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Getting to grips with the real-world 'wiggliness' of your organisation ...

Anyone who has worked in an organisation - any organisation - knows that these are “wiggly”. That is, they don’t operate in the neatly packaged and easily controllable ways that conventional management wisdom suggests that they should.

The everyday lived reality is much messier than the formal strategies, structures and processes suggest. In such circumstances, relying on 'common sense' is not always sensible and 'conventional wisdom' is not always wise.

Mainstream approaches to strategy development, change leadership and organisational performance ignore these dynamics and press on regardless.

In contrast, we help managers to get to grips with the real-world complexities of organisational life and the implications of these for their own leadership practice:

Introducing new ideas and approaches (see adjacent panel).
Providing hands-on consultancy informed by an informal coalitions approach to organisational dynamics.
Participating in conversations around important emerging issues.
Coaching and mentoring managers.

Unsolicited views on a session on

"The Wiggly World of Organisations"

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“Very interesting and inspiring.”

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“A great session – fun and thought provoking.”

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"It was a wiggly, vibrant event that inspired excellent dialogue, insights and reflections. And a masterclass in how to facilitate and integrate multiple simultaneous conversations."

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“A stimulating session - content rich, so lots to keep pondering in terms of my practice (and how I talk about it).”

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“Very helpful and very enjoyable.”

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"Lots of food for thought… really good to discuss the topics with such an interesting and deep-thinking group… we could have kept going all night!"

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“Got me thinking and clearly hit the spot with the audience.”

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"What I loved was Chris's easy-to-grasp challenge to practitioners unfamiliar with social theory to discover new and helpful ways to understand their own organisations."

Click on one of the above links, or those in the navigation bar, to find out more ...

or CALL US NOW on +44 (0) 1285 740033

Food for thought ...

Hubris Syndrome: An emergent outcome of the complex social process of everyday interaction?

"... the proposition here is that it is the contradiction between the complex social dynamics of real-life organizations and the currently dominant view of what leaders are supposed to do that creates ideal conditions for “hubris syndrome” to arise. "

PDF download

Coalitions, conversations and complexity: the challenge of change in the public sector - article published in November 2010 edition of The International Journal of Leadership in Public Service.

"Research consistently suggests that, despite the plethora of tools and techniques, the success rate of organisational change is poor. This paper argues that this is due, in large part, to the failure of conventional management practice to take account of the inherent messiness of ‘real-world’ organisations."

PDF download

Organisational change: the messy reality - article published on HRZone.co.uk.

"When the sought-after benefits fail to materialise, this is most often

blamed on poor implementation rather than unsound thinking."

Read it here

Leading change through informal coalitions - article published in Lane4's Journal of Excellence.

"In looking to improve the odds of achieveing more successful organisational change, the only meaningful choice that managers have is whether or not to engage with the complex social dynamics of their organisations in a deliberate and informed way."

Find out more

Organisational change and development during the recession - and beyond - article for OD Innovation Network.

"Organisations are dynamic networks of self-organising conversations ... The first question that any OD/change strategy needs to address is 'What is the business agenda?'"

PDF download