiding change is ultimately futile, how then do we plan for, even welcome, the unpredictability of Uranian energy in our business strategies?

Business Management 101

In Business Management 101, we learn that our business success depends on anticipating and responding to change effectively.  The forces of change can be external or internal.  Some examples of external forces we are currently experiencing are recession, unemployment, the dominance of the internet, technological advances, government regulation, high cost of fuel oil, the global economy, and the proliferation of mega-stores, from Wal-Mart to the Starbucks opening down the street from your café.

Internal changes can include changes in employee attitudes and behavior, the loss of a key employee, training and education, your changing personal situation, temporary or permanent lack of motivation and drive, and many other factors.

“Force-field” Theory

HST image of Uranus showing cloud bands, rings, and moons. (Source:Wikipedia)

HST image of Uranus showing cloud bands, rings, and moons. (Source:Wikipedia)

What is the most effective way to work with change in our business?  An interesting theory to explore according to astrological theory is the “force-field” theory of Kurt Lewin.  It says that there is a constant interchange of driving forces and restraining forces.    Driving forces may be new technologies, new materials, new competitors, while restraining forces may be group performance norms, fear of change, and complacency.  An interesting thing about this theory is that an increase in driving forces causes a corresponding increase in restraining forces.

In astrological symbolism, Saturn is the restraining force.  As the furthest planet visible to the naked eye, for millions of years it represented for humanity the outer boundary of the known, the controllable, the foreseeable.  It symbolizes the wall we erect between our current status and the outer forces of change.  It serves to protect and preserve that which we have so carefully created.  Uranus, on the other hand, was the first planet to be discovered after the telescope was developed and represents societal forces for innovation and progress. 

Saturn as seen on Cassini Mission (Source:Wikipedia)

Saturn as seen on Cassini Mission (Source:Wikipedia)

But what happens when these two titans are pitted against each other?  According to the Lewin theory above, as one gets stronger the other will get stronger too.  So the stronger the pressure to change, the stronger the resistance will be.

In astrological theory, the outer planets, societal forces for change, will always eventually overwhelm the inner planets, our personal goals, desires, and resistances.  The power of the outer planets is impersonal and has to do with the evolution of life on earth as a whole.  People will change, technologies will change, global distribution systems will change, industrial methods will change, and the market will demand different products.

The Lewin theory suggests that since driving forces activate their own restraining forces, the most effective way to handle change is to work to decrease restraining forces. But in astrological terms we never want to diminish the Saturn force of protection and preservation too much – it is the edifice we build to contain and actualize change.  We must find the way to consciously open to the power of Uranus by easing, not diminishing, the power of Saturn.   

Strategies to work with Uranus

So how do we decrease the resistance to change in ourselves and our employees?  Here is a list of strategies that allow us to open to Uranus but work with Saturn too:

  • First of all, by understanding the inevitability of change. 
  • Secondly, welcoming, setting a place at the table for innovation.  Building creative innovation into our business plans. 
  • Actively projecting the probable future during the business planning process. 
  • Staying aware of the trends and issues facing society and actively engaging with them.
  • Making the unfamiliar, familiar through training. 
  • Appointing a change agent in our business, either our self or another, who takes the leadership role in anticipating and managing change.   
  • Actively seeking the counsel of our employees, especially younger and newer employees.  Taking on a mentor from a younger generation. 
  • Adopting and maximizing new technologies.

 

How do you stay open to the forces of change?  What techniques do you use to welcome innovation?  How have you successfully decreased your resistance to the new?  Please share your tips in the comments below.

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Uranus – An Introduction

Aug 31

Posted by Ellen in The Planets, Uranus in Pisces | 12 Comments

Uranus as seen by Voyager 2 (Source:Wikipedia)

Uranus as seen by Voyager 2 (Source:Wikipedia)

There are three planets in astrology that indicate long-term trends that affect the entire global community.  They are Pluto with an orbit of 248 years, Neptune with an orbit of 168 years, and Uranus with an orbit of 84 years.  In the past couple of months we’ve examined in depth the current position of Pluto in the sign of Capricorn, and Neptune in the sign of Aquarius (see sidebar under Categories), with an eye to how these energies may be affecting our business lives, and what we can do now to take advantage of these trends.

The last of these long-term influences to study is Uranus in Pisces.  Uranus entered the sign of Pisces in 2003 and will permanently enter the next sign, Aries, in 2011.  We’ve only got a few more months to take advantage of this trend and prepare for the next.  We will definitely want to include in our 2010 business plan some strategies to assimilate the Uranus in Pisces time and transition to the Uranus in Aries time.

Uranus

Uranus represents an incredibly powerful mental dimension that, when brought into our conscious awareness, can yield startling and useful insights.  In the personal mind, it appears as sudden flashes of insight and intuition that often lead to upheavals in our consciousness and are reflected in our outer lives.

I’ll never forget the first time I became aware of Uranus in my own mind.  I was meditating and a thought flashed across my mind, something so fast that when I repeated it with my normal thinking “voice” it seemed like I had taken an old record and played it on the slowest speed possible.  These kinds of flashes come quickly and unexpectedly.  They are subtle, usually original, and occasionally profound.  The key being original – they are usually insights or phrases that are completely new.  Where the Mercury kind of mental activity is a rehashing and possibly creative associating of information learned in the past, Uranus brings completely original content in phrases that lead to profound insight.  This can bring fundamental, revolutionary change to our lives as these insights broaden our perceptions.  Uranus has been called Universal Mind, the mind that always exists behind conscious awareness, which can spark knowledge completely unknown to us until then.

But one interesting thing about the Uranian energy is that the same insight can come through many different people at the same time.  Time and again scientific and artistic breakthroughs occur in different parts of the world through different people and situations, but the breakthrough is the same.  This propensity of Uranus to come through not just one but many minds at the same time gives Uranus its relationship to group life and the urges in society to rebel and revolt.  Mass changes in consciousness occur through this whispering into one mind and the next until a movement is ready to be born.  Uranus governs change, disruption, reversals, brilliance, acceleration, eccentricity, the unique individual and the wider community. The eminent astrologer Alan Oken describes Uranus in this way:

             [Uranus] serves to shake up the status quo and creates new social archetypes and paradigms. 

The planet’s meaning in astrology reflects its behavior in the solar system.  Uranus is known as the revolutionary planet because of its tilting, erratic orbital plane. Uranus’s axis of rotation lies on its side with respect to the plane of the Solar System. This gives it seasonal changes completely unlike those of the other major planets. Other planets can be visualized to rotate like tilted spinning tops relative to the plane of the solar system, while Uranus rotates more like a tilted rolling ball.  (Cite:Wikipedia)  It also spins in a direction that is the reverse of that of the other planets in our solar system.

In the next post we’ll continue looking at this fascinating planet and its role in our business lives.

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