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Planners
as Nonlinear and Complex Explorers
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Conclusion: From Planning the Future to Preparing for the
Future Unlimited possibilities for a company are, of course, not possible. Possibilities for strategies are limited by the past history of the organization, by the constraints of the marketplace, and by the identity of the organization, i.e., its set of core competencies. Complexity sciences can provide better maps for organizational strategy design that follow these constraints than traditional organizational tools or constructs. We live in a complex, interdependent world where the business and institutional environment is undergoing unprecedented change, even turbulence. Whereas planners whose main function was to accurately predict the future had some reason to congratulate themselves when organizations were in a more stable environment; today the whole claim of linear predictability is being seriously undermined. Therefore, the role of leader/planners must shift to take advantage of what we are learning about the dynamics of complex, interactive, nonlinear, nonequilibrium systems. This shift includes transforming planning into:
Whereas, at first sight, it might have appeared that the unpredictability of complex systems foredoomed all attempts at planning, there are important ways with which the nonlinear dynamical accounting for this unpredictability can be exploited for a revised conception of organizational leading/planning.
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Copyright © 2001, Brenda Jane Zimmerman and Curt Lindberg. Permission |