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Category Archives: Change

New Beginnings: Stories of Resilience and Renewal

Posted on March 26, 2013 by David

It’s spring in the Northern Hemisphere, or at least the calendar says it ought to be. But it has been cold and grey with a gusty wind here in Southern Ontario as we wobble our way back to the sun. … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General | Tagged beginnings, cardinal, centre of gravity, change, Christian, crucifixion, destruction, Easter, ecological perspective, Egypt, festival, fractal, Garden of Eden, Good Friday, Haggadah, Hollywood, Horatio Alger, Jew, Passover, Pope, religion, scale, spring, strong families, The New Ecology of Leadership, unifying narrative | 2 Comments

The Decline of Detroit: An Ecological Interpretation

Posted on March 19, 2013 by David

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…

Posted on March 12, 2013 by David

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

Innovation at Yahoo – Where Is the Gemba?

Posted on March 5, 2013 by David

This past week the management news was headlined by Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer’s decision to ban the firm’s staff from working remotely. Annoyed Yahoo employees quickly leaked the clumsily worded memo from the head of HR. It read in part: … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Leadership | Tagged change, Clayton Christensen, community, ecosystem, fission-fusion, gatekeepers, gemba, Google, Gore, herder, hunter, hunter-gatherer, hunting dynamics, innovation, leadership, Marissa Mayer, narrative, Yahoo | 2 Comments

Objectivity: The View from Everywhere

Posted on February 26, 2013 by David

I have been working on revisions to my Drucker Challenge Essay so that a version of it can be published in Management Research Review later this year. The reviewers felt that I needed to deal with the implications for management … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General | Tagged being, Cartesian Management, deliberate practice, Drucker, ecological rationality, embodied cognition, Hubert Dreyfus, Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Mr. Spock, objectivity, phenomenology, Plato, stages of learning, Star Trek, West Churchman | 1 Comment

The Buzz of Entrepreneurs: Hunting Dynamics Part II

Posted on February 19, 2013 by David

Last week I blogged about the virtues of organizations with “hunting dynamics” – networks that could spread themselves out across an opportunity space to explore for opportunities that come and go in unpredictable ways. Once a resource is discovered, the … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Leadership, Strategy | Tagged change, community, complex systems, consensus, context, creativity, democracy, ecological perspective, ecosystem, Edison, entrepreneur, fission-fusion, forager, honeybees, hunting dynamics, innovation, leadership, passion, quorum, slime mould, story, The New Ecology of Leadership, Thomas Seeley | 1 Comment

Hunting Dynamics: Why Chance Encounters Should Not Be Left to Chance

Posted on February 12, 2013 by David

A few days ago Knowledge@ Wharton published an article entitled, “How Seemingly Irrelevant Ideas Lead to Breakthrough Innovation”. It cited several examples. The cushioning on Reebok’s basketball shoes was derived from intravenous fluid bags; Qualcomm’s new colour display technology is … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Leadership, Strategy | Tagged abduction, affordance, change, context, ecological perspective, exploit, explore, fission-fusion, hunter-gatherer, hunting dynamics, improvisation, innovation, narrative, Peirce, Quakers, serendipity, Wharton | 1 Comment

The Natural Case for Employee Engagement

Posted on February 5, 2013 by David

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

Clayton Christensen at Davos: An Ecological Perspective on Innovation

Posted on January 29, 2013 by David

When interviewed at the 2013 World Economic Forum in Davos, Clayton Christensen discussed what he has called “The Capitalist Dilemma”. It goes like this: There are basically three kinds of innovation in the economy: empowering, sustaining and efficiency. Empowering (or … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Uncategorized | Tagged Anglo-Saxon capitalism, capital, capitalist dilemma, Carlota Perez, change, Clayton Christensen, community, complex systems, context, Davos, ecocycle, ecological perspective, ecology, ecosystem, efficiency, empowering, innovation, interest rates, IRR, machine metaphor, organic metaphor, ROCE, RONA, social traps, sustainability, sustaining, sweet zone, The New Ecology of Leadership, Tyler Cowen, unemployment | 3 Comments

Why Conscious Capitalism is Not a New Paradigm

Posted on January 22, 2013 by David

Last week I blogged about my exchange with Steve Denning about conscious capitalism and his claim that it is a “new paradigm” for management. This week I want to discuss the ecological perspective on conscious capitalism and why it is … Continue reading →