Weaving Complexity & Business: Engaging the Soul at Work - Softcover

Lewin, Roger; Regine, Birute

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1587990431 ISBN 13: 9781587990434

Publisher: Texere Publishing, 2001

Synopsis

How to organise companies and compete successfully in today's fast-changing, high-tech business environment by understanding and applying Complexity Science. The business world is in the throes of constant, rapid and unpredictable change. Everywhere we hear that a new kind of economy is emerging from rapid technological innovation. Faced with these profound changes, leaders and managers are finding that many of their background assumptions and time-honoured business models are inadequate to help them understand what is going on, let alone how to deal with it and survive. Traditional, mehcanistic models of business, which were predicated on linear thinking, control and predictability, worked well enough in the past. But it is being overtaken by the need for a more organic, non-linear way of working, where limited control and a restricted ability to predict are the order of the day. This book brings business people a new way of thinking about and working in thnew economy, one that draws on the new science of complexity, which recognises that business organisations are complex adaptive systems, in which people are crucial but unpredictable factors in their development. It offers managers an companies a deeper understanding of the organisational dynamics of toda's fast-paced/changing business environment both within companies and among them. Moreover, the book outlines a new theory of business that places human-orientated management practices under a theoretical umbrella of complexity science. The book also contains detailed case studies of successful UK and US companies that have embraced the principle of complexity science.

About this title

About the Author

Roger Lewing is a prize-winning author and wrote the aclaimed 'Complexity: Life at the Edge of Chaos'; recipient of the inaugural Lewis Thomas Award for excellence in the communications of life sciences; and the 1992 Award for contribution to issues in conservation by the Society of Conservation Biology. Between 1990 and 1993, he was a visiting professor in biology at Wayne State University and an associate of the Peabody Museum, Havard University from 1993 to 1998. He speaks frequently around the world at conferences on complexity science and business. Birute Regine is a Harvard-educated developmental psychologist and therapist, who specialises in the dynamics and development of relationships. In 1996 and 1997, she was a visiting scholar at the Center for Research on Women, Wellesley College, Massachusetts, where she developed a narrative approach to organisational change. A prize-winning writer, she also speaks frequently at conferences on complexity science and business. In 1998, the authors founded Harvest Associates, a business consultancy that brings the principles of complexity science and the insights developed in this book to companies struggling with transformation and change. They work with leading multinational firms.

Edition details

• Publisher: Texere Publishing
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1587990431
• ISBN 13: 9781587990434
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 356