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Humanocracy

MIX TV

Colin Price: The Principles of Organizational Renewal
Duration 
2:44

How much time does your organization spend feeding the beast? MIX Maverick Colin Price says managers should spend more energy on things they really want to do-- a shift that can improve the underlying health of the organization.

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frederic-jleconte's picture

Agree with Peggy.
Love this simple question : " Are your leaders doing what they want to do ?".
About the specific point of organization being too often closed systems, I think it is time to introduce a dose of entropy into it.
So the opening becomes necessary to release the pressure.
Individuals can do it, some innovation processes too (company storm kind of events you mentioned), anyway collective desire and interest will find its way like water in the crack.

Energy of leaders is usually directed to control entropy. It is difficult and high consumption discipline.
A small backwash cycle is for sure an easy way to get rapid results in opening and draining any closed system.Cleans some bureaucracy filters too.
Not definitive but useful maintenance.
My 2 cents.

peggy-mcallister's picture

Great message Colin. You packed several great insights into a 2.5 minute video. I will recommend this to my clients.

As I listen to you and reflect on the organizations I work with, it seems as though there are two choices leaders make. One is driven by fear, the other is driven by a belief and excitement about a Big Vision. It can be so compelling to "feed the beast" when we are in the grip of fear. And indeed the very nature of that "grip" is contraction, which is the opposite of what is needed to "open up the aperture."

I suspect that the ability to operate with an open mind and a higher level of mind, requires a shift in our basic internal operating systems. And those shifts don't come easily, or simply because they "make sense." And they seem to be coming far more slowly in large multinational organizations whose "success" is tied to the quarterly meetings with the Analysts.

Even so I think we have reached the tipping point across the world. More and more people are questioning long held notions about how economies should operate, how business needs to operate, how leadership should happen, how decisions need to be made. And all that adds up to one of the most exciting times to be on this planet!