This thinking is a leap for me, as organizations, in my experience, usually act as if C always follows A and B. And, this thinking causes problems for them because it is not how the world actually appears to work.
In my consulting, as an example, I find that every organization manages massive change differently and with varying degrees of success. One organization is resilient and capable of successfully managing change. Another flounders, even when circumstances, including competitive challenges, are similar.
Reach to the Future for the New Science of Complexity
It's easy to think that a clear vision, mission, values, and stated goals cascade through an organization and create the desired outcomes. The reality is that most documents of this nature reside in desk drawers and fail to impact what the organization actually does. Why? Many environments change so rapidly that current priorities may not even be expressed in the documents. We’ll discover how to make this a living, breathing document that adds value to your organization.Linear, mechanistic thinking, that still prevails in most organizations, is at odds with the emerging thinking about organizations as living systems. Unfortunately, many staff members are stuck in this old thinking. Thus, “that's not in my job description," is frequently heard when “do whatever it takes to get it done," is the needed chorus in today's more turbulent environment.
Join me in exploring this emerging science of complexity as a way to better understand how organizations actually work. This knowledge will help you enable your organizations to flourish in a world of constant change.
Birth of the Chaordic Age
As a starting point, read Birth of the Chaordic Age by Dee Hock. Hock, who was the founder and nurturer of VISA International during its inception in 1970, approaches organizations in a way that will challenge many fundamental beliefs about how things work.
Most important, he presents concepts that he put to work in creating VISA, an organization owned "by 22,000 member banks, which both compete with each other for 750 million customers and must cooperate by honoring one another’s $1.25 trillion in transactions…" Would such an organization have been developed using centuries-old thinking about competition and cooperation? It is highly unlikely.
