Author Archives: David

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When the Science is Uncertain, Turn to the Humanities

On June 17, 202o. from 1pm to 2pm. Eastern Time I will be giving a TED-style talk and hosting a discussion with i4j. The password is i4jcommunity. i4j Innovation for Jobs is a global leadership forum organized by the IIIJ Foundation, … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Leadership, Strategy | Tagged abstraction.navigatng, analogical inquiry, change, community, complex systems, context, coronavirus, creativity, crisis, destruction, ecocycle, ecological perspective, innovation, leadership, narrative, renewal, wayfinding | Comments Off on When the Science is Uncertain, Turn to the Humanities

Forces of Nature: Understanding How Ecosystems Grow, Thrive and Regenerate

My latest article, Forces of Nature, has just been published in Strategy+Business. In it I discuss Canadian ecologist, “Buzz” Holling’s adaptive cycle and how, transformed into the ecocycle, it can help us understand the dynamics of complex adaptive systems.

Posted in Change, General, Leadership | Tagged adaptive cycle, complex, ecocycle, Holling, innovation, leadership, The New Ecology of Leadership | Comments Off on Forces of Nature: Understanding How Ecosystems Grow, Thrive and Regenerate

The Hammer and The Dance: The Case for Crushing the Coronavirus with Coercive Bureaucracy

Metaphors matter, especially in uncertain times, when the only way to frame a complex predicament is to use models from a familiar past.   The title of this blog borrows from Tomas Pueyo’s excellent article and the picture that accompanies it is … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Leadership, Strategy | Tagged change, china, cities, coercive bureaucracy, community, complex systems, coronavirus, corporation, dance, destruction, Geoffrey West, Germany, hammer, herd immunity, innovation, mortality, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Tomas Pueyo | Comments Off on The Hammer and The Dance: The Case for Crushing the Coronavirus with Coercive Bureaucracy

Peter F. Drucker and the Society of the Future

This is a report on a Round Table discussion at the 2019 Global Peter Drucker Forum. Click here for the LinkedIn version which has hyperlinks Panelists: Chair: Richard Brem, Senior Advisor, Peter Drucker Society of Europe, Peter Paschek, Management Consultant, Timo … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General | Tagged Constrained Vision, Drucker Forum, future of society, Karl Polanyi, Peter Drucker, Thomas Sowell, Unconstrained Vision, Vision | Comments Off on Peter F. Drucker and the Society of the Future

True But Useless: Why So Much Management Advice Sucks (and what to do about it).

Why does so much management advice sound reasonable but turn out to be of little value? Most readers will know what I mean. Take the following guidance on how companies can ‘accelerate their agile transformation’: Create a C-suite with an … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Leadership, Strategy | Tagged abstraction, Alfred North Whitehead, altruism, Aristotle, BSC, budgets, cause-and-effect, complex adaptive systems, Daniel Boorstin, experience, gardeners, gemba, growing people, KPI, Lao-Tzu, management, Mary Parker Follett, MBO, means and ends, measurement, mindset, RONA, selfishness, Stanley McChrystal, Tao Te Ching, truisms | Comments Off on True But Useless: Why So Much Management Advice Sucks (and what to do about it).

The Engineer and The Gardener: Management Science Versus Complexity Science

    Management Science The concept of management as a science has its origins in the aftermath of World War II. During that conflict the use of analytical disciplines drawn from operations research proved enormously useful in decision-making. After the … Continue reading →

Posted in General, Leadership, Strategy, Uncategorized | Tagged Cartesian Theory of Management, change, complex adaptive systems, complex systems, Descartes, Knightian uncertainty, management science, meaning, positivism, pragmatism, Richard Rorty, scentific rationality | Comments Off on The Engineer and The Gardener: Management Science Versus Complexity Science

Wading Through the Swamp – the Radical Power of Ecosystems-as-Processes

The respected management scholar, Donald Schön, began his 1987 book, The Education of the Reflective Practitioneras follows: “In the varied topography of professional practice, there is a high, hard ground overlooking a swamp. On the high ground, management problems lend … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Leadership, Strategy | Tagged #GPDF19, attractors, complex systems, Descartes, Drucker Forum, ecocycle, ecological perspective, ecosystem, ecosystems, emergence, Goethe, meaning, narrative, Peter Drucker | Comments Off on Wading Through the Swamp – the Radical Power of Ecosystems-as-Processes

Lead Like A Gardener: The Movie

This is the video of my short plenary presentation at the 10th Annual Global Peter Drucker Forum held in Vienna on November 28 and 19 in Vienna. For all the video from the conference see: Global Peter Drucker Forum 2018 … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Leadership, Strategy, Uncategorized | Tagged adaptive cycle, change, community, complex systems, ecocycle, ecological perspective, ecological rationality, ecology, ecosystem, Henry Mintzberg, leadership, meaning, means and ends, metaphor, mission, narrative, Pope Francis, The New Ecology of Leadership | Comments Off on Lead Like A Gardener: The Movie

BREXIT: A Study in Complexity

British politics is in a real mess. Mired in the Brexit debate, its current predicament is best captured in the poetry of the Victorian writer Matthew Arnold; “Wandering between two worlds, the one dead, the other powerless to be born.” … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Leadership | Tagged Brexit, change, community, complex adaptive systems, complex systems, creativity, David Cameron, ecocycle, ecological perspective, identity, Jeremy Corbyn, Labour, leadership, Matthew Arnold, Nigel Farage, Theresa May, Tory, UKIP, utility | Comments Off on BREXIT: A Study in Complexity

The Engineer and The Gardener: the Central Tension in 21st Century Management

“Warm hearts allied with cool heads seek a middle way between the extremes of abstract theory and personal impulse”                                         Stephen Toulmin, … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Leadership | Tagged Bagehot, change, complex, complex systems, complicated, ecological, efficiency, engineer, engineering, existential instrumental, gardener, innovation, opposites, sawubona, sikhona, stability, Taoism, tensions, Toulmin, ubuntu, Wooldridge, Zulu | Comments Off on The Engineer and The Gardener: the Central Tension in 21st Century Management ← Older posts