Adaptive organizations, fit for the future
and a good place to work

Growing an Adaptive Organization is hard work for the whole organization, management and staff.

There is no easy fix, responsibility cannot be delegated away. Power must be paired with accountability. Coherence must be balanced with autonomy.

But it is worth the effort. A new type of resilience and dynamic stability emerges, viability in a turbulent world.

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Adaptivation Folge 1: Hallo Krishan, was ist eigentlich eine adaptive Organisation?

Über den Dächern von München

In der ersten Folge unsere Podcasts beantwortet Krishan die grundsätzlichen Fragen, was für Ihn eine adaptive Organisation ist.

The VSM Quick Guide: the model

The introduction to the series on Jon Walker’s VSM quick guide. It describes the simplified VSM vocabulary as used in the rest of the steps.

VSM Quick Guide Nuggets Part 2

A review of Jon Walker’s Guide to the Viable System Model

Organizations must be people-centric to be successful.
They adapt, their structures support rather than restrict. 
They continuously gain new skills through learning and innovation.

For lasting success, the adaptive organization needs to be both effective today and develop new capabilities.

This includes traditional strengths and a new culture that drives collaboration, efficiency and flexibility.

Success comes with a holistic view of operations and strategy, autonomy and coherence, the ability to master today’s challenges and fitness for the next adventure.

Successful in a changing world

In order to achieve the company’s goals, they need 
Adaptive organizations
, far more flexibility, initiative, motivation and new capabilities.

The Big Picture

The Big Picture provides an overview of techniques an practices from strategy to implementation. It is a reference for possible journeys, it serves as a guide, source of information and glossary.

GRADO Community

The GRADO Community (GRADO = growing adaptive organizations) accompanies the way to an adaptive organization. Travelers who wish to actively participate are welcome. We firmly believe in open innovation.

Machines can be improved by improving their components. But complex organizations cannot be reduced to their components, they are not mere machines.

Organizations must be seen as a whole, a change at one part can cause unexpected behavior somewhere else.

An impactful decision system and effective control, interactions and feedback loops must be designed for the specific context and need a deep understanding of the appropriate control systems.

Lean has brought the focus on value creation and flexibility. Agile has continued that change, first for software developers, then all over the industry. Lean and Agile brought back the human aspect into organizations.

When embarking on the agile journey, only the first steps are visible; there is no complete plan or timeline. It is more than a simple revolution, it is a fundamental change from a static
to a dynamic view. A one-time event is therefore not a sufficient description – the hard work always began after the revolution.

Agile is an evolution. It is all about learning, organizational development, and helping organizations evolve faster.

Scaling agile changes its aggregate state. Agile teams differ from lean-agile value streams, and business agility is something else.

Agile Evolution collects principles without being restricted to practices, so it can be used in combination with one or more other frameworks.

The theme of management is how people work together, the development of structures and strategies in organizations. Leadership works with people.

Leadership has a significant influence on the daily experiences of my employees. Working with other people respectfully and at eye level is universal.

The common theme is giving direction. This requires: competence, being consistent, authenticity. In this respect, leadership is a collective activity, each individual leads.

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