Constraints Free Creativity

Do most innovators and creative thinkers relish the freedom to let their imaginations run wild? Or can their "creativity" flourish with the discipline of constraints? If your immediate answer is constraints limit creativity and innovation, consider how constraints, like simple rules serve the function of supporting creativity in the self-organizing of a complex system. What if we looked beyond the "Theory of Constraints" as simply a tool for finding practical, effective solutions to business problem?  What if  constraints were viewed as necessary [...]

A Moment of Complexity

At pivotal moments throughout history, technological innovation triggers massive social and cultural transformation. Apparently unrelated developments, which had been gradually unfolding for years, suddenly converge to create changes that are as disruptive as they are creative. We are currently living in a moment of extraordinary complexity when systems and structures that have long organized life are changing at an unprecedented rate. Such rapid and pervasive change creates the need to develop new ways of understanding the world and of interpreting [...]

Not All Rules are the Same

A recent discussion on LinkedIn in the Harvard Business Review Group asked, “Wouldn't it be great if managing a team was as easy as herding sheep?” Several comments opposed the comparison of people to sheep but there are important insights for influencing pattern-based change in teams and organizations through understanding the self-organizing behaviors that arise from the interaction of individual agents (birds, bees and humans) when they adhere to a set of Simple Rules. The concept of simple rules is [...]

Title

Go to Top