Tag Archives: Descartes

The Engineer and The Gardener: Management Science Versus Complexity Science

    Management Science The concept of management as a science has its origins in the aftermath of World War II. During that conflict the use of analytical disciplines drawn from operations research proved enormously useful in decision-making. After the … Continue reading →

Posted in General, Leadership, Strategy, Uncategorized | Tagged Cartesian Theory of Management, change, complex adaptive systems, complex systems, Descartes, Knightian uncertainty, management science, meaning, positivism, pragmatism, Richard Rorty, scentific rationality | Comments Off on The Engineer and The Gardener: Management Science Versus Complexity Science

Wading Through the Swamp – the Radical Power of Ecosystems-as-Processes

The respected management scholar, Donald Schön, began his 1987 book, The Education of the Reflective Practitioneras follows: “In the varied topography of professional practice, there is a high, hard ground overlooking a swamp. On the high ground, management problems lend … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Leadership, Strategy | Tagged #GPDF19, attractors, complex systems, Descartes, Drucker Forum, ecocycle, ecological perspective, ecosystem, ecosystems, emergence, Goethe, meaning, narrative, Peter Drucker | Comments Off on Wading Through the Swamp – the Radical Power of Ecosystems-as-Processes

Down With Descartes! If You Can’t Measure It You Had Better Manage It

  In Landmarks of Tomorrow (1959) Peter Drucker wrote “We still profess and we still teach the world-view of the past three hundred years… a Cartesian world-view.” It is a world-view redefined by Lord Kelvin (1824-1907): “… when you can … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General | Tagged Berlin, change, Descartes, Drucker, ecological perspective, Iraq, judgement, Kelvin, management principles, measurement, purpose, science, systems thinking, weight-loss | Comments Off on Down With Descartes! If You Can’t Measure It You Had Better Manage It

Drucker’s Intent and Why MBO Fails

Last week I blogged about mission command – auftragstaktik – a philosophy of command-and-collaboration developed by the German General Staff over a period of about eighty years, beginning in the 19th Century. Today its elements can be found in the … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Leadership, Strategy | Tagged Anglo-Saxon capitalism, auftragstaktik, befehlstaktik, Descartes, detailed command, dichotomy, Drucker Forum, Efficiency Movement, existential rationalist, Frederick Taylor, German General Staff, Gestalt, Heidegger, instrumental rationality, intuition, key performance indicators, Kierkegaard, KPI, Lynda Gratton, management by objectives, MBO, mission command, Peter Drucker, philosophy, self-discipline, Soviet Union, Sputnik, tension, wicked problems | 5 Comments

Essay Based on The New Ecology of Leadership Wins a Top Prize in the Drucker Global Challenge Essay Contest 2012

It’s official! My essay, “Practical Wisdom: Reinventing Work and Reinventing Organizations by Rediscovering Ourselves”, which is based on the ideas in The New Ecology of Leadership, has won a top prize in the Drucker Global Challenge Essay Contest. The organizers … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General | Tagged Aristotle, behavioral economics, body and mind, business schools, Cartesian, Descartes, Drucker Challenge, ecological rationality, emotion and reason, employee society, English Enlightenment, entrepreneurial society., evolutionary biology, facts and values, functional silo, Global Drucker Forum, ideas and matter, ideology of reason, innovation, management thought, markets, moral sentiment, neuroscience, Peter Drucker, phronesis, Plato, positive empirical, Reinventing Organization, Reinventing Work, Scottish Enlightenment, social ecology, social entrepreneurs, Spanish treasure, stability and change, Stephen Toulmin, Thirty Years' War, Vienna, World War II | 1 Comment