Tag Archives: destruction

Newer posts →

The Decline of Detroit: An Ecological Interpretation

The value of an ecological perspective is that it views organizations primarily as movements, rather than as structures and it can be used at many different levels of analysis. It can be applied, for example, to the life of a … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General | Tagged automotive, Buffalo, Chrysler, cities, Cleveland, community, crisis, decline, destruction, Detroit, ecocycle, ecological perspective, ecosystem, Ford, General Motors, means and ends, Pete Saunders, Peter Drucker, Pittsburg, sweet zone | 2 Comments

Can Rome be Renewed? It Will Take a Miracle…

Is there such a thing as a disruptive religion? Two thousand years ago Christianity certainly qualified as such. It disrupted the then-ruling establishment, making a clear distinction between those things that belonged to God and those that belonged to Caesar. … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, Leadership, Strategy | Tagged cardinal, change, community, conclave, crisis, destruction, ecological perspective, Hans Kung, hunting dynamics, leadership, means and ends, mission, mountain, narrative, Pope, Promised Land, Roman Catholic Church, Rome, The New Ecology of Leadership, trust, wilderness | Comments Off on Can Rome be Renewed? It Will Take a Miracle…

The Natural Case for Employee Engagement

Yesterday the Strategic Management Bureau asked, “Is the unending search for ‘the business case’ for employee engagement a futile exercise?” and cited an article on the topic. In my response to the question I suggested that the attempt to create … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Leadership, Strategy | Tagged change, community, complex systems, creativity, crisis, destruction, ecocycle, ecological perspective, ecosystem, empowerment, engagement, KPI, KSF, leadership, lean, management ethics, Max Weber, means and ends, passion, power, purpose, reason, renewal, scorecard, shareholder value model, social traps, strategy, sustainability, sweet zone, Toyota Production System, trust, value stream, wertrationale, zweckrationale | 1 Comment

Shareholder Value Part III: A New Narrative for Capitalism

The ripples from Joe Nocera’s August 10 column in The New York Times, “Down With Shareholder Value” continue to radiate throughout the blogosphere. This past week I came across Miguel Padró’s Yahoo blog, “Is ‘Maximizing Shareholder Value’ No Longer the … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Leadership | Tagged Alexis de Toqueville, Anglo-Saxon capitalism, Aspen Institute, Berle and Means, community capitalism, context, crisis, destruction, ecodynamics, ecological perspective, ecology, English Nonconformists, evolution, externalities, family business, Gerald Davis, hunter-gatherer, Joe Nocera, John Kenneth Galbraith, managerial capitalism, MiguelPadro, narrative, narrative centre of gravity, neoclassical economics, re-localize, renewal, retention, selection, shareholder capitalism, shareholder value model, Sisyphus, The New Industrial State, variation | 1 Comment

From Machines to Plants: Wandering in The Gardens of Democracy

In The New Ecology of Leadership I draw an extended, disciplined analogy between the cycle of an ecosystem (my favourite is a fire-dependent, lodge-pole pine forest) and the trajectories that organizations follow as they go through their lives. The objective … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General | Tagged complex systems, destruction, ecological perspective, ecology, economics, Eric Liu, Gardenbrain, Gardens of Democracy, government, hedge-funds, Machinebrain, means and ends, Nick Hanauer, politics, Second Enlightenment, The New Ecology of Leadership | Comments Off on From Machines to Plants: Wandering in The Gardens of Democracy

Shareholder Value – Part II: “Down with Shareholder Value”

In Saturday’s New York Times, Joe Nocera wrote a column entitled “Down With Shareholder Value”. In it he traced briefly the rise of the concept and then suggested that we are at the “dawn of a new movement”, although it … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Leadership | Tagged Anglo-Saxon capitalism, creation, destruction, ecology, fire, forest, Harvard Business Review, Jay Lorsch, Joe Nocera, Justin Fox, lodgepole pine, Neil Sheehan, New York Times, shareholder value model, Vietnam War, World War II | Comments Off on Shareholder Value – Part II: “Down with Shareholder Value”

Recipe for Ruin: Nothing Lasts Unless It Is Incessantly Renewed

Over the weekend a comment on a management blog referred to a piece by management writer Steve Denning in Forbes magazine. Entitled “The Key Missing Ingredient in Leadership Today”, it argued that real leadership is all about transforming systems, not … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Leadership | Tagged Apocalypse Now, bureaucracy, coercive bureaucracy, complex systems, context, creativity, crisis, Denning, Deresiewicz, destruction, discipline, ecological perspective, enabling bureaucracy, Forbes, Francis Ford Coppola, freedom, Heart of Darkness, hierarchy, identity, innovation, Joseph Conrad, know-how, know-what, means and ends, modular, narrative, power, renewal, ruin, Toyota Production System, West Point | Comments Off on Recipe for Ruin: Nothing Lasts Unless It Is Incessantly Renewed

Renewal in the West: Nature Bats Last

This year the annual fire season has come early to the Western regions of North America. In the southern mountains it has been prompted by a reduced snowpack, low rainfalls, blistering heat and low humidity. In the north, where the … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General | Tagged California wildfire, Cedar Fire, chaparral, destruction, ecocycle, ecological perspective, fire, fire season 2012, fire-dependent, human community, lodgepole pine, mountain pine beetle, nature bats last, San Diego, Santa Ana wind, serotiny, Western forest | Comments Off on Renewal in the West: Nature Bats Last

The Ecocycle: A Mental Model for Understanding Complex Systems

I found this evocative image a short time ago. It captures the intention and spirit of the book admirably: three dragons – I have named them Passion, Reason and Power – scramble on a Moebius strip in a never-ending three-cornered … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Leadership, Strategy | Tagged adaptive cycle, anticipation, Chapter 11, complex systems, creative leadership, destruction, ecocycle, ecosystem, General Motors, infinity symbol, Kodak, logic, mental model, Moebius strip, moment of Now, power, prediction, Rochester, social traps, strategic management, sustainability, sweet zone, trust | 2 Comments Newer posts →