What follows is a highly self-indulgent post. You have been warned. Since the beginning of the year, I have spent most of my waking hours thinking about the future of organisations, and how to better integrate innovation and adaptiveness into their fabric of being. This interest stems from two sources: Firstly, I have been consulting and coaching organisations especially in …
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The 5 things I learned in two months of meditation
According to research done in Harvard, I have a new brain now. Well, perhaps not quite, since the participants in the study clocked an average of 27 minutes a day over two months, whereas I'm averaging 20 minutes a day, six days a week. So I'll give my new brain a little more time to develop. Nevertheless, It's been around two months since I started a (almost) daily …
Newton’s ghost and management science
Last week I read an interesting journal article on how the scientific revolution started by Isaac Newton was not just constrained in the scientific domain, but became a cultural revolution as well. What started with Newton in the 17th century–the belief that the mysteries of the natural world can be conquered by rationality and reasoning–has guided much of human endeavours ever …
The edge of chaos: Where complexity science meets organisational performance
One of the things I particularly like about viewing organisations through the lens of complexity science is that it does not just attempt to describe organisations, but it also prescribes how they should operate in order to maximise performance. There are two key concepts in this: fitness landscapes and the edge of chaos. Imagine a mountain range with many jagged peaks. …
Thinking, systems and performance
Earlier this week I spotted a tweet by Hermanni Hyytiälä from Reaktor and it spurred me to write this article. It is a wonderfully simple illustration making the point that the systems we build are based on the type of thinking we hold, and these two combined lead to certain outcomes. When it comes to modern day organisations, the 'thinking' part is still firmly founded …