Book Titles

…the ground where doctrinaire theorists and armchair admirals fall short is the decisive terrain from which true leaders emerge.

…the principles that undergird [mechanized] systems remain firmly embedded in the way organizations of all types approach management and leadership.

We still search faithfully for the one best way to do things…

Because of the density of linkages, complex systems fluctuate extremely and exhibit unpredictability.

The reality is that small things in a complex system may have no effect or a massive one, and it is virtually impossible to know which will turn out to be the case.

Speed and interdependence together mean that any given action in any given time frame is now linked to vastly more potential outcomes than the same action a century or even a few decades ago…

…the world in which [digitally native children] will grow up is not just marginally different from that of previous generations; it is vastly faster and more interdependent, and thus essentially complex in entirely new ways.

You cannot force a square peg into a round hole, and you cannot force the complex to conform to rules meant for the merely complicated.

…economic systems – the products of complex knots of human factors – confound linear attempts at prediction and control.

Attempts to control complex systems by using the kind of mechanical, predestinationist thinking… breaking everything down into component parts, or optimizing individual elements, tend to be pointless at best or destructive at worst.