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Category Archives: Change

Restoring Humanity to Management: the Power of Context

Posted on November 3, 2024 by David

My blog on this topic has just been published on the Drucker Forum here. My biggest beef with mainstream Anglo-American management (‘Cartesian’ management, as I call it) is that it ignores context. It treats management as an amoral, technical practice, … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General | Tagged Cartesian Management, change, context, Drucker Forum, dual process, ecological perspective, humanism, management, Peter Drucker, power, taijitu, yin-yang | Comments Off

Toggling Between Two Worlds: Making Sense of Organizational Change (abridged)

Posted on May 1, 2024 by David

“And twofold always. May God us keep From single vision and Newton’s sleep.” William Blake This is a summary of a longer article I have just posted on Medium to mark forty years since the publication of my first (and … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Leadership, Strategy | Tagged adaptive cycle, change, complex systems, context, crisis, destruction, ecocycle, ecological perspective, ecology, ecosystem | Comments Off

Making Sense of Time: Memory, Attention, Expectation

Posted on February 8, 2023 by David

The ancient Greeks had many concepts of time but believed that two were particularly important. The first was sequential, or chronological, time, the relentless beat of time measured today by watches and calendars. In Greek mythology the personification of time … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Leadership | Tagged change, Chronos, context, Ellen Langer, Elliott Jaques, Ernest May, innovation, Kairos, Mary Parker Follett, opportunity, Richard Neustadt, sensemaking | Comments Off

Words and Looks: Leadership Lessons from A Christmas Carol

Posted on December 10, 2022 by David

Charles Dickens’ classic, A Christmas Carol, was first published on December 19, 1843. So it’s close enough to roll this blog out again. Happy Holidays to all! Management gurus have drawn lessons on leadership from diverse sources, ranging from the … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Leadership | Tagged A Chritsmas Carol, change, Charles Dickens, leadership, renewal | Comments Off

Don’t Mistake Outputs for Inputs: The Folly of Trying to Plant “Cut Flowers”

Posted on September 8, 2022 by David

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 | Tagged change, complex systems, Drucker Forum, ecological perspective, Gary Klein, Kahneman, Peter Drucker, sensemaking, The New Ecology of Leadership | Comments Off

Social Renewal: The Story of the Quakers and the First Industrial Revolution

Posted on March 4, 2022 by David

“Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained . . . infancy is perpetual. Those … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General | Tagged Anglo-Saxon capitalism, community, context, destruction, ecological perspective, fission-fusion, innovation, meaning, narrative, Quakers, renewal | Comments Off

Podcast “Lead Like a Gardener: An Ecological Approach to Wicked Problems

Posted on February 3, 2022 by David

Last week I did a podcast with Toby Corballis of Wicked Problems. Toby is an agile business transformation specialist based in The Hague in the Netherlands. I had been attracted to his site by his earlier excellent interview with Keith … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Strategy | Tagged adaptive cycle, bureaucracy, complex systems, Dealingwith Darwin, ecocycle, ecological perspective, ecology, ecosystem, Geoffrey Moore, hierarchy, narrative, navigating, panarchy, product lifecycle, The New Ecology of Leadership, Toby Corballis, wayfinding, wicked problems | Comments Off

You’re Gonna Need a Bigger Boat!

Posted on October 15, 2021 by David

Steven Spielberg’s 1975 movie, Jaws, tells the story of a seaside town whose shores are terrorized by a killer shark. After several fatal attacks, the town sheriff, played by Roy Scheider, sets out to hunt the monster in a dilapidated … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Leadership, Strategy | Tagged Adrian Wooldridge, change, complex systems, Dofasco, ecological perspective, figure and ground, Gore-Tex, human condition, humanistic management, Jaws, John Micklethwait, leadership, management theory, Peter Drucker, scientific management, Spotify, tensions, W.L. Gore | Comments Off

Democracy, Capitalism and Donald Trump: An Ecological Perspective Part I: Midnight Reckoning

Posted on January 19, 2021 by David

Back in November 2016 I wrote a blog in the immediate aftermath of Donald Trump’s election. As a Canadian I thought the Americans had had an awful choice to make but was just as surprised as many others were, when … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Uncategorized | Tagged change, click-bait, complex systems, Demockracy, Donald Trump, ecocycle, ecological perspective, ecosystem, Lawrence Lessig, Lyn Nottage, narrative, Norman Orenstein, power, QAnon, Reading Pa., social enterprise, Sweat, systems trap, Thomas Mann | Comments Off

Jonathan Sacks (1948-2020): Jewish Wisdom and Our Binocular Minds

Posted on November 30, 2020 by David

“And twofold always… May God us keep From single vision and Newton’s sleep!” (William Blake, Double Vision) I read with great sadness of Rabbi Lord Sacks’ sudden, untimely passing on November 7. His writings have been a source of inspiration … Continue reading →