Forget organizational planning, budgeting and performance appraisals; these are all tools of the past. Companies that really want to navigate their way through today's complexity need to be able to think, not just steer.
Forget organizational planning, budgeting and performance appraisals; these are all tools of the past. Companies that really want to navigate their way through today's complexity need to be able to think, not just steer.
In this episode of Evolutionary Provocateur, systems theorist and practitioner, Niels Pflaeging, talks to Dawna Jones talk about what thinking differently means in an organization context. They discuss, among other things:
- Why surprises are opportunities to innovate
- How command-and-control organizational models kill entrepreneurial energy and creativity inside a company
- Why complexity changes how companies work with outside experts and consultants
- Why thinking mechanistically won’t improve a company’s position
- How individuals can help adapt the organizational model by looking past symptoms
Niels Pflaeging’s latest book “Organize for Complexity” is written for people who don’t like business books. Using a thoughtful balance of text with illustrations, he debunks myths about changing business cultures.
In his professional life, he instigates thinking differently about organization design and structure and, for companies ready to change, thoughtfully ‘irritates’ habitual patterns that block high performance.
Niels will send a deluxe hard cover version of ‘Organize for Complexity’ for the first five Evolutionary Provocateur podcast listeners who email me (dawna at frominsighttoaction dot com) with the answer to this question:
What was the fundamental tip that Niels gave listeners in the second half of the podcast episode?
Evolutionary Provocateur
