List

Complexity

  • The Organizational Logic: the basic people algorithms that steer the navigation. Reframing the company steering system. (2 of 5)

    Yesterday’s Daily Thought introduced the formula: (1) Space in the World (Purpose) + (2) Core Beliefs + (3) Non negotiable Behaviours […]

  • Childhood ‘monsters under the bed’ never go away. They seem to reappear in corporations. Without the beds.

    If I had a say in new roles for large organizations, I think I would establish this new Division: VP […]

  • Uncertainty, vulnerability and control are the three sisters dominating our lives.

    There are hundreds of pieces of evidence including serious research that show that human beings (and animals for that matter) […]

  • For any organizational solution, we bring along extra problems. The system always kicks back.

    Attention re-structuralists, strategists and people about to be sold a multi-million pound reorganization solution that will solve all those nasty […]

  • Have you seen that slide? The transformation thing, old power, new power and all those shifts

    I have seen the same slide yet again. It keeps following me on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. OK, not on […]

  • Every successful company’s growth contains seeds of failure. At some point, organizational complexity could outweigh the business benefits

    Organizations grow in many ways: organically and quietly, organically and exponentially, by acquisitions or mergers etc. In every step of […]

  • Oh, mental frames! How easy to create misery!

    ‘Let’s be real and aware of the current budget realities’ is a warning that leaders should give to their people […]

  • ‘It looks like a Bell Curve. It must be an HR Performance Appraisal’. Not in this Century. Normal distributions are dead

    Performance appraisal or performance management are one thing. Forced ranking into an artificial normal distribution of people in the organization, […]

  • The Self-Induced Complexity Kingdom (SICK) in organizations looks sometimes like a conspiracy

    We all live and work in bureaucratic organizations. The differences between us is the dose. In today’s world, bureaucracy is […]

  • I don’t trust the water to become ice at zero degrees.

      I know it will happen. I’m certain. It’s nothing to do with trust.   Trust requires uncertainty. I trust […]

  • Teamocracies and Networkracies have different citizens: inhabitants in teamwork, riders in network.

    The old view of the organization is something close to the old concept of a medieval city, where citizenship was […]

  • The obvious but overlooked fact that connectivity and collaboration are not always good.

    Increasing the connectivity of people, who will benefit from enhanced collaboration, to achieve good things better, faster, differently, is a […]

  • 3 self-sabotage mechanisms in organizations

    Organizations, like organisms, have embedded mechanisms of survival, of growth and also of self-sabotage These are 3 self-sabotage systems to […]

  • Getting things done: ‘Relationships’ vs. ‘Structures’

    A while ago, a telecom client complained to me about his particular division which seemed to work entirely ‘on relationships’. […]

  • When managing an organization’s internal complexity, is a greater problem than managing the complexity of the environment.

    Extracts taken from my new book ‘The Flipping Point‘. A flipping point in the trend for adopting absurd management ideas needs […]

  • We want the organizational flexibility of Lego. We recruit for the rigidity of a jigsaw

    Extracts taken from my new book ‘The Flipping Point‘. A flipping point in the trend for adopting absurd management ideas needs […]

  • Initiative fatigue, leading to exhaustion, leading to switching off

    Many organizations seem to run layers of parallel initiatives, all directed at noble goals, and in many cases, without talking […]

  • A bit of inefficiency is very efficient

    Cost cutting, cutting to the bone, cutting resources down to the bare minimum is praised as efficient. But it’s not. […]

  • If you marry a summary, you’ll breed bullet points. Life becomes much easier, if hardly real.

    ‘The exercise was very rich, everybody participated deeply, the walls were full of flipcharts with stuff. So many ideas floating […]

  • Madam, the ribbon is free.

    Discovering’ an old article that I wrote years ago, when I used to have a management column in a monthly […]

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      Daily Thoughts

    May 19th, 2023

    Value is an overused term in business and, as such, it’s becoming meaningless

    Value, as usually used, means transactional monetary value. Usually it doesn’t mean intrinsic value, or value per se. For example, […]
    May 4th, 2023

    The importance of ‘critical thinking.’ Your own critical thinking is more effective at making your workplace better than any generic employee survey.

    Build your own Employee Engagement argument for free. You can’t go wrong. Here are three baskets full of concepts: Basket […]
    April 21st, 2023

    ´Busy-Ness’ Is A Trap

    I went to a big conference where I was introduced by the chairman like this: “Welcome everybody. Lovely to have […]
    April 14th, 2023

    Training and culture change. The love affair that ends in tears.

    It seems to be very hard for people to get away from the idea that if we just put individuals […]
    April 11th, 2023

    Teamocracies and Networkracies have different citizens: in-Habitants in team-work, riders in net-work

    The old view of the organization is something close to the old concept of a medieval city, where citizenship was […]
    April 5th, 2023

    3 Ways To Get Approval From Your CEO Or Your Leadership Team

    Way number 1: My team has developed these three options, A, B and C. Which one do you want us […]
    March 29th, 2023

    A Cheat Sheet To Create A Social Movement Tip = to shape organizational culture since both are the same.

    Mobilizing people. This is another of the Holy Grails (how many have I said we have?) in management. Whether you […]
    March 16th, 2023

    Critical Thinking Self-Test: A 10 Point Health Check For Your Organization And Yourself. If any of these are a good picture of your organization, you need to put ‘critical thinking’ in the water supply.

    Test yourself, and your organization. Do any of these apply? Doing lots, too fast without thinking. High adrenaline, not sure […]
    March 9th, 2023

    A culture of safety or a culture of training in safety?

    Cultures are created by behaviours becoming the norm. Safety is at the core of many industries. Significant budgets are allocated […]
    March 2nd, 2023

    Empowerment is an output. If you can visualize it, you can craft it.

    The real question is, what do you want to see happening so that you can say ‘people are empowered’? Employee […]
    February 24th, 2023

    A simple question will jumpstart your organization into change. It will also save you from months of pain spent reorganizing your people and teams.

    The following line will short-cut months of (building) ‘alignment’, integration, reorganization, team building, coalition building, and any situation in which Peter, […]
    February 20th, 2023

    Lead Via Peer-To-Peer Networks – If you don’t lead via peer-to-peer networks, you’re only driving your car in first gear.

    Peer-to-peer work, transversal, spontaneous or not, collaboration, peer-to-peer influence, peer-to-peer activities of Viral Change™ champions or activists, all of this is the […]
    February 7th, 2023

    Write a script, not a strategic plan

    If you care about the journey and the place, you need a story. If you have a good, compelling one, […]
    January 26th, 2023

    3 self-sabotaging mechanisms in organizations

    Organizations, like organisms, have embedded mechanisms of survival, of growth and also of self-sabotage. These are 3 self-sabotage systems to […]
    January 10th, 2023

    Who should be involved in culture change? All inclusive versus going where the energy is.

    Many times, in my consulting work, I find myself facing a dilemma: Do I involve many people on the client’s […]
    December 23rd, 2022

    Tell what won’t change – Introducing 1 of my 40 rules of change

    In any change programme that any organization wants to start, they will start by thinking of the things that they […]
    December 16th, 2022

    Scale It – Introducing 1 of my 40 rules of change

    When creating effective change in any organization, there are 40 rules that, in my experience, are the key between success […]
    December 5th, 2022

    Assets & Strengths Base – Introducing 1 of my 40 rules of change

    For more than 30 years I have been involved in ‘change’ in organizations. Again and again, some fundamental principles, and often […]
    November 25th, 2022

    Campaign It… is 1 of my 40 rules of change

    When you filter out the noise, when you try to extract the core, the fundamentals, those ‘universal rules’ of change […]
    October 31st, 2022

    Hybrid or not hybrid? That’s not the question…

    Culture is the new workplace If you want to have a conversation about the future of work, the nature of […]
    October 24th, 2022

    ‘Powered by Viral Change™’: A Social Transformation Platform for the organization of the 21st Century

    When we started to work on Viral Change™, as a way to create large scale behavioural and cultural change, and […]
    October 14th, 2022

    Corporate tribes, intellectual ghettos and open window policies

    We talk a lot about silos in organizations usually in the context of Business Units or divisions. But these are not […]
    October 7th, 2022

    Peer Networks are the strongest force of action inside the organization

    Peer-to-peer works, transversal, spontaneous or not, collaboration, peer-to-peer influence, peer-to-peer activities of Viral Change™ champions or activists, all of this is […]
    September 30th, 2022

    Change that doesn’t deliver change-ability is a waste

    The traditional model of change is the one I call ‘destination’ type, that is, how to go from A to […]
    September 23rd, 2022

    Company structures: aggregate and disaggregate

    New organizations, and old ones in the business of transforming themselves, would be better off learning by heart these two […]
    September 15th, 2022

    3 Self-Sabotaging Mechanisms in Organizations

    Organizations, like organisms, have embedded mechanisms of survival, of growth and also of self-sabotage. These are 3 self-sabotage systems to […]
    September 2nd, 2022

    The best organizational model is to have more than one under the same roof

    Command and control management has fewer friends, and it’s quite terminally ill as well. The heirs are fighting for a piece […]
    August 26th, 2022

    Unprecedented Times? Sure. Let’s Move On Please.

    Somewhere in the post-Covid peak, I promised myself that I wasn’t going to pay attention anymore to anything that starts with […]
    August 19th, 2022

    Engagement, Empowerment and Ownership Culture Meet at One Single Point. Obvious, Simple and Incredibly Forgotten

    Employee engagement efforts, ownership values and empowerment behaviours must meet at one point. It’s simple, not terribly controversial, based upon […]
    August 12th, 2022

    Employee Engagement and the Productivity Magnet

    For me, the most damaging use of the employee engagement framework is the widespread one that states that ‘engagement’ predicts […]