Next Common Sense

The old common sense was about how to deal with the separate and free-standing units of a complicated world. The next common sense is about mastering the complex swirl of interweaving events and situations around us. Life is faster, more interconnected, interdependent and interrelated in the online communities of AOL than in the supply chain of an auto-maker. The world of work group relationships, strategic alliances and the customer networks we collectively call 'the organisation' is about the effects of relationships between people inside and outside the organisation rather than controlling distinct groups of employees, customers, suppliers. The new world is a complex one of arrows rather than boxes, of interactions rather than entities. The old common sense was about how to deal with the seperate and free-standing units of a complicated world. The next common sense is about mastering the complex swirl of interweaving events and situations around us. Life is faster, more interconnected, interdependent and interrelated in the online communities of AOL than in the supply chain of an auto-maker. The world of work group relationships, strategic alliances and the customer networks we collectively call 'the organization' is about the effects of relationships between people inside and outside the organization rather than controlling distinct groups of employees, customers, suppliers. The new world is a complex one of arrows rather than boxes, of interactions rather than entities. What worked as strategic advice in the old complicated world turns out to be just poor directions in the new complex one. Lissack and Roos demonstrate in a down-to-earth and practical way that mastering the complexity through finding, nurturing and communicating coherence are the critical tasks for today's managers and executives. With rich examples of how today's top companies - AOL, Southwest Airlines and Visa among others - have rejected traditional management practices to create the new organizational community of the future, they offer a five-step a