ESSENTIAL BALANCESThe Book
Leading, managing, and changing organizations is hard.
And it’s made harder by the constant whirl of new methods and models.
What if there were a way of
understanding and improving organizations that was timeless and fundamental? A way of seeing and acting
that transcended the passing fads and fashions?
Autonomy and Cohesion
If there is not enough autonomy in an organization, it will be ineffective, and slow to adapt. But with too much autonomy and not enough cohesion, the organization will not be efficient. It will grow silos that will pursue their own continuation and growth at the expense of the organization.
Can you have freedom and keep everything working together at the same time?
Stability and Diversity
Stability in organizations is dynamic, yet viable organizations can maintain it and re-establish it when disturbed. When people leave, others get recruited. When the market shrinks, new services are offered. When a competitor gets stronger through new technology, this or a better one is adopted.
But when disturbances are unpredictable, organizations can only survive if they have enough diversity of people, ideas, and investments.
Exploration and Exploitation
Should you exploit a resource, refine a technology, and extend the offering to existing clients? Or should you look for alternative resources, new technologies, and explore new markets?
Like an animal needs to eat (exploit) to have the energy to look for more food (explore), a company needs a flow of resources now, so that it can finance research and innovation to ensure its future.
The book of a different kind. Tastes light and digestible like a melon, but has surprise and depth like jazz.
Masterfully written and so applicably true.
A very readable book that provides a useful insight into the complexity of organisations.
This viewpoint helps us better deal with social challenges. It also helps to approach organization, team, and individual dynamics authentically. That is why I highly recommend this book and invite you to read it. You will undoubtedly reread it, because you will realize that you can grow even further in how you manage complexity.
About the author
Ivo Velitchkov is a management consultant and enterprise architect. For the last 25 years, he has worked with big public and private organizations helping them with their strategy, structures and information. He has worked as a project manager, CEO, coach, consultant, researcher, and trainer. In all these roles he kept searching for the deeper principles that support organisms, organizations and society to live, survive, and thrive. Ivo has a PhD in Computer Science. He enjoys jazz concerts, playing tennis, sailing, and grooving the bass in a dad-rock cover band.
Check out Ivo’s blog.
Workshop
The Essential Balances workshop is an effective way to start developing new thinking habits for organizational diagnosis and design. It complements the book with demonstrations, discussions, exercises and games. The workshop is delivered in closed (within a single organization) and open format. There is a full-day and a half-day option. More information here.