One of the hardest challenges that we must face to survive and thrive in the digital age is changing the way we think. Linear thinking has served humanity well. Being rational, after all, allowed us to emerge from the dark ages and the realm of superstition. We can thank René Descartes for providing us with […]
Shaping Organizations for the Digital Age
We were invited by E-3 Magazine International, an independent SAP Trends and analyses magazine, to write a series on Digital Transformation. Here is the first of those articles written by our Founder, Dr. Domenico Lepore. Unrelenting and unlimited: two words that spring to mind about the Digital Age. The advance of Digital Transformation is unrelenting […]
Buffer Money -Radically Protecting Projects
Today’s post is by our Founder, Dr. Domenico Lepore. We have been writing extensively about the benefits of a design that mirrors the inherent project nature of the work of any organization. We call it the ‘Network of Projects’ organization design. The steps to build a Network of Projects organization are: 1) Recognizing that organizations are Systems, Networks of […]
Silos – Overcoming the Enemy of Digital Transformation
If organizations need to learn anything today it’s how to overcome silos. Silos are the number one enemy of productivity and competitiveness, especially in digital transformation. They also seriously threaten the quality of life of employees. An article by former Navy Seal Chris Fussell ‘The battlefield experience that made me realize the danger of silos and isolated […]
How Businesses Can Make the World Better – Whole System Transformation
People struggle to understand big systems, such as nations and alliances. It’s just too big and complicated (what better proof than U.K. citizens voting to leave the European Union.) So they try to break things down into simpler pieces, build walls and set up barriers (silos, fiefdoms, departments). Unfortunately, that just doesn’t work. Why? The […]
Systemic Change Management – a Joined-Up Way to Transform
“The only thing that does not require maintenance is obsolescence”, as Dr. W. Edwards Deming used to say. This is a fundamental truth: if we do not evolve, we regress. What makes everything more complicated is the pace at which we must evolve to survive. Technology speeds everything up, including the world of technology. We’ve been looking at […]
Protecting Mental Health with Organization Design? Why That’s Possible
Mental health and anxiety are issues that are increasingly to the fore. The wellbeing of employees cannot be separated from how their work is organized, and in so many companies that organization is inadequate for today’s complexity. Indeed, every day, people are struggling with the shortcomings and frustrations of a traditional hierarchical/functional organization. Careers are […]
Biggest Challenge? Not Technology but the Organization Design
A truth is beginning to emerge about how reality is shifting in organizations. It was voiced clearly in a presentation yesterday by the CEO of a forward-thinking digital solutions provider in Italy, Stefano Righetti of Hyphen-Italia. The truth is this: no company will be able do without Digital Transformation, at least for its core processes. […]
Your Organization is Nonlinear – Deal With It
In a Newtonian world, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Hit a billiard ball and it will shoot off in a predictable trajectory. Basic physics. Two of the greatest management thinkers of our times were physicists: W. Edwards Deming and Dr. Eliyahu Goldratt, both of whom developed systemic approaches to management. At […]
Bulldoze Business Schools? A New Systemic Curriculum for Complexity in Business and Management
Our business world is changing rapidly. Complexity dominates and old solutions no longer work. Some refer to this as the ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’. Given all these changes, it is remarkable to see that MBAs are offering much the same program content as 20 years ago. A Professor in the UK has gone as far as […]
