We live in times of unprecedented turbulence and uncertainty, and we are losing faith in our ability to organize ourselves to deal with it. The traditional ‘top-down’ functional hierarchy doesn’t feel as secure as it once did, and new generations of workers demand something more than the kind of life and career it is capable of offering.

But when we look for an alternative, we are faced with a miasma of competing claims for different organizing principles. Do we need to be purpose-led or profit-driven? Fixed or flexible? More centralized or decentralized? Hierarchical or networked? Agile or structured?

This situation is perilous. It is also unnatural—in a very fundamental sense—because it demonstrates that we have failed to learn nature’s tricks about how to survive and grow in any environment, no matter how turbulent and unpredictable.

The remedy prescribed in this book is not a choice between ‘this’ or ‘that’; it is about balance—or, more specifically, maintaining a set of balances that continuously shift to tame the complexity faced and created by organizations. Balance begets calm and poise. Calm and poise beget clarity of thought, decisiveness, and agility.

This book describes the balances organizations must strike to survive and thrive. It helps readers understand and make sense of organizational life's mess and muddle. It also helps design healthy workplaces and diagnose and cure diseased ones.

It can do this because the book is not a manifesto of hope and wishful thinking. It brings together decades of esoteric knowledge about systems and how they work in a form that is both accessible and practical. To a curious reader, it is the key to a world of ideas that have largely remained hidden. For a management practitioner, it provides a new perspective on familiar problems and a platform for action. It helps a leader see what is and what could be.

ISBN:- 1800463359; 978-1800463356