Prepare for Transformation: How to Reinvent Your Organization with Brave New Work

Martin Gaedt: “Our way of working is completely made up.” That`s why we obviously can change how we are working if we want to.
“For every problem, we believe the solution is ‘more’. There simply isn’t space. Start by stopping. Eliminate the one you have.”
We know financial debt and technical debt. Aaron Dignan talks about 'organizational debt'. The cost of bureaucracy piles up to 710 million hours that are being spent weekly on internal compliance activities in the US.
“The only way to understand a complex system: interact with it.” The author is showing us how to interact and create cultures of learning.
I don`t like the author’s 100% focus on huge organizations. In Germany 97,3 percent of all companies work with less than 50 employees. The same in Austria and Switzerland. I guess in the Netherlands the numbers might be similar. I’m missing examples from small and medium sized organizations.

Germany on Jul 11, 2023

Vania Furtado: Interesting and provoking. A must read for those concerned about the way we work. Totally relevant for educators as well.

Brazil on Nov 21, 2021

Wally Bock: Brave New Work describes. why the way we've done things for a century doesn't work anymore. Put it on your short shelf of books that show us how we can do things better. 

When Art Petty first recommended this book to me, I balked at the use of the term "operating system." I've read too many books and articles whose authors use a computer analogy to suggest how human beings ought to work. Mostly, they write nonsense.  

Aaron Dignan uses "operating system" in the generic sense. Here's a quote from the book:

“Operating systems are all around us. Take intersections. Two roads crossing present a deceptively simple challenge: how do we prevent cars from hitting one another, while maintaining the maximum flow of traffic”

Dignan follows that brief statement with an excellent description of an operating system. His description sets up the introduction of his two key ideas.

Dignan's says the way we need to operate is both people-positive and complexity-conscious. He uses those terms throughout the book. 

Too many organizations today operate as though people were interchangeable parts. So, what would a people-positive workplace...

United States on Aug 12, 2020

T. G. Griffin: This is an important book; of all the books I have read on the topic, it has the clearest, most honest look at what it takes to build a system that will support one of the most effective organizational approaches. It is a straight forward look at what it takes in terms of executive thought and strategy, enablers (called the OS in the book), and process to correctly combine and apply these to create an emergent / employee empowered style of operation. At the core of this method is the decision for leadership to surrender much of their power and place it in the hands of the workforce. This is a journey, not a destination.

Many will read the book, try to apply it and fail because they are using the methods mentioned in the book without adopting the thinking necessary to support it. According to a McKenzie report, only about thirty percent of corporate changes succeed. Do to the nature of the changes being asked for in Brave New Work, I would expect the success rate to be substantially less. In today's corporation, it takes a strong brand based on image, charisma, and personal and immediacy in team execution to rise. This is typically the kind of person who prefers to be in...

United States on Nov 29, 2019

Joseba Arano: After having read "Reinventing organizations" by Frederick Laloux, Dignan's book has given me new and powerful insights and practical tolos to identify how to leverage Organizational OS components to deepen into real changes within the organizations.
A must read book if you want to help to your organization to get into complexity concious and human centered companies.

Spain on May 20, 2019

Brice Walsh: I was already an Aaron Dignan fan from his work at The Ready having used an earlier version of the OS canvas. Brave New Work takes it to another level. Well thought out and presented, this is both a great resource on the theory and why we need organization change but also provides a practical and tested framework for actually getting started. If you work for a legacy organization you will find yourself nodding your head repeatedly and highlighing passages - but best of all this book provides hope that we can reinvent our organizations and do our best work ever.

Canada on Mar 25, 2019

Tushar khosla: The alternate approach to traditional bureaucratic, hierarchy driven, rules bound, centrally controlled organization is purpose driven, and collective intelligence empowered, self-managing-teams based organizations. The central theme of this book is that the latter form of organizations, which it refers as Evolutionary Organizations, are more effective in delivering sustained results and better equipped to meet the challenges that are essentially complex in nature.
Several theories from time to time have emerged that espouse the importance of basing organizations working in Theory-Y assumptions, and also recognize the diminishing effectiveness of Fredrerick Taylorism in designing modern day workplace practices.

What makes this book a valuable addition to this ongoing mission to make organizations more purpose-driven, adaptive, transparent, engaging and with healthier workplace, is its structured evaluation of twelve dimensions that form the operating system of the organization. The Operating System Canvas covers broad aspects like Purpose and Strategy to specifics like Meetings & information sharing within the organization- describing how each of these dimensions...

India on Mar 22, 2019