Learning To Live With Complexity

Monday, 16 January 2012 00:00

Article is from Harvard Business Review and entitled "Learning to Live with Complexity" by Gökce Sargut and Rita Gunther McGrath (Sept. 2011).

How to make sense of the unpredictable and the undefinable in today’s hyperconnected business world

In summary, the article describes how organisations have gone from complicated to complex; there are many diverse, interdependent parts interacting and they are in constant flux so that the final outcome is unknown; the same starting conditions may yield different results; seemingly simple actions may produce unexpected and/or unintended consequences; rare events are becoming more significant than average ones.

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Technique Critical Evaluation

Sunday, 18 December 2011 00:00

Several ways of doing critical reflection are explained in the attached article which is taken from the CD entitled "Organisational Change Management" (50+ Frameworks & 200+ Techniques) - more details on the CD available here

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Buck Up

Monday, 21 November 2011 00:00

Buck Up, It Doesn’t Have To Be The End Of The World

by Amy Gallo, (Australian Financial Review:  June1,  2011)

The article explains how we all made mistake (some more significant than others) but it is more important is how we handle them, ie admit them, learn from them, change your ways, use your support network, move forward, etc

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Baby Ive got your number

Tuesday, 27 September 2011 00:00

by Fiona Smith, (Work Space, AFR May 17, 2011).

The article highlights aspects of evolutionary physiology, ie - as our brains are still hard-wired for living in the caves, we struggle to keep pace with change, especially technology - once an organisation employs more than 150 people, we feel disconnected. - we perform best in families (3 to 7 members), villages (3 to 5 families) and tribes (3 to 5 villages) - in a social setting, we prefer groupings of 4 - the magic number of "7", eg memory is challenged if we try to remember more than 7 things, etc.   Need to consider these characteristics when working in our organisations and communities.   Remember, ie "...you can take the person out of the Stone Age......but you cannot take the Stone Age out of the person..."

Nigel Nicholson

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Cognitive Fitness

Monday, 29 August 2011 00:00

by Roderick Gilkey and Clint Kilts, (Article Source, Harvard Business Review, October 2007).

the article stresses the need to keep challenging and exercising the brain by explaining some of the best ways to do this.

Read more: Cognitive Fitness