Summary: Leading at the Edge of Chaos

Review and Analysis of Conner's Book

BusinessNews Publishing

• Publisher: Must Read Summaries
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9782511015988
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business Strategy
• Index: Business

The must-read summary of Daryl Conner's book: `Leading at the Edge of Chaos: How to Create the Nimble Organization`.

This complete summary of the ideas from Daryl Conner's book `Leading at the Edge of Chaos` shows that being nimble is now a key element of any sustainable competitive advantage that an organisation may attempt to secure and defend. Nimbleness is not just about flexibility or adaptation, it’s all about execution. In his book, the author has identified the characteristics of nimble organisations and explains how these companies plan and operate. This summary is a must-read for any leader who wants to ensure that their company does better than anyone else.

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To learn more, read `Leading at the Edge of Chaos` and discover the key to becoming a nimble organisation and implement changes better and faster than the competition.

Summary of Leading at the edge of chaos (Daryl Conner)

1. Why Organizations Need To Become More Nimble

In the unpredictable and constantly evolving environment of business, the ability to sense change and respond quickly is a competitive advantage. Nimble organizations excel, not only at seeing the need for change, but in actually executing whatever is required. Put simply, unless a business organization is nimble, it will get out of synch with the marketplace.

Supporting Ideas

As with most things, there is a cost/benefit analysis which can be calculated any time change is required. This is the “Return-on-Change”, and is calculated as:

where:

Yield from Effort – are the measurable benefits derived from accomplishing the objectives of the organization.

Cost of Execution – includes four key factors:

• The expense involved in determining what needs to be done.
• The costs of addressing the human dynamics required.
• The lost efficiency occurring because attention is shifting.
• The price of any new infrastructure investment required.

Nimble organizations work to maximize their Return-on-Change by moving through the adaptation process as quickly and effectively as possible. Doing this, in practice, requires orchestrating all of the human elements involved in how your organization executes. It also involves determining the right things to change consistently and accurately.

Traditional organizations often struggle to adapt to change efficiently because:

1. There is an internal fear of change – the individuals working in the organization are uncomfortable with the idea of things being done differently. Instead, they may use illusions to try and create the impression it is business as usual.
2. The demand for change exceeds the organization’s capacity to change – especially in light of the fact many organizations now face a greater number of complex projects that must be executed at an accelerated speed than ever before.
3. Other flow-on complications my arise – for example, when one part of the business system is changed, unintended and unforseen consequences may arise in a completely different part of the system. And when those new problems are attended to, an entirely new and different set of problems may also come into focus.
4. Changes may impact on many different levels – each time something is changed in any business system, the human issues involved in the implementation need to be taken into account. These may be layered over a broad spectrum and many layers – meaning the same change may be viewed from a number of different and often unique perspectives. Generally speaking, organizational changes are never quite as simple as they appear on the surface. It’s in the implementation that most of the new complexities tend to arise, especially at the human level where people come face-to-face with the practical and personal consequences of those changes.
5. People are inexperienced at managing change – meaning the entire organization’s ability to prosper during times of high uncertainty is impeded. There are actually three types of knowledge that come into any change management effort:
   • Project specific knowledge from a set of circumstances.
   • Systems knowledge, derived from other change programs.
   • Generic knowledge and change know-how.
   Knowledge is only created when the information in the heads of the employees is usefully applied.
6. Unrealistic expectations on the part of the organization’s leaders – about the organization’s ability to actually effect changes.
7. Lack of appreciation for the impact of change on employee’s lives – and the fact in times of turbulence, people feel a lack of control quite intensively and personally. This can have disastrous implications for personal productivity and future results.
8. The absence of dynamic balance – the illusion of being in control that makes employees feel comfortable and secure at work. When there is no balance, people feel restless, helpless and uncomfortable, all of which drain productivity and impede responsiveness to new situations.

Key Thoughts

“Gone are the days of ‘contiguous progression’, when innovations and new ventures were incremental in scope and sequential in nature. In its place is ‘perpetual unrest’ – unending, fundamental changes punctuated by higher or lower levels of urgency. The result is an incessant series of overlapping opportunities for creations, alterations, conversions and reversals. This kind of leadership challenge calls for a different approach to orchestrating transitions than was feasible during the previous contiguous era. When ...

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• Summary of Leading at the edge of chaos (Daryl Conner)
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