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Monthly Archives: July 2012

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

Tattoos That Fit: Barclays, LIBOR, Culture and Regulation

The questioning of Barclays Bank’s Bob Diamond by the U.K. Parliamentary Committee on the LIBOR rate fixing scandal a couple of weeks ago was riveting. The unflappable Diamond deflected the MPs queries with a practised ease despite mounting evidence of … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Tagged Anglo-Saxon capitalism, banking, Barclays, Bob Diamond, community, complex systems, context, culture, ecological process, gift economy, integrity, LIBOR, management ethics, Quakers, rate-fixing, regulation, Society of Friends, values | Comments Off on Tattoos That Fit: Barclays, LIBOR, Culture and Regulation

Why Walmart is Like a Forest: Excerpt from The New Ecology of Leadership published in Strategy+Business

An excerpt from The New Ecology of Leadership has just been published in Strategy+Business.  It draws the parallels between the growth of the Walmart stores and forest succession, suggesting that it is fundamentally an ecological process. You can read the excerpt here.

Posted in Change, General | Tagged bribery, context, ecology, forest succession, stores, The New Ecology of Leadership, Walmart | Comments Off on Why Walmart is Like a Forest: Excerpt from The New Ecology of Leadership published in Strategy+Business

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