Peter Block once said that the fundamental choice faced by an organization is between safety and adventure. Safety is about the risk-avoiding, stability-seeking, business-as-usual drives of the typical mature enterprise. Adventure, in contrast, is about the Quest the journey of exploration, discovery, innovation and breakthrough.

Alex Taylor’s brilliant article in December’s Fortune Magazine about the demise of General Motors appears to be a case in point. Taylor provides a haunting description of the cost of seeking safety in times of adversity.

Referring to GM CEO, Rick Wagner, and his associates, Taylor writes:

“But in working for the largest company in the industry for so long, they became comfortable, insular, self-referential and too wedded to the status quo traits that persist even now, when GM is on the precipice. They prefer stability over conflict, continuity over disorder, and GM’s way over anybody else’s. They believe that … tomorrow will be a better day despite four decades of evidence to the contrary.”

Taylor is describing leadership that has clearly chosen safety over adventure. Unwilling or unable to explore uncharted territory, stagnation and decline are the inevitable outcome. The fact that GM leaders are “smart, sincere, diligent,” as characterized by Taylor, is not enough. They needed to leave the comfort of home base and choose the path of adventure decades ago.

The path of adventure is the Quest; could it provide the means to game-changing discoveries and renewed vitality for a restructured GM? While the Quest may appear risky to GM, it seems that its leaders made the truly lethal move by assiduously avoiding it. I suspect that members of Congress, in calling for new leadership at GM, hope to avoid this peril in the future