• About

The art and science of the possible

~ A celebration of non-zero sum thinking

The art and science of the possible

Category Archives: problem solving

When competence is offensive

25 Wednesday Jun 2014

Posted by lnedelescu in business, consulting, Crisis, management, problem solving

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

business, incompetence, management consulting, office politics, power games

Image

I remember vividly a meeting that took place a few years ago. I was a management consultant tasked by the owner of a large corporation with overseeing the creation of a new profit and loss business unit. My nemesis was a Vice President who did not want to see his power and “territorial” claims diminished by the new venture. Typical power games and office politics were very much at play. The owner liked to delegate and had a “survival of the fittest mentality” to mediating conflict.

The three of us had gotten together because the named Vice President was overtly sabotaging my efforts. He was making the case to the owner that, while the idea of the new business unit was great, the consultant was poorly fit for the job.

Continue reading →

Measuring our way into meaninglessness, stagnation and crisis

12 Wednesday Mar 2014

Posted by lnedelescu in Crisis, future, human capital, innovation, problem solving, science

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

bureaucracy, Crisis, Data Crunching, economics, Fanatism, future, Kurzweil, neo-Marxism, Numbers, Religion, Singularity, Society, Stagnation, Totalitarianism

Image

I posit excessive measurement is the culprit behind the world’s biggest problems, as well as the likely initiator of its future crises. It is the largest hidden systemic risk to our future livelihood. Our obsession with quantity is the very incarnation of the materialistic credo, a worldview focusing on physical resources and antagonist to a knowledge economy.

Continue reading →

A consulting industry first: strategy architected around complexity principles

25 Tuesday Feb 2014

Posted by lnedelescu in complexity, consulting, design thinking, innovation, knowledge, management, problem solving, strategy

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Alignment, complexity, Criteria, Innovation, Performance, Peter Drucker, phase transitions, Portfolio, Qualitative Leaps, Quantitative, strategy

Image

When people ask me what it is that I do, they often act surprised and sometimes suspicious upon hearing my answer: “I solve wicked problems with undefined parameters”; yes, really.

Continue reading →

Your boss, the middleman – Part II

20 Thursday Feb 2014

Posted by lnedelescu in business, human capital, management, Organizational Development, problem solving

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Boss, Business Talent Group, Charles Handy, Economy, Elephants, Fleas, Freelance, hierarchy, management, Middlemen, Roger Martin, Talent

Image

I ended my initial post on this topic with a pointer to the so-called “freelance economy”. In this post I want to take this thread further, as I think it can shed light into the future of employment.

What I was implying at the end of my initial post is that reducing or even doing away with “middleman” corporate hierarchies in a post-materialistic, fluid economy of ideas doesn’t lead to anarchy. Rather it logically leads to a “freelance economy”, a world where, in British management philosopher Charles Handy’s words, free-floating freelancer “fleas” service multiple corporate “elephants” following the need for their specific talents.

Continue reading →

Our creativity liquidity crisis

17 Monday Feb 2014

Posted by lnedelescu in capitalism, human capital, problem solving, society, taxonomy

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

creativity, Currency, Economy, George Gilder, Harvard Business Review, Knowledge, Liquidity, Money, Peter Drucker, Roger Martin

Image

The road from the Renaissance to the iPhone might have taken much longer had the world not invented modern banking and finance. Money, an abstraction of value, is indeed a necessary precursor to globalization. It is also the source of systemic crises when the abstraction loses touch with the underlying value as when sophisticated financial instruments become self-referential.

Continue reading →

Algoristics – the mindset of the possible

22 Thursday Aug 2013

Posted by lnedelescu in design thinking, problem solving, society, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Algoristics, Algorithms, Breaking Through, bureaucracy, Entrepreneurship, Heuristics, Mindset, Possibility, Validity

Image

“Everything you’ve learned in school as “obvious” becomes less and less obvious as you begin to study the universe. For example, there are no solids in the universe. There’s not even a suggestion of a solid. There are no absolute continuums. There are no surfaces. There are no straight lines.” – R. Buckminster Fuller

We live in a world where rules and regulations are multiplying every day. It’s as if the more complex the world becomes, the more rules we throw at it hoping that we’ll be able to make it function like a neat clockwork algorithm. And so it’s tempting when looking to start a new venture (personal, professional, or otherwise) to see the world, and particularly the developed world, as a rigid mesh of algorithms that cannot be bent. It is in part because of this belief for example that I quit my corporate job in the U.S. to start a business in an emerging economy seven years ago.

Continue reading →

Creativity is inversely proportional to planning

13 Saturday Jul 2013

Posted by lnedelescu in human capital, innovation, knowledge, problem solving, strategy

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Creative Act, creativity, Ideation, Strategic Planning, strategy, Thought Patterns

Image

One of my favorite study subjects is of course myself. And when it comes to good ideas, I’ve come to notice over the years that the essence of a truly inspired idea forms in only a few seconds. This almost instantaneous process is usually triggered by exposure to a unique experience that provides the missing piece that completes a thought pattern in the making. Patterns in the making or simply incomplete patterns, are themselves the result of internalizing prior knowledge and experiences, which, for a creative individual, should be a continuous process. And so, the creative potential emerges at the intersection between patterns in the making and exposure to diverse experiences.

Continue reading →

Emerging economies insights: the in-sourcing mindset and its implications for business and economic growth

11 Thursday Jul 2013

Posted by lnedelescu in business, Emerging Markets, innovation, problem solving, society

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Abductive Reasoning, business, economic growth, Emerging Markets, expertise, experts, skill set

Image

I’ve written before about the huge pool of abductive reasoning in emerging economies and the opportunity it represents for western multinationals. This piece will explore the negative implications of that same mental resource for emerging economies themselves.

Continue reading →

Beyond expertise: how I freed my mind from mechanistic thinking and opened up to paradox, validity and complexity

17 Monday Jun 2013

Posted by lnedelescu in complexity, innovation, knowledge, paradox, problem solving

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Air Traffic, Autonomy, complexity, Corporate Career Path, Limits of Expertise, Limits of Knowledge, Optimization, Professional Fulfillment, Sequential Planning vs. Adaptive Emergence, Subject Matter Expert

Canada-Geese-taking-off-11225

So you think you’re an expert and pretty much have a handle on your domain and the keys to a comfortable ride through life? What if waiting for that 3% raise a year is a form of subtle imprisonment? What if there is much more satisfaction in seeing your life and career as the cumulative list of things you still have to learn rather than as the accumulated knowledge that keeps you safe and comfortable?

Continue reading →

Post-causality: a quiet global revolution in the making

05 Wednesday Jun 2013

Posted by lnedelescu in business, capitalism, complexity, consulting, democracy, future, human capital, innovation, knowledge, management, philosophy, problem solving, society, taxonomy, technology

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Big Data, business, Categorization, causality, Cause and Effect, complexity, creativity, Cynefin, Daniel Pink, Dave Snowden, Drucker, Drucker Forum, Emergence, future, Imagination, Innovation, Knowledge, management, Methods, models, Motivation, Peter Checkland, Resilience, Revolution, Roger Martin, Russell Ackoff, Safety, Sense Making, Social Systems, Society

http://p.soledadpenades.com

If one were to cut a global cross-section through social classes, nationalities, ethnicities, ages, professions, genders, and so forth, very few commonalities would emerge. And yet, there is I propose just such a common thread: a shared causality mindset, a globally predominant belief in the supremacy of cause and effect.

Since it is people who run our institutions, this belief continues to shape our modern society and even influence to a large extent the technological outcrops of our knowledge economy. From business strategy to macroeconomic models, and from political debates to Big Data, causality is pervasive and its implications profound.

Continue reading →

← Older posts

Categories

business capitalism Communication complexity consulting Crisis democracy design thinking Emerging Markets future human capital innovation Investment knowledge learning management Organizational Development paradox philosophy problem solving sales science society strategy taxonomy technology Uncategorized

Latest

  • Intelligence is Intentional
  • Plenty of Room at the Top: the case for a viable man-machine economic future
  • What does an “innovation economy” really mean?
  • Lightfoot strategy
  • Capital: a brief philosophy

Archives

  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • August 2014
  • June 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012

Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
  • Follow Following
    • The art and science of the possible
    • Join 209 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • The art and science of the possible
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...