Weaving Complexity and Business: Engaging the Soul at Work

Rating:
Summary: A delightful read!
Review: These authors have woven together a masterpiece that brings forth the importance of the new science of complexity in an understandable and practical way. They take us beyond where Margaret Wheatley invited us to ventured years ago, and support the importance of relationships as the basic unit of change.   While the book is intended for business readers, it has application to therapists and anyone who is interested in genuine relationships, mutual respect and creative emergence of new ideas.

Rating:
Summary: THIS IS THE BEST BOOK I HAVE READ ON COMPLEXITY SCIENCE
Review: This is the best business book I have read since Arie de Geus's, The Living Company. THE SOUL AT WORK is beautifully written, delightfully edited, and full of useful advice for how to benefit from complexity science in your organization. Many books on this subject are very turgid, focus mostly on explaining complexity science, and have few examples and little specific advice. If you only want to read one book on complexity science, this is the one for you. If you like a humanist approach to management (people come first), this is also a book you'll be glad you read. The authors do a very nice job of comparing the humanistic tradition in management and complexity science as bases for putting human relationships in the forefront of what needs to be accomplished. I especially enjoyed the many case histories of organizations applying complexity science, which included the thorns along with the roses. Only one case was familiar to me, that of Vodafone, and that one included a lot of material that I had not read or heard before. Obviously, a lot of careful research went into the work. The conclusion, that trust is essential, is one that other authors of books on complexity science agree with. I think the basis of that conclusion is explained better in this book. If I may expand on what the authors wrote, the reason that trust is so important is that it serves as a mediator to overcome the many sources of stalled progress in organizations. For example, trust helps straighten out miscommunications by encouraging dialogue rather than misinterpretation of motives, reduces misconceptions by increasing communications, softens the repugance that the ugly and repulsive can inspire (hiding us from what we need to focus on), assists in overcoming mindless following of traditional ways, inspires people to overcome procrastination, makes people open to new ideas which allows them to overcome disbelief about the new, and encourages flexible solutions that are normally stifled by bureaucratic processes. I hope the authors will write a sequel that has detailed directions about how to surpass the state of the art in using complexity science in organizations. I would read that book as well. I strongly urge you to read this book because its basic conclusions are very important for the type of virtual communications-driven organizations that will be everywhere in the future. You'll feel better about the new technology if you see, hear and feel how human relationships become even more important in this context. If you have friends or family members who are overwhelmed by the rate of change today, you should share this book with them as well.

Rating:
Summary: THIS IS THE BEST BOOK I HAVE READ ON COMPLEXITY SCIENCE
Review: This is the best business book I have read since Arie de Geus's, The Living Company. THE SOUL AT WORK is beautifully written, delightfully edited, and full of useful advice for how to benefit from complexity science in your organization. Many books on this subject are very turgid, focus mostly on explaining complexity science, and have few examples and little specific advice. If you only want to read one book on complexity science, this is the one for you. If you like a humanist approach to management (people come first), this is also a book you'll be glad you read. The authors do a very nice job of comparing the humanistic tradition in management and complexity science as bases for putting human relationships in the forefront of what needs to be accomplished. I especially enjoyed the many case histories of organizations applying complexity science, which included the thorns along with the roses. Only one case was familiar to me, that of Vodafone, and that one included a lot of material that I had not read or heard before. Obviously, a lot of careful research went into the work. The conclusion, that trust is essential, is one that other authors of books on complexity science agree with. I think the basis of that conclusion is explained better in this book. If I may expand on what the authors wrote, the reason that trust is so important is that it serves as a mediator to overcome the many sources of stalled progress in organizations. For example, trust helps straighten out miscommunications by encouraging dialogue rather than misinterpretation of motives, reduces misconceptions by increasing communications, softens the repugance that the ugly and repulsive can inspire (hiding us from what we need to focus on), assists in overcoming mindless following of traditional ways, inspires people to overcome procrastination, makes people open to new ideas which allows them to overcome disbelief about the new, and encourages flexible solutions that are normally stifled by bureaucratic processes. I hope the authors will write a sequel that has detailed directions about how to surpass the state of the art in using complexity science in organizations. I would read that book as well. I strongly urge you to read this book because its basic conclusions are very important for the type of virtual communications-driven organizations that will be everywhere in the future. You'll feel better about the new technology if you see, hear and feel how human relationships become even more important in this context. If you have friends or family members who are overwhelmed by the rate of change today, you should share this book with them as well.