Tag Archives: complex systems

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Every Manager a “Janus”: Ambidexterity and the Ecological Perspective

I can’t believe it’s almost January again, but perhaps it could make a timely theme for a blog. The month is named after Janus, the Roman god of thresholds – beginnings and endings – who looked two ways, toward both … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General | Tagged Academy of Management Perspectives, ambidexterity, change, complex systems, creative leadership.strategic management, Duncan, ecocycle, ecological perspective, Janus, Jesuits, means and ends, O'Reilly, Pope Francis, Roger Martin, Roman Catholic Church, Roman god, Rothenberg, The Opposable Mind, Tushman | 1 Comment

Mission Command: An Elusive Philosophy Whose Time Has Come

This is the third blog in my series of reflections on the 5th Drucker Forum held in Vienna November 14-15, 2013. Among the many things that make this event so stimulating and memorable to attend is the numerous conversations that … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Leadership, Strategy | Tagged auftragstaktik, befehlstaktik, boundaries, command and collaborate, complex systems, Drucker Forum, execution gap, German General Staff, mission command, mission tactics, nested hierarchy, Peter Drucker, Russian dolls, scale, The Practice of Management | 1 Comment

The Map and The Territory: Complexity as Challenge and Opportunity

My blog this week is an extended version of a comment I made a couple of days ago on Adrian Wooldridge’s (the Schumpeter columnist) report on the 5th Drucker Forum in The Economist. It also picks up from last week’s … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Leadership, Strategy | Tagged Christensen, complex systems, complexity, Drucker Forum, formulation, fractal, implementation, job-to-be-done, learning, Mandelbrot, map, Martin Wooldridge, projects, Roger Martin, scale, Schumpeter, strategy, territory, tolerance, Vienna | Comments Off on The Map and The Territory: Complexity as Challenge and Opportunity

You Can’t Herd Cats, But They Will Hunt Together

Over the weekend I got back from Vienna, where I attended the 5th Annual Peter Drucker Global Forum, the theme of which was “Managing Complexity”. Last year I attended my first of these extraordinary conferences on the strength of my … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Leadership, Strategy | Tagged administrative practices, Cartesian cascade, complex systems, global forum, herding, herding cats, hunter-gatherer, hunting, hunting dynamics, Johan Roos, John Hagel, let it happen, make it happen, Peter Drucker, Philip Diab, project management, pull, push, stretch goals, Terry Cooke-Davies | Comments Off on You Can’t Herd Cats, But They Will Hunt Together

European Union: If You Have Them By Their Wallets, Will Their Hearts and Minds Follow?

Last Thursday I was the opening speaker at the International Forum for Future Europe held November 7- 8 in Vilnius, Lithuania. The theme of the conference was Sustainable Development and Harmonious Society and the title of my talk was “European … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Leadership, Strategy | Tagged buy-in, change, Charles de Gaulle, community, complex systems, ecocycle, ecological perspective, ECSC, European community, European integration, European Union, French army, means and ends, Moebius strip, narrative, national identity, Nigel Farage, power, power trap, Thirty Year War, Tony Judt, UKIP, Vilnius | 1 Comment

Evolution is Smarter than We Are

The essence of an ecological perspective on organizations and their challenges is that one looks to nature and evolution to understand the workings of complex systems and how these problems have been solved in other contexts. From there one can … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Leadership, Strategy | Tagged Allan Savory, animals, change, Christensen, complex systems, ecological perspective, fire, Holism and Evolution, Innovator's Prescription, Jan Smuts, Karl Popper, landscape remediation, leukemia, Objective Knowledge, rest | 1 Comment

Organic and Mechanical Approaches to Complex Systems: Part II – Philosophical Differences

After the discussion of my HBR blog, “Stop Trying to Engineer Success”, died down on the Harvard site it continued, at least in name, on a thread in Systems Thinking World (STW). With over 17,000 members, STW is an unusually … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General | Tagged analytical, baseball umpires, change, complex systems, constructivism, ecological perspective, engineering.systems thinking, epistemology, idealism, objectivism, ontology, scientific materialism, software engineer | Comments Off on Organic and Mechanical Approaches to Complex Systems: Part II – Philosophical Differences

Harvard Business School: The Reality Show?

A fascinating front-page article in the New York Times reported on Harvard Business School’s attempt to achieve “gender equity”. HBS has had problems attracting and retaining female faculty. They comprise 22% of the faculty and the “pipeline” that leads to tenure … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Leadership, Uncategorized | Tagged change, complex systems, context, ecocycle, ecological perspective, ecological rationality, gender equity, Harvard Business School, Jonathan Haidt, leadership, means and ends, New York Times, power, Rakesh Khurana, reality television, The New Ecology of Leadership | 1 Comment

Addicted to Heroes: The Struggle to Improve America’s Schools

I have been reading Diane Ravitch’s 2010 book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System. She was an appointee to the Department of Education by both George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton and initially a supporter of … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Leadership, Strategy | Tagged Alan Bersin, American schools, Bill Clinton, community, complex systems, Diane Ravitch, ecocycle, ecological perspective, education system, factory, farmers, George Bush, heroes, Jim Womack, Joel Klein, lean, market, Michelle Rhee, NCLB, No Child Left Behind, rank-and-yank | 1 Comment

T-shaped People: Deduction, Induction, Abduction and Systems Thinking

IDEO, the design and innovation firm, prizes what they call “T-shaped” individuals. These are people with a deep expertise in one field or domain (the vertical stroke of the “T”) and some expertise across several, often dissimilar, domains (the horizontal … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Leadership, Strategy | Tagged abduction, analogical, analytical, bottom-up, Charles Sanders Peirce, complex systems, creativity, deduction, ecological perspective, IDEO, induction, innovation, leveraged action, systems, T-shaped, thinking, top-down | Comments Off on T-shaped People: Deduction, Induction, Abduction and Systems Thinking ← Older posts Newer posts →