Thinking out loud…
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On being a systems entrepreneur
How do we move forward in an uncertain world? A systems entrepreneur recognises that whatever their interests and various areas of expertise, they are moving forward into an unknown world.… Read more
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On reorganising local government (questions of geography) – part 4
“Before considering what the Local Government areas actually are, we must ask what principles might reasonably be expected to underlie the geographical arrangement1.” When all is said and done this… Read more
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On reorganising local government (questions of process) – part 3
With no compelling vision for local government or motivating reason for change we will be left to curate a purely technocratic exercise of drawing arbitrary lines on a map. So… Read more
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On going against the grain
What if all public servants were equipped with the capacity and capability to be more entrepreneurial in their efforts to create change? For the City of Bogotá this question forms… Read more
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On reorganising local government (questions of purpose) – part 2
I believe that at their best, local authorities are custodians of places, anchor institutions of the areas they administer. They can take a long-term view as champion for and shaper… Read more
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On reorganising local government (why should we care?) – part 1
And so here we are again, back to a place I inhabited for three years of my life between 2007 and 2010. Local Government reorganisation. Not the most popular of… Read more
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On the expectation / reality gap (three dissonances of a linear world view)
Our ability to link events and create stories to explain them in linear, cause-and-effect terms is a core part of what makes us human. It’s how we try to impose… Read more
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On a network-informed approach to organisational design
Growing a team or reorganising an institutional structure is often seen as the solution to a set of challenges. But it’s only a solution when seen through our (largely) western… Read more
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On organisational capital (the hidden connections)
Having considered the insights from network theory on the increase in complexity as we grow or reorganise our institutions, I’ll now explore how we might do things differently instead. In… Read more
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On aiming for A-B-C but getting W-T-F
In part one I explored insights that network analysis can tell us about managing teams or organisations and the impact of adding a new management tier. I gave the example… Read more
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On organisational development – a network theory lens
It is Brooks’s Law1 that states adding more people to a failing project to bring it back on track will only make things worse. It’s an idea that can sound… Read more
Categories:
- Autobiographical + Spiritual (22)
- Behaviour + Incentives (25)
- Change + Innovation (69)
- Collaboration + Teams (31)
- Geography+Community (61)
- Governance + Decisions (37)
- Outcomes + Evaluation (33)
- Performance + Productivity (31)
- Strategy + Foresight (45)
- Systems + Complexity (60)
Ian Burbidge. 