Holacracy is a real-world-tested social technology for purposeful organization. It radically changes how an organization is structured, how decisions are made, and how power is distributed.Implementing holocracy means that CEOs give up some level of power. The advantage is that they get to view their company through an entirely different vantage point. But it’s an adjustment… Read more »
Tag: Humanizing 21st century organizations
An unexpected journey into ‘humanistic’ economic models
As I began my PhD journey 3 years ago I never thought it would lead to exploring economic models. In my graduate program in the 90s I had taken two semesters of economics and healthcare finance and I must admit it was painful. I considered those courses my foreign languages. As a nurse, I was… Read more »
Engaging Team Members: Managing by Building Relationships
As discussed in Keeping Team Members Engaged in a Distributed Workplace: Initial Thoughts for Discussion, it is hard to stay current with everything, let alone be fully active in all of the networks in which we are members. It is a challenge to accomplish work demands while fulfilling personal responsibilities, not to mention trying to… Read more »
What is the Humanistic Perspective?
In a recent letter to the Saybrook University community, incoming president Nathan Long, EdD, affirms our “passionate dedication to mission” and states that “in a day and age in which higher education is faced with myriad challenges both internally and externally, Saybrook’s approach to progressive research and scholarly application is even more relevant that it… Read more »
Transforming a City Once Divided- Reflections on the Fall of the Berlin Wall
This year on November 9, the people of Berlin celebrated the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. A business trip to explore partnerships with German universities took me to Berlin one month before that anniversary to see what has been, and continues to be, an amazing transformation. What I saw taking place… Read more »
Keeping Team Members Engaged in a Distributed Workplace: Initial Thoughts for Discussion
Organizations are a buzz with collaborative strategies. Increasingly, work environments are focusing on being team-oriented and enabling employees to establish and be engaged in organizational networks. While progress is being made, the picture is not totally rosy. It is not uncommon for members to find it difficult to stay engaged, to fully participate in an… Read more »
The Future I Desire
The other day, I was scanning the shelves at the half-price bookstore, and came across a book entitled Imagine What the World Could be in the 21st Century: Visions of a Better Future from Leading American Thinkers, edited by Marianne Williamson. It was published in the millennium year 2000 and contained about 40 short articles… Read more »
Learning Across Boundaries – The ISSS-2014 Conference in Washington, D.C.
The 58th meeting of the International Society for the Systems Sciences was held George Washington University, in Washington, D.C. Gerald Midgley president for this year, and his conference team, are to be commended for creating a great week of learning. The theme of the conference was “Learning Across Boundaries: Exploring the variety of systemic theory and practice.” That theme was reflected… Read more »
The Evolutionary Journey of Life
Life is a journey. I have been keenly aware of that for a good portion of my life. I guess I became aware of the power of the metaphor in my early twenties when I broke away from some cultural patterns that diverted me from what a friend called “the franchised life” — that more… Read more »
The Network Organization and Its Hybrid Workplace Systems
Geographically distributed, functioning in a global context and ongoing engagement with internal and external professionals are apt key descriptors of the 21st century organization. The complex pulsating networks in which an organization comes to life and thrives, in reality, is the organizations itself; while the planned and spontaneous connectivity that fills members’ daily work routines is… Read more »