Key Point: Contrast complexity oriented perspectives with
traditional management perspectives. |
Traditional
|
Complexity |
| Following Maps |
Discovering route and
destination through the journey |
| Decisions made by
logical, analytical process |
Decisions by exploratory,
experimental process of intuition and reasoning by analogy |
| Managers drive and
control strategy |
Managers create favorable
conditions for complex learning |
| Building competitive
advantages and intrapreneurship |
Innovation and
accelerated organizational learning |
| Stick to what you know
and adapt to the environment |
Creative interaction with
other actors in the environment |
| Apply same general
prescriptions to many situations |
New mental model for each
situation |
| Future thinking |
Thinking in the here and
now |
| Analysis and
quantification |
Qualitative, irregular
patterns |
| Separate parts |
Whole interconnected
system |
| Outcomes |
Learning process and
mental models |
| Minimize dysfunctional
group dynamics |
Effects of group dynamics
on thinking and learning |
| Individual expert or
visionary |
Personalities, group
dynamics, and learning behaviors of managers |
| Stable, consensus based
on "rational" reasoning |
Creative instability of
contention and dialogue. Consensus is periodic. |
| Condemnation of messy
real-life decision making. Ignoring the process |
Examining, understanding,
and dealing with organizational defense mechanisms and game playing |
| Group learning is a
simple process with outcomes |
Continual questioning of
how people are learning |
| Problem solving |
Opening up of contentious
and ambiguous issues |
| Objectives and visions |
Developing agendas of
issues, challenges, aspirations and intentions |
| Intention to secure some
fixed thing |
Intention to discover
what, why, and how to achieve |
| Achieve a particular
future state |
Be creative and deal with
what comes
|
| Self
Managing Teams vs. Self Organization |
| Key Point: Team
concepts are inherently power tools of manipulation instead of relying on the inner
strength that comes from self organization. |
Self
Organized Teams |
Self
Organization |
| Permanent and formally
established parts of a reporting structure |
Fluid process with
informal, temporary, spontaneous teams |
| Top management can
install structure and control through rules of team government |
Managers can only
influence boundary conditions around them |
| Managers decide who
participates and what the boundaries are |
Participants decide who
takes part and what the bounds of their activities are |
| Teams replace the
hierarchy |
Self-organizing networks
are in conflict with and are constrained by the hierarchy |
| Dispersed power is
supposed to lead to consensus |
Unequal power energizes
networks through conflict, but also operates as a constraint |
| Top management empowers
people |
People empower themselves |
| Process is based on
strongly shared culture |
Process is provoked and
constrained by cultural difference
|
| Strategic
Thinking In A Dynamic Non-Linear Feedback Loop |
| Key Point: Strategic
thinking takes on a new form as you approach non-linearity. |
Linear
Thinking |
Dynamic
Non-Linear Thinking |
| Same general prescription |
New mental model for each
new situation |
| Thinking in the future |
Thinking anchored in the
here and now |
| Analysis and
quantification |
Reasoning by analogy and
intuition about the qualitative, irregular patterns |
| Thinking about separate
parts |
Thinking about whole,
interconnected systems |
| Focusing on outcomes |
Focusing on the learning
process and on the mental models that govern the process |
| Dysfunctional group
dynamics |
Awareness of the effects
of group dynamics on learning and thinking
|
| Strategic
Vision In An Unpredictable World |
| Key Points - If this future is
unpredictable, then an organization wide "shared vision" is impossible to
formulate. Such an vision is an illusion or interpretation made with hindsight. |
Vision and long term plans are
fantasy defenses against anxiety. Instead, managers should focus on ever-changing agendas
of strategic issues, challenges and aspirations, unhitched to any limiting vision.
Cohesive teams are needed for
day-to-day issues, but learning groups of managers in spontaneous, self-organizing
networks that have open, public conflict and dialogue are vital to handling strategic
issues. The self-organizing political network of contacts undermines the
hierarchy/bureaucracy. In the absence of this tension and paradox there can be no change.
Normal management relies on
logical analysis, but extraordinary management is exploratory, experimental and reasons by
analogy.
Benchmarking against milestones,
and taking corrective action means rules, systems and rational argument. The control and
development of an open-ended, unknowable long term is a political process where
constraints are provided by the need to build support; it is self-policing.
New strategic directions emerge
from the chaos of challenge and contradiction. Top management does not drive the process,
it creates favorable conditions for complex learning and effective politics. They create
new models and maps by allowing people to learn.
Strength grows from contact with
the environment, not from existing strengths.
|
