Systems leadership

    See the blogs below that have this tag.

    Learning

    A Systems Thinking Approach to Innovation and Digital Transformation Adoption

    Technological innovations and digital transformation initiatives are difficult to adopt. Some of the leading hurdles are culture, archaic IT systems, lack of skills, and lack of a clear leadership vision. During my last years in the Army, I had the opportunity to develop various strategic visions and organizational mission statements that were focused on delivering disruptive technologies and digitally transforming enterprises. Now that I am transitioning from the Army, I had time to reflect on the outcomes of these visions and learned some lessons along the way. The purpose of this article is to share these lessons and describe how I used systems thinking as a foundation to my leadership style, the culture I fostered, and the management of my efforts to achieve strategic outcomes. First, I will introduce systems thinking, then provide references to the various mission and vision documents I created and conclude with the lessons I learned.

    • Dr. Alex MacCalman
      Dr. Alex MacCalman
    Systems Leadership

    In Your Organization, Build a Flock Not a Clock.

    Thanks Mark McGrath for producing this wonderful video with your son! That's why we named our book on adaptive organizations, "Flock, Not Clock"—because contrary to hundreds of years of conventional wisdom that guides us to build a clockwork organization that works like a machine, organizations are organic, adaptive superorganisms by nature...much more like a flock than a clock.

    • Derek Cabrera, PhD
      Derek Cabrera, PhD
    Systems Leadership

    A Systems View is Not a Mask Mandate

    When I was a child, my mother would tell me a story of her own childhood. She spoke of how the children would collect tin foil wrappers from gum and cigarette packs and make a foil ball that could be turned in to help the war effort. This was all part of a scrap drive that children and citizens participated in willingly that included gathering grease fat containing glycerine that was used for bombs and metals of all kinds used in bombers (made by an increasingly female workforce that “manned” the factories where B-52 bombers were being made). Everyone pitched in because “our boys” were “over there” fighting.

    • Derek Cabrera, PhD
      Derek Cabrera, PhD
    Systems Engineering

    Leapfrog Leaders

    "Leapfrog Leaders" written by Drs. Derek Cabrera, Laura Cabrera and Hise Gibson applies existing knowledge about the elements of systems thinking to a widely used decision making framework called SOT. SOT stands for Strategic, Operational, and Tactical - which are are thought to be the three levels of problem solving. More specifically, this paper offers readers insight into the skills needed at each level of decision making; as well as how to develop them through an understanding and application of the basics of systems thinking and leadership.

    • Staff
      Staff