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Strategic Alignment and Employee Engagement

Strategic alignment and employee engagement have both been proposed as drivers of organisational performance. Could these drivers also be related to each other? Low levels of employee engagement in organisations have been a concern for some time. This is based on the premise that higher levels of engagement are associated with better performance. You may […]

Forms of Learning: Part 2 – Triple Loop

In this post we look at triple-loop learning, a form of learning that underlies the current drive for diversity, but runs much deeper than the goal of equal voice. Single-loop learning is the acquisition of skills and competencies leading to a person becoming an expert in a specialised area. Much of this sort of learning […]

Forms of Learning: Part 1 – Single- versus Double-Loop

When we talk about learning, we generally talk about a particular type, Single-Loop Learning. In this post we look at Double-Loop Learning and the difference between the two. When trying to improve alignment in an organisation, our actions are based on less than complete or perfect knowledge about the situation. The better informed we are, […]

Strategic Alignment and Learning

In this post we look at why it is critical to be in the learning mode when attempting to improve alignment in organisations It isn’t easy to get all the parts of an organisation to work smoothly together. There are just too many them and even if we could keep track of all them, they […]

Strategic Alignment: Multiple perspectives

There is no universal definition of strategic alignment. In this post we look at why that is the case In the last post we explored the concept of strategic alignment, noting that it is complicated and complex, and involves human experience and intent. The way in which we perceive strategic alignment is influenced by four […]

Strategic Alignment: A First Take

To help understand why it is so difficult to sustainably improve alignment, this post takes the concept apart within the organisational context We have an intuitive sense that there is a relationship between the success of an organisation and the degree to which it is aligned, both internally and with its environment. We also have […]

A Framework for Thinking in General – Part 4: Contextualism

Thus far in this series we have explored three of Stephen Pepper’s World Hypotheses. The formist approach helps us simplify the world through classification; the mechanist approach uses the machine as the metaphor to help us understand cause and effect and the organicist approach uses the living organism as the metaphor to help us understand […]

A Framework for Thinking in General – Part 3: Organicism

In the last two posts we looked at two of Stephen Pepper’s World Hypotheses. Formism helps simplify the world by grouping objects into categories but does not explain how things work. Mechanism explains the world in terms of parts that mesh together like the gears in a machine. The idea that everything can be described […]

A Framework for Thinking in General – Part 2: Mechanism

In the last post we looked at formism, the first in this series about Stephen Pepper’s World Hypotheses, a sweeping framework for ways in which we view things around us. The formist view categorises objects into groups so that we can respond to them quickly and efficiently, i.e. as a way to simplify a complicated […]

A Framework for Thinking in General – Part 1: Formism

The way we see ourselves in the organisational context is influenced by our motivation, which could be a combination of the following: to describe what we see, to explain what we see, to achieve an outcome or to act in accordance with our ethical orientation. In this series of posts let’s look at how this […]