Category: Articles

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Why Simulate? Using Models for Strategic Planning

Your customers are demanding more services for the same price. How can you meet their expectations with your existing staff? As your company begins…

Transforming a Command-and-Control Culture

Introducing learning organization principles to a company is difficult and fraught with uncertainty. How do you lead without taking the reins? How do you…

TQM and Systems Thinking as Theory-Building Tools

Our brains are pattern-making systems — they organize our perceptions of the world into patterns that enable us to function effectively. For example, when…

Organizational Learning and Leadership Development at EDS

Evaluating a program on “learning how to learn” is difficult using traditional quantitative criteria. Fritjof Capra, author of The Turning Point, offers these guidelines…

Lessons in Systems Thinking: A Tale from the Land of Middle Health

Microtown, a small community deep within the Land of Middle Health, isn’t much different from other towns. Its citizens are young and old, rich…

Decision-Making: The Empowerment Challenge

Imagine that you work for a company that has created a powerful and compelling shared vision. Furthermore, you and your colleagues have established a…

Charting a Corporate Learning Strategy

Managers in many companies slay are struggling with one basic question: How do you actually create a learning organization? While the five disciplines described…

Shifting the Burden Revisited: Turtles All the Way Down

There is an old story about a student who asked his master, “Teacher, what holds up the world?” The teacher paused for a moment…

Cultivating Tomorrow’s Leaders: Should You Teach, Coach, or Mentor?

You need good people in your department to make your organization shine. Capable deputies allow you to stretch to new goals, and a thriving…

Systems Archetypes as Dynamic Theories

Most people are familiar with the Sufi tale of the four blind men, each of whom is attempting (unsuccessfully) to describe what an elephant…