"That’s why I keep repeating that we have to adapt to life in perpetual Beta."

Agreed, Harold. There seem to be a variety of ‘defences’ against admitting this.

Individually this seems to relate to personality dimensions. Carol Dweck has done interesting work on growth mind sets vs. fixed ones, showing that they have very different consequences of adapting to change; Bob Kegan at Harvard has written over the years about the stages of cognitive development and Immunity to Change; and Roger Martin has made a complementary point in his book The Opposable Mind. I’m still not sure how to weave all this together completely, but it seems clear that living life in beta is really disturbing for some people.

Collectively, there is a similar thing going on. Some systems are adaptive and flexible, others rigid and brittle. Most organisations champion slogans like ‘agile, adaptable and capable’, but few really manage it, largely due to things others have commented on above. :)