Reinventing Organisations: Top Summer Reads 2019
Part of the “Worth Your Time” Series — July Edition
Summer in Denmark is never a guarantee but, so far, this July has brought us pockets of hot sunny days — perfect for reading. We have been fortunate enough to enjoy a few weeks of holiday, giving the opportunity to delve into a little “heavier” content. So the August edition of WYT features three books that you may be interested to add to your reading list…
1. “Brave New Work : Are You Ready to Reinvent Your Organization?” (2019) by Aaron Dignan
In the pursuit of answering the question ‘is there a way to run an organisation that doesn’t end in a bureaucratic mess?’, Dignan walks us through his self-developed Operating System (OS) Canvas to demonstrate the characteristics and practices of Evolutionary Organisations.
“These Evolutionary Organisations have found ways to achieve what conventional wisdom says is impossible. They make better decisions faster. They allocate resources dynamically. They form and disband teams fluidly. They innovate both product and process. They grow without losing the culture they love. They work fewer hours but get more done. They protect the planet but maintain outsized profitability. They create prosperity, not just for their shareholders but for employees, customers, and communities.”
Dignan builds on the good old cases shared in Laloux’s Reinventing Organisations such as Buurtzoorg, W.L. Gore and FAVI, with a whole shed load of other examples from Amazon, Whole Foods and Valve to name a few (not to mention Medium as one of the cutting-edge examples of strategy — “could Medium be the Netflix of written word?”).
Serving you a smorgasbord of management hacks, this one is our #1 Agile for Real Summer Read 2019, check it out (or find a summary here) and let us know what you think.
2. “The Courage to be Disliked” (2019) by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga
While Dignan’s book above talks about the evolution that needs to happen within an organisation, the book with the catchy title “The Courage to be Disliked” offers guidance on the topic of personal transformation. A necessary twin of organisational change is the inner work that needs to unfold as we familiarise ourselves with new roles and mindsets. The book has become a bestseller in Asia, due to its prominent Japanese authors and is perfectly described as “Adlerian psychology meets Stoic philosophy in Socratic dialogue”. Written as a dialogue between a young scholar and an old philosopher, it digs into principles on how to change yourself into the person you truly want to be.
The book will challenge you and you might not agree with all of it. But particularly the notion that all problems are interpersonal problems is an interesting thought to ponder — especially as we look at transforming not just ourselves, but the communities and organisations that we are a part of.
3. “Atomic Habits” (2018) by James Clear
This book is an aggregate of existing habit research and models built on with the author’s own experience with using habits to achieve success in life. Beyond application to your personal life, read this book with organisational transformation in mind. A few points in particular stood out as we read…
Firstly, the concept that “if you get 1% better each day for one year, you’ll end up 37% better by the end of the year”. Let’s not focus too much on the questionable mathematical backing for this argument but it’s all about the power of accumulation. This gets us to thinking about the potential for movement an organisation if each person in an organisation was evolving 1% each day as a part of their own personal journey (assuming it is aligned with the purpose of the organisation). An organisational movement as a means to transformation, if you will.
Secondly, to build long lasting habits, Clear argues that you have to go beyond goal-setting and address a shift in your identity. For example, a person is trying to quit smoking and is offered a cigarette — two different responses: “No thanks, I’m trying to quit” versus “No thank you, I am not a smoker”. The first response associates with a person who still identifies as a smoker, the second response associates with a person who identifies as a non-smoker. As consultants, we spend a fair amount of time with organisations wishing to become more agile. Now consider the usual approach to agile transformation — How much time is spent on structures and goal-setting? How much time is spent on addressing the shift in core values and identity of the organisation (and the individuals in it)?
Reading this book gives you a good refresher on the habit research out there and a few good tools for helping to build long-lasting habits. But more than that, reading this book motivated us to change on personal level and as mentioned above, inspired us to rethink the ‘usual’ approach to organisational transformation.
4. Bonus — the Copenhagen Catalog
…is a set of 150 principles that stem from the Copenhagen Tech Festival, with the aim of setting a new direction in tech. We are highly inspired by them, e.g. “Growth is a byproduct not a goal”, “Build WITH people not FOR people”, “Say NO more often”.
You can view all of them and sign a pledge here:
https://www.copenhagencatalog.org/
More from us again in a months’ time. Until then, drop us a comment with your favourite read on the topic of future of work, agile for real.
P.S.: If you want to know a little bit more about who we are and why we are so passionate about the topic, you can find a little podcast interview and transcript here.
