Guiding human organisations to climb the spiral stages of performance improvements

Abstract

As rapid advances in technology, demographic changes and the globalisation of the world economy lead to increased interactions among human organisations, the ensuing interconnectivity and interdependence create an environment of greater complexity and volatility than that experienced in the industrial era. The only way for an organisation to survive in such a new environment is to anticipate changes and have the built-in capability to become adaptive and proactive. In short, what makes up ‘the inside’ must become aligned and fit with ‘the outside’. For any human organisation, effective adaptation takes place when its organisational design context, i.e. its system architecture and business model becomes aligned with the emerging environmental context, i.e. the changing customer preferences and new opportunities and threats. For this to occur the members of a firm must be willing and able to engage in constructive conversations, which require a common language and a minimum of trust to facilitate communication, cooperation and coordination. The quality of such interactions determines the capacity for new innovations to change the organisational design, so as to adapt well to a continually changing business landscape.

Keywords:

• leadership
• systemic thinking
• organisational design
• quality of relationships
• innovation
• business landscape fitness