The Edge of Organization

The Edge of Organization PDF Author: Russ Marion
Publisher: SAGE Publications
ISBN: 1452263760
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 375

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Book Description
What Newton′s Principia was to his natural science colleagues, Russ Marion′s The Edge of Organization is to today′s social scientists. This book clearly elucidates the arrival of the social sciences at the end of the alley of modernism but then presents us with the tools and ideas to climb out of a dead end, rise above old limitations, and take flight for new horizons bright with promise for advancing both theory and praxis. . . . For social scientists, it is both the most relevant and most easily apprehended treatment to date of the totality of chaos and complexity theory and technique. --Raymond A. Eve, Editor, Chaos, Complexity, and Sociology The Edge of Organization offers a readable, comprehensive, and integrated overview of the new sciences of chaos and complexity. Author Russ Marion describes formal and social organizations from the perspective of chaos and complexity theories. His multidisciplinary approach will appeal to students and scholars across a wide range of social sciences. This book is generously illustrated and includes comprehensive references plus an annotated bibliography of useful books and articles. The Edge of Organization will appeal to students and professionals in sociology, management/ organization studies, management studies, marketing, political science, public administration, and psychology.

Dancing at the Edge

Dancing at the Edge PDF Author: Maureen O'Hara
Publisher: Triarchy Press
ISBN: 1908009284
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 172

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Book Description
Maureen O'Hara and Graham Leicester explore the competencies - the ways of being, doing, knowing and organising - that can help us navigate in complex and powerful times. They argue that these competencies are innate and within reach of all of us - given the right setting, plenty of practice and some gentle guidance. But they are seldom seen because they are routinely undervalued in today's culture. That must change, the authors insist, and this book is intended to begin that change.The book is based on the authors' extensive research and their practical experience observing the qualities demonstrated by some of today's most successful cultural, political and business leaders. They write of 'persons of tomorrow' that they have witnessed:"e;We find that people who are thriving in the contemporary world, who give us the sense of having it all together and being able to act effectively and with good spirit in challenging circumstances, have some identifiable characteristics in common... They are the people already among us who inhabit the complex and messy problems of the 21st century in a more expansive way than their colleagues. They do not reduce such problems to the scale of the tools available to them, or hide behind those tools when they know they are partial and inadequate. They are less concerned with 'doing the right thing' according to standard procedure than they are with really doing the right thing in the moment, in specific cases, with the individuals involved at the time. In a disciplined yet engaging way they are always pushing boundaries, including their own. They dance at the edge."e;

Life at the Edge of Chaos

Life at the Edge of Chaos PDF Author: Mark D. Youngblood
Publisher: Perceval Publishing
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 362

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Book Description


Competing on the Edge

Competing on the Edge PDF Author: Shona L. Brown
Publisher: Harvard Business Press
ISBN: 9780875847542
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
In their startling new book, authors Brown and Eisenhardt contend that to prosper in today's fiercely competitive business environments, a new paradigm--competing on the edge--must be implemented as a new survival strategy. This book focuses on specific management dilemmas and illustrates solutions that work when the name of the game is change.

Leading a Learning Organization

Leading a Learning Organization PDF Author: Casey Reason
Publisher: Solution Tree Press
ISBN: 1935543938
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
Improve the quality of organizational learning in your school and address how current demands for rapid change and accountability contribute to levels of fear and stress. The author draws on educational, psychological, and neuroscientific research to show how leaders can change the prevailing emotional climate or tone of a school to promote deeper learning at all levels.

EDGE

EDGE PDF Author: Jim Highsmith
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
ISBN: 0135263581
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
EDGE: The Agile Operating Model That Will Help You Successfully Execute Your Digital Transformation “[The authors’] passion for technology allows them to recognize that for most enterprises in the 21st century, technology is THE business. This is what really separates the EDGE approach. It is a comprehensive operating model with technology at its core.” —From the Foreword by Heidi Musser, Executive Vice President and Principal Consultant, Leading Agile; retired, Vice President and CIO, USAA Maximum innovation happens at the edge of chaos: the messy, risky, and uncertain threshold between randomness and structure. Operating there is uncomfortable but it’s where organizations “invent the future.” EDGE is a set of fast, iterative, adaptive, lightweight, and value-driven tools to achieve digital transformation, and EDGE: Value-Driven Digital Transformation is your guide to using this operating model for innovation. Jim Highsmith is one of the world’s leading agile pioneers and a coauthor of the Agile Manifesto. He, Linda Luu, and David Robinson know from their vast in-the-trenches experience that sustainable digital transformation requires far more than adopting isolated agile practices or conventional portfolio management. This hard, indispensable work involves changing culture and mindset, and going beyond transforming the IT department. EDGE embraces an adaptive mindset in the face of market uncertainty, a visible, value-centered portfolio approach that encourages continual value linkages from vision to detailed initiatives, incremental funding that shifts as strategies evolve, collaborative decision-making, and better risk mitigation. This guide shows leaders how to use the breakthrough EDGE approach to go beyond incremental improvement in a world of exponential opportunities. Build an organization that adapts fast enough to thrive Clear away unnecessary governance processes, obsolete “command and control” leadership approaches, and slow budgeting/planning cycles Improve collaboration when major, fast-paced responses are necessary Continually optimize investment allocation and monitoring based on your vision and goals Register your product for convenient access to downloads, updates, and/or corrections as they become available. See inside book for details.

Images of Organization

Images of Organization PDF Author: Gareth Morgan
Publisher: SAGE Publications
ISBN: 1506354726
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 522

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Book Description
Since its first publication over twenty years ago, Images of Organization has become a classic in the canon of management literature. The book is based on a very simple premise—that all theories of organization and management are based on implicit images or metaphors that stretch our imagination in a way that can create powerful insights, but at the risk of distortion. Gareth Morgan provides a rich and comprehensive resource for exploring the complexity of modern organizations internationally, translating leading-edge theory into leading-edge practice.

Leading at the Edge of Chaos

Leading at the Edge of Chaos PDF Author: Daryl R. Conner
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 9780471295570
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Praise for Leading at the Edge of Chaos "If your organization is facing any anticipated chaotic event in the next six months-and who isn't-you should read Daryl Conner. His tough-minded definitions of winners vs. losers will make you think twice." -Craig E. Weatherup, Chairman and CEO, The Pepsi-Cola Company "Conner's new book is thoroughly original and useful on the mastery of leading change." -Warren Bennis, Distinguished Professor of Business Administration, University of Southern California, and author of Organizing Genius "Daryl Conner has done it again! The leading authority on managing change has given us what we need right now. Leading at the Edge of Chaos offers prescriptive advice for leading in today's world, where the tempo and thrust of change has escalated. A must read for anyone who is still breathing and leading." -Ken Blanchard, coauthor of The One Minute Manager(r) "Delightful and thought-provoking . . . [links] deep organizational research with useable 'real world' advice . . . I would recommend this book to others-senior line leaders and their management teams." -Kenneth Schwenke, Senior Vice President, Human Resources, Aramark Corporation "In the new reality in which the human need for control is continuously assaulted by escalating change, Daryl Conner provides [organization leaders] . . . steps to take . . . in clear language and vivid images, with psychological insight and knowledge born out of broad hands-on experience." -Judy Bardwick, author of In Praise of Good Business and Danger in the Comfort Zone "Every executive who is leading constant change in their organizations should read this book." -Don Beattie, Chief Executive, Personnel, The BOC Group (U.K.) "Gone are the days when innovations and new ventures were incremental in scope and sequential in nature. In their place is 'perpetual unrest,' unending, fundamental changes . . . " -Daryl Conner In his 1993 classic, Managing at the Speed of Change, Daryl Conner showed managers how to implement business innovations on time and under budget. In this groundbreaking new book, he shows them how to ride the whirlwind. The tempo of change has sped up to a dizzying pace over the past few years. Globalization, rapid-fire technological innovation, and mounting pressure for shareholder value have pushed the markets into a state of ceaseless turmoil. What was cutting-edge change management theory just five years ago now seems naive. Success amidst such a maelstrom of change calls for much more than what change management models have to offer. It calls for a radically new kind of organization, nimble enough to adapt instantly to changing market conditions, and piloted by leaders versed in the art of Leading at the Edge of Chaos. This book is not about decision making; it is about execution. It is not about predicting change; it is about adapting to it at a moment's notice. Internationally renowned "Change Doctor" Daryl Conner defines the new roles that all leaders must assume in order to direct the changes that are crucial to their organizations' survival. He schools them in all of the essential components of the change process. And, most importantly, he arms them with action steps for instilling their companies with the nimbleness and resilience needed to survive and thrive in today's supervolatile markets. Conner also introduces the revolutionary concept of human due diligence-the human equivalent of financial due diligence and an indispensable tool for orchestrating major enterprisewide transitions. Strategic, results-oriented, and proactive, human due diligence focuses on people's capacity to absorb change as a limited resource, and offers tools for ensuring that there is sufficient capacity available to face the next challenge-and the many others sure to follow.

An Everyone Culture

An Everyone Culture PDF Author: Robert Kegan
Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press
ISBN: 1625278632
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
A Radical New Model for Unleashing Your Company’s Potential In most organizations nearly everyone is doing a second job no one is paying them for—namely, covering their weaknesses, trying to look their best, and managing other people’s impressions of them. There may be no greater waste of a company’s resources. The ultimate cost: neither the organization nor its people are able to realize their full potential. What if a company did everything in its power to create a culture in which everyone—not just select “high potentials”—could overcome their own internal barriers to change and use errors and vulnerabilities as prime opportunities for personal and company growth? Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey (and their collaborators) have found and studied such companies—Deliberately Developmental Organizations. A DDO is organized around the simple but radical conviction that organizations will best prosper when they are more deeply aligned with people’s strongest motive, which is to grow. This means going beyond consigning “people development” to high-potential programs, executive coaching, or once-a-year off-sites. It means fashioning an organizational culture in which support of people’s development is woven into the daily fabric of working life and the company’s regular operations, daily routines, and conversations. An Everyone Culture dives deep into the worlds of three leading companies that embody this breakthrough approach. It reveals the design principles, concrete practices, and underlying science at the heart of DDOs—from their disciplined approach to giving feedback, to how they use meetings, to the distinctive way that managers and leaders define their roles. The authors then show readers how to build this developmental culture in their own organizations. This book demonstrates a whole new way of being at work. It suggests that the culture you create is your strategy—and that the key to success is developing everyone.

Thriving at the Edge of Chaos

Thriving at the Edge of Chaos PDF Author: Jonathan Sapir
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1000732479
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
For many organizations, the way in which projects are managed is a fundamental factor in how well they can prosper in today’s marketplace. Unfortunately, the current solutions available to companies for managing projects are proving to be increasingly ineffective in a complex world that is becoming more and more dynamic and unpredictable. Organization’s pay for this complexity in delayed time-to-market, slow response to customer needs, and decreased productivity. While tweaking the current project management paradigm may provide some minimal gains, to have a real impact requires a fundamental change in mindset. New business models like Uber and AirBnB show us that the most efficient operations in today’s business environment behave like complex adaptive systems (CAS) where self-managing participants, following a set of simple rules, organize themselves to solve incredibly complex problems. Instead of trying to function like a "well-oiled machine" where things "work like clockwork", companies like Uber function more like an organism that is alive and constantly changing. They fully embrace the characteristics of a CAS. Viewing an organization as a complex adaptive system drives a radically new philosophy of project management that is much better suited to the needs of the 21st-century organization and can provide the quantum leap improvement in project production that we are looking for. This book exposes the assumptions underlying the accepted paradigm of project management, describes the common practices that are based on those assumptions, analyzes why these practices are unhelpful and even harmful, and proposes an alternative, sometimes seemingly counter intuitive approach to project management based on CAS thinking. By the end of the book, the reader will have a completely new perspective on the way projects can be managed in their organization, and how they can quickly start reaping the benefits provided by a CAS-driven management methodology and supporting toolset that is more in tune with today’s business demands - and that turns complexity into a competitive advantage.