The Chaos frontier. Creative strategic control for business

STACEY R.D., The Chaos frontier. Creative strategic control for business. Butterworth-Heinemann, 1991

[one_half]

[/one_half]

[one_half_last]

CONTENTS

1. Introducion

Who this book is addressed to, mixed success in coping with turbulent change, defective understanding of business dynamics, the importance of explanatory models for action, what managers say about strategic choice, the problem with vision and plans, thinking about the strategy process, outline of the following chapters.

Part One – THE CONCERNS OF DYNAMIC MANAGEMENT

2. Goals, behaviour and change

2.1. The future is a combination of change situations
2.2. Open-Ended changes, ambiguous goals, confusion and anxiety
2.3. Unpredicability and recognizable patterns
2.4. Conclusions: what a dynamic model should explain about change[/one_half_last]

3. Relationship between control form and change situation

3.1. Short interval control for closed change
3.2. Long term planning for contained change
3.3. What form for Open-ended change
3.4. Simultaneous application of different control forms
3.5. Conclusions: what a dynamic model should explain about change

4. The mechanisms drivin business development

4.1. Business organisations are feedback mechanisms
4.2. The dynamics of business feedback mechanisms
4.3. The dynamic of the decision-making process
4.4. Conclusions: what a dynamic model should explain about change

Part Two – TODAY’S MOST PROMINENT MANAGEMENT MODELS

5. Rational planning, entrepreunerial enthusiasm and political power

5.1. Rational explanations of management and organization: the mechanistic approach
5.2. Entrepreunerial explanations of management and organization: the organic approach
5.3. Political explanations of management and organization: the power approach
5.4. Conclusion: today’s models focus on machine like order

6. Today’s models: a limited understanding of management dynamics

6.1. Feedback, small changes, vicious and virtuous circles
6.2. Operations in non-equilirium states
6.3. What the organizations do when they do not know what they are doing
6.4. The dynamics of organizational politics
6.5. Organizations learn about the process of learning
6.6. Conclusion: what managers acually do

Part Three – SCIENTIFIC CHAOS AND DYNAMIC MANAGEMENT

7. What scientific chaos means for managers

7.1. Nature of scientific chaos
7.2. Principal features of scientific chaos
7.3. Chaos: a more useful model of business dynamics
7.4. Conclusion: explaining intertwined order and disorder

8. Implications of chaos for controlling and developing a business

8.1. The techniques break-down and planning fails in open-ended change
8.2. Visions of the future may be dangerous fantasies
8.3. Trial-and-error action cannot secure stability
8.4. Building strategic issue agendas is the key to strategic control
8.5. New models for each new situation
8.6. Conclusion: rethinking the approach to strategic control

9. Strategic control is organizational learning

9.1. Thinking and learning step by step to a goal
9.2. Chaos provides another perspective
9.3. Thinking and learning in closed situations
9.4. Thinking and learning in open-ended situations
9.5. Organizational learning takes places in groups
9.6. Organizational learning: personality composition and group dynamics
9.7. Strongly shared cultures block group learning
9.8. Learning to learn in real time
9.9. Conclusion: innovative strategic choice depends on group learning

10. Strategic control is spontaneous political choice

10.1. Power form and group dynamic
10.2. Political interactions as feedback loop
10.3. Business political systems and chaos
10.4. Unpredictable political choices
10.5. Recognizable patterns in political choices
10.6. Structure and the distribution of power
10.7. Conclusion: strategic choice depends on political context

11. Strategic control is creative exploration

11.1. Detecting and selecting open-ended issues
11.2. Amplifying issues and breaking symmetries: champions and special interests group
11.3. Amplifying issues and breaking symmetries: experimenting with open-ended issues
11.4. Fragile state of consensus and commitment
11.5. Conclusion: how organizations proceed when they do not know what they are doing

Part Four – DYNAMIC MANAGEMENT CHOICE AND ACTION

12. Chaos: a different perspective for action

12.1. A chaos explanation of managing and organizing
12.2. Explanations of strategic choice compared
12.3. The models determine the actions
12.4. Conclusion: a different model for designing action

13.Management intervention and strategic control

13.1. Changin the models for designing action
13.2. Moving from managing outcomes to managing process
13.3. Managers and strategic control
13.4. Management intervention
13.5. The message for Managers
13.6. Conclusion: establishing conditions for effective strategic control

Appendix

Appendice A: Scientific chaos: a new way of thinking about dynamics
Appendice B: The simple mathematics and exciting geometry of chaos
Appendice C: Order from chaos
Appendice D: The language of chaos: a glossary of terms