Another week has come and gone … where does the time go?
Most of my reading this week was not from my RSS feeds, but the research triggered from my renewed focus on High Reliability Organisations, Mindfulness and the work of Weick et al.
This research led me to a new RSS subscription, from a previously unknown source. Cognitive Edge which includes a blog by Dave Snowden (plus much more).
I was led to Snowdon’s work via this article contrasting the work of Weick and Snowdon. Snowdon is founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Cognitive Edge.
“Cognitive Edge is focused on rejuvenating management practices to better equip organisations when addressing intractable problems or seizing new opportunities in uncertain and complex situations. Where traditional approaches have failed to deliver success, Cognitive Edge techniques enable the emergence of fresh and insightful solutions seen from multiple perspectives.“
This objective is achieved via a range of open source methods (available on the site), a proprietary piece of software and their network of highly experienced professionals.
More on Dave Snowden as I explore his work further.
Another interesting piece that I uncovered from this research looks at resilience from the perspective of an unusual organization. Paul Chabot wrote this dissertation looking at organizational resiliency within a Mexican drug trafficking organisation. One would assume that such an entity is always having to be mindful of threats in the environment and other entities who are a threat to your ‘business continuity’!
“The essence of this research is to identify organizational resiliency characteristics through a detailed study of one organization’s success at being resilient to extreme internal and external factors attempting to dismantle its core structure.” [p2]
Chabot comes from a law enforcement background and his research was done in the hope of better understanding how these entities survive – in the hope of bringing them down.
As you will see from this model, the research is influenced by the work of Weick et al – and includes the idea of improvisation. Similar thinking to the ideas I highlighted from Kanter in last weeks wrap.
Chabot’s work also includes a useful chapter that is a review of the literature in this area.
Enjoy your weekend!
What are you reading at the moment?
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