09 Sunday Mar 2014
Posted in business, design thinking, management, strategy
Tags
Analytics, Big Data, business, Clay Christensen, Design Thinking, disruptive innovation, Generative Management, George Gilder, integrative thinking, Kevin Kelly, Nassim Taleb, operations, Peter Drucker, Roger Martin, Russell Ackoff, strategy, thought leaders
Like yin and yang, human enterprise has two facets: closed-loop activities and open-ended endeavors. In management we call these two operations and strategy.
24 Thursday Oct 2013
Posted in business, consulting, management
Tags
Amit Goswami, Best Practices, business, Clay Christensen, complexity, Consultants, Cybernetics, Dave Snowden, Distinctions, Educators, Gurus, management, management consulting, Management Thinkers, Methods, models, Peter Checkland, Peter Drucker, Recipes, Roger Martin, Russell Ackoff, Systems
I have heard my share of reservations about management consultants. Many see business consulting as a shallow field devoid of real substance. As the old saying about no smoke without fire goes, there is likely good reason for the distrust of this modern profession. The great Russell Ackoff himself distinguished between two types of consultants: self-promoting gurus and educators.
13 Thursday Jun 2013
Posted in business, human capital, management, Organizational Development
We all like to think of ourselves as moderate, reasonable beings, but as a society are never too far from extreme viewpoints – call it the peer pressure effect or our desire to fit in. As an example, the collective view on leadership has swung completely from the authoritative, masculine figure exerting total control to the unobtrusive nurturer of talent. We made no pause along the way to ponder the possibility of exaggeration and overreaction. Dare say the leader still has a very real and involved role in the organization and you are likely to be black listed and deemed a heretic nowadays. Say the leader should politely evaporate, and the audience immediately erupts in applause.
05 Wednesday Jun 2013
Posted in business, capitalism, complexity, consulting, democracy, future, human capital, innovation, knowledge, management, philosophy, problem solving, society, taxonomy, technology
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
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.
10 Friday May 2013
Posted in consulting, design thinking, innovation, knowledge, learning, paradox, problem solving
Tags
Chaos, complexity, Consulting, Dave Snowden, Disruption, Entrepreneurship, Globalization, Innovation, Intractable Problems, Introspection, Knowledge, Learning, Methodology, Open Mind, Relativity, Risk, Roger Martin, Russell Ackoff, Self-Awareness, Wicked Problems
Over the last decade, I’ve lived globalization, entrepreneurship, change and crisis, complexity and chaos. I must have run into at least a dozen intractable, impossible, show-stopper, nerve-racking, all-or-nothing situations and at least several orders higher magnitude wicked problems. I also ran into the entire spectrum of human behavior, what the Clint Eastwood character would call the “good, the bad, and the ugly” (I would actually add the “irrational”).
About five years ago I also started an in depth study of the cutting edge thinking related to complexity and disorder. Finally I also studied and noted my own behaviors and responses in such circumstances; like Hansel and Gretel I traced my steps into the wilderness in case I ever had to find my way back. This ability to not only act but rationalize the act has served me well, substantially increasing my awareness and lowering my stress when faced with the new and unfamiliar. It has also resulted in a problem solving and sense-making body of work which I think rivals the best of what’s available on the market. I have yet to capitalize on all this, but I have learned to be patient.
The art and science of the possible 