The Next Common Sense: An e-manager's Guide to Mastering Complexity - Softcover

Roos, Johan; Lissack, Michael

9781857882353: The Next Common Sense: An e-manager's Guide to Mastering Complexity

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1857882350 ISBN 13: 9781857882353

Publisher: Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 2000

This work concentrates on the new ideas of complexity science and the new disciplines of the complex organization. The authors outline ten simple guidelines and a five-step action plan which set out to make business complexity understandable and make sure that it does not get the better of you.

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Review:

Twenty years ago the corporation was about command and control, clear lines of reporting and firmly defined functions. All the elements were discrete. Nonetheless it was a "complicated" affair. Authors Michael Lissack and Johan Roos contrast that relatively simple state with the contemporary world where companies are faced with endless multifaceted relationships, strategic alliances, cross functional initiatives and customer networks. These interrelationships and interdependencies mean that the new business landscape is not merely complicated, it is "complex", an intricate interweaving of people, organisations, systems and technologies. This complexity needs a new paradigm to understand and deal with it. And that tool, as the title implies, is "a new commons sense". "The old common sense was an understanding of cause and effect in the complicated world of discrete events. The next common sense is a description of cause and effect in a world of interweavings," they write.

This book aims to provide middle and senior mangers with a tool with which to cut through the Gordian knot of modern business complexity. And in theory at least Lissack and Roos succeed. Coherence, they say, is the key. They describe it as a "unified perspective" or the glue that holds the company together. The authors offer a five-point plan for achieving coherence and list 10 simple principles for management interested in applying the new common sense. And they are indeed very common sensical. The first is "Use simple guiding principles", another "Tell stories", a third "Send out scouting parties".

Lissack is an expert in complexity management who teaches business ethics at the Amsterdam School of Management while Roos is Professor of Strategy and General Management at the International Institute for Management Development in Switzerland. They are a pair of very heavy hitters indeed and this well-written and carefully constructed book reflects their depth of knowledge and intellectual rigour. It's a challenging and rewarding read for any one seriously interested in dealing effectively in a rapidly changing world. --Alex Benady

Review:

"Wonderfully rich... this blueprint for tapping into the creative energy of every employee is remarkable..." -- CEO Magazine

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