With digital transformation increasingly taking center stage in many businesses, more CIOs are reporting to the CEO. The role of IT and the role of the CIO are central to creating a shift in how organizations operate, compete and thrive in this age of complexity. Digital Transformation is an opportunity to completely re-examine and improve […]
The Traditional Hierarchy Organization Doesn’t Work Anymore
Why are people still stuck in adopting a traditional hierarchy and functional organization structure when there are clearly so many drawbacks? When organizations are created and organized in a matrix of vertical hierarchy and functions, an inevitable consequence is the existence of a series of “walls” or divisions that inhibit the resources involved in producing an optimal […]
Simplify Your Hierarchy For Speed and Reliability
Let’s make a radical statement about success and organizations: all that matters for the success of an organization and those who work within it is speed and reliability. Think about that for a second. How many organizations can actually say that they are designed for this? Isn’t it true that layers of bureaucracy and the […]
Fear in the Workplace – How to Drive it Out
Most organizations were created and are still managed by people whose cognitive skills and careers have been formed in a pre-digital era. This means people that work in them are measured and managed by people who developed their careers according to the mindset and mechanisms of the pre-digital reality. How can we make sure that valuable […]
Hierarchy: Transforming into Something that Works Better
Traditional style hierarchies are no longer appropriate for today’s markets. Our world is changing too fast and the prevailing style of management that creates silos cannot react quickly enough. What is a realistic alternative? We receive a wealth of comments and questions about our work on developing a systemic way of working. A recent long […]
7 Symptoms of Silo Sickness that CIOs Must Cure
Most organizations are hierarchical. This way of managing means that responsibility gets divided up into functions and the ‘head’ of each function is responsible for the results of that function and the budget allocated. Isn’t this rational? After all, the notion of hierarchy is as old as the bible. Literally. Moses was introduced to it […]
Creating Flow in Your Organization as a Sustainable System
In this post we look at how we can create a sustainable system, how we can operate as a sustainable system, and the results this will help us achieve. What would happen if everyone came to work and just did their own thing? Even with the best of intentions, this would not be a great […]
How Do I Make Use of Systems Thinking Stuff in an Organization?
Question: I have an organizational situation that I need to address and I’m not sure how to go about it. I’ve been hearing a lot about something called systems thinking and I’m interested in understanding what it is and how I benefit from it addressing the situation at hand. Your thoughts on how to pursue […]
Mining the Past to Create the Future
The ancient industry of glass blowing in Venice is threatened by a grim economy, changing taste, and cheaper alternatives. A recent article from The Economist concentrates on the famous island of Murano and the challenges facing the centuries-old tradition. One glass-blowing studio in Murano has found success by working with fine artists to produce rare […]
Connecting in a Network? Its usefulness is all about affinity.
Is all that effort to make connections in a network a waste of time? Network theory has something to teach us about all that. A lot of energy is consumed every day by people, groups, and organizations who frantically try to make as many connections as possible. They do so for a reason: to increase […]