What is a sustainable enterprise, what does it takes to create it, and how can it be achieved and maintained? What do we actually mean by sustainable enterprise? To sustain means at its most basic level to keep alive or in existence; this is the basic goal of any business. ‘Sustainable business’ goes further by […]
Digital Means We Must All Change Our Thinking
Organizations are becoming fast aware that they must digitize. This change is happening at a disorienting speed as the online and digital increasingly intertwine with our physical and tangible world. Some of our oldest, even ancient industries, like printing and clothes manufacturing, are becoming increasingly digitized. Process-based to overcome silos When companies embark on digitization, […]
Our Most Clicked Systems View Articles on LinkedIn from 2017
Every week we publish posts, articles and tweets to disseminate a systems view and method for management and leadership. We make this constant effort because we believe that in our age of complexity and digitized and decentralized work, there is an urgent need for new management thinking and practice. We checked to see which of […]
What is a Project Manager?
The term Project Manager is much abused. We look at a precise definition of what Project Manager means in a systemic organization, where projects make up the nervous system of the organization. An organization is essentially a network of projects with a goal An organization is essentially a network of projects with a goal. There are projects that […]
Network Thinking: Changing How We see the World
Adopting a network perspective changes how we see the world and our place in it. In this post we look at how that applies to organizations and their design. Revolutions in thought have been part of our human development, from Copernicus’ unveiling how the sun does not revolve around the earth to Darwin’s theory of evolution, […]
How to Create a Systemic Strategy
Strategy is about identifying a direction and creating robust solutions to move coherently in that direction. It involves identifying the systemic changes that need to be created. There are three main phases for this: what to change what to change to how to make the change happen For each of these phases, there is […]
The Importance of Understanding “Constraint” for 21st Century Organizations
Today’s post looks at ways to understand what “constraint” means for an organization and why we need to identify it and manage it in 21st century organizations. This is an extract from the business novel + website, The Human Constraint. May opened the window of her apartment to let in some fresh air. The morning was […]
Complexity and Root Cause Analysis – Where Is the Fit?
We’ve been asked how come we talk about complexity and also root cause analysis. Aren’t they incompatible? The answer is no, and here we explain why root cause analysis is your best friend in managing complex situations and environments. Why complexity and a “reductionist” root cause analysis are not incompatible Let me preface this post […]
An MBA for Complexity?
The major problem managers face today is complexity, and the current MBAs on offer are not equipping their graduates with the right knowledge and tools. Managers today must be able to understand how things interdepend and evolve in order to navigate complexity. Here we offer a solution. Why MBAs are stuck in the past Many business […]
Idle Is Good – Resource Optimization Part 2
Our recent post, ‘Resource Optimization? Don’t Make the 100% Efficiency Mistake‘ received thousands of views, hundreds of likes and we are grateful for the many insightful comments received. Here, Dr. Giovanni Siepe takes a further look at resource optimization and why it is essential to always have some excess capacity. Infinite resources only exist in Heaven In our […]
