Author : Kenneth L. Mossman
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
Page : 289 pages
File Size : 19,53 MB
Release : 2014
Category : Medical
ISBN : 0199330344
The Complexity Paradox proposes inventive, interdisciplinary approaches to maintaining health and managing and preventing disease. It examines life from the perspective of complexity, which acknowledges the limits of what we can know while helping us to understand life processes in new and extraordinary ways.
Author : Paolo Grigolini
Publisher : Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Page : 284 pages
File Size : 50,3 MB
Release : 2019-06-05
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 1527535525
Is another world war inevitable? The answer is a resounding “yes” if we continue to think in terms of “either/or” outcomes. Adversaries think in such terms, you either get what you want, or you do not. Can a different way of thinking produce a different outcome? This book shows that the consistency demanded by the linear, logical either/or thinking is disrupted by paradox, whose resolution forces a consequent decision: war or peace, with no middle ground. If this were the only way of thinking then a person would be either a protagonist or an antagonist, but a person can be both, either, or neither; this opens the door to novel solutions. This is “both/and” thinking, which the book shows can be achieved by a dynamic resolution of paradox. Thus, a basically selfish individual can also be a hero; a consequence of the complexity of being human.
Author : Nick Obolensky
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
Page : 330 pages
File Size : 15,6 MB
Release : 2024-11-01
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 1040277284
Since its publication, Complex Adaptive Leadership has become a Gower bestseller that has been taught in corporate leadership programmes, business schools and universities around the world to high acclaim. In this updated paperback edition, Nick Obolensky argues that leadership should not be something only exercised by nominated leaders. It is a complex dynamic process involving all those engaged in a particular enterprise. The theoretical background to this lies in complexity science and chaos theory - spoken and written about in the context of leadership for the last 20 years, but still little understood. We all seem intuitively to know leadership 'isn't what it used to be' but we still cling to old assumptions which look anachronistic in changing and challenging times. Nick Obolensky has practised, researched and taught leadership in the public, private and voluntary sectors. In this exciting book he brings together his knowledge of theory, his own experience, and the results of 19 years of research involving 2,500 executives in 40 countries around the world. The main conclusion from that research is that the more complex things become, the less traditional directive leadership is needed. Those operating in the real world, nonetheless, need ways of coping. The book is focused on helping practitioners struggling to interpret and react to increasingly VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous) times. The book will particularly appeal to practitioners wishing to improve their leadership effectiveness as well as for students and researchers in the field of leadership.
Author : Philip Streatfield
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 184 pages
File Size : 27,7 MB
Release : 2003-09-02
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 1134577044
Business leaders are expected to be 'in control' of the situation in which their businesses find themselves. But how can organizational leaders and managers control matters entirely out of their hands; such as the next action a competitor takes, or the next law a government may pass? In this book, Philip Streatfield reflects on his own experience as a manager to explore the question: who, or what is 'in control' in an organization? Adopting the perspective of complex responsive processes developed in the first two volumes of this series, the author takes self-organization and emergence as central themes in thinking about life in organizations. He focuses on the tension between spontaneously forming patterns of conversation and intentional actions arguing that the order of organizations emerges through a combination of collective interaction and individual intentions. The argument is developed by considering the day-to-day experiences of life in a large pharmaceutical organization, SmithKline Beecham. In today's organization, managers find that they have to live with the paradox of being 'in control' and 'not in control' simultaneously. It is this capacity to live with paradox, and to continue to participate creatively in spite of 'not being in control', that constitutes effective management.
Author : David Skeel
Publisher :
Page : 230 pages
File Size : 31,64 MB
Release : 2015-10-14
Category :
ISBN : 9781459699557
The complexity of the contemporary world is sometimes seen as an embarrassment for Christianity. But law professor David Skeel makes a fresh case for how Christianity offers plausible explanations for the central puzzles of our existence and provides a comprehensive framework for understanding human life as we actually live it.
Author : Wendy K. Smith
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 625 pages
File Size : 32,14 MB
Release : 2017-09-07
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 019106937X
The notion of paradox dates back to ancient philosophy, yet only recently have scholars started to explore this idea in organizational phenomena. Two decades ago, a handful of provocative theorists urged researchers to take seriously the study of paradox, and thereby deepen our understanding of plurality, tensions, and contradictions in organizational life. Studies of organizational paradox have grown exponentially over the past two decades, canvassing varied phenomena, methods, and levels of analysis. These studies have explored such tensions as today and tomorrow, global integration and local distinctions, collaboration and competition, self and others, mission and markets. Yet even with both the depth and breadth of interest in organizational paradoxes, key issues around definitions and application remain. This Handbook seeks to aid, engage, and fuel the expanding interest in organizational paradox. Contributions to this volume depict how paradox studies inform, and are informed, by other theoretical perspectives, while creating a resource that enables scholars to learn about and apply this lens across varied organizational phenomena. The increasing complexity, volatility, and ambiguity in our world continually surfaces paradoxical dynamics. Thus, this Handbook offers insights to scholars across organizational theory.
Author : Barry Schwartz
Publisher : Harper Collins
Page : 308 pages
File Size : 46,16 MB
Release : 2009-10-13
Category : Psychology
ISBN : 0061748994
Whether we're buying a pair of jeans, ordering a cup of coffee, selecting a long-distance carrier, applying to college, choosing a doctor, or setting up a 401(k), everyday decisions—both big and small—have become increasingly complex due to the overwhelming abundance of choice with which we are presented. As Americans, we assume that more choice means better options and greater satisfaction. But beware of excessive choice: choice overload can make you question the decisions you make before you even make them, it can set you up for unrealistically high expectations, and it can make you blame yourself for any and all failures. In the long run, this can lead to decision-making paralysis, anxiety, and perpetual stress. And, in a culture that tells us that there is no excuse for falling short of perfection when your options are limitless, too much choice can lead to clinical depression. In The Paradox of Choice, Barry Schwartz explains at what point choice—the hallmark of individual freedom and self-determination that we so cherish—becomes detrimental to our psychological and emotional well-being. In accessible, engaging, and anecdotal prose, Schwartz shows how the dramatic explosion in choice—from the mundane to the profound challenges of balancing career, family, and individual needs—has paradoxically become a problem instead of a solution. Schwartz also shows how our obsession with choice encourages us to seek that which makes us feel worse. By synthesizing current research in the social sciences, Schwartz makes the counter intuitive case that eliminating choices can greatly reduce the stress, anxiety, and busyness of our lives. He offers eleven practical steps on how to limit choices to a manageable number, have the discipline to focus on those that are important and ignore the rest, and ultimately derive greater satisfaction from the choices you have to make.
Author : Simon Cavicchia
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 257 pages
File Size : 42,77 MB
Release : 2018-07-27
Category : Medical
ISBN : 0429890982
The 'relational turn' is a movement affecting a range of disciplines including neuroscience, psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, organisational consulting and, more recently, coaching. Its primary focus is on the centrality of human relating in determining how individuals develop, make meaning and function individually and collectively. In The Theory and Practice of Relational Coaching: Complexity, Paradox and Integration, Simon Cavicchia and Maria Gilbert expand existing coaching theory and practice to focus on the implications of the relational turn for how coaches and clients think about the nature of identity, the self, change, learning, and individual and organisational development. Drawing on perspectives as varied as relational neuroscience, the relational foundations of personality development, psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, shame, vulnerability, complexity and systems ideas, the authors shed light on many of the paradoxes and challenges facing coaches and their clients in today’s fast-paced, volatile and uncertain organisational environments. These include holding tensions such as the uniqueness of individual needs with the requirements of organisational contexts, managing multiple stakeholder expectations and networks and balancing linear approaches to change with adjusting to emerging and unpredictable events. Given the ever-increasing volatility, complexity and uncertainty that coaches and their clients face, The Theory and Practice of Relational Coaching guides the reader through a series of illuminating perspectives, examples and practical suggestions. These will enable coaches to integrate a more relational orientation in their work and extend their range and that of their clients for responding creatively to the challenges of modern organisational life. The book will appeal to coaches and coaching psychologists in practice and training, as well as counsellors and psychotherapists retraining as coaches.
Author : Jan Heiberg Johansen
Publisher : Springer
Page : 199 pages
File Size : 50,3 MB
Release : 2018-08-09
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 3319948156
Paradoxes emerge everywhere in organizational theory and management practice. This book is a theoretically grounded presentation of the strategic and historical context of organizational paradoxes, exploring the paradoxes in organizational management and the available tactics to manage them. Based on 700 academic sources in the paradox literature, it presents paradox management as a nuanced and coherent perspective. In presenting and integrating the vast literature on the subject, it contributes new knowledge on how and why the paradox concept was introduced into management theory, how and why conflicting ideals of management can produce organizational contradictions, and how paradoxes can be managed.
Author : John Meaney
Publisher : Pyr
Page : 545 pages
File Size : 13,36 MB
Release : 2010-09-09
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 1591027950
Centuries of self-imposed isolation have transformed Nulapeiron into a world unlike any other - a world of vast subterranean cities maintained by extraordinary organic technologies. For the majority of its peoples, however such wonders have little meaning. Denied their democratic rights and restricted to the impoverished lower levels, they are subjected to the brutal law of the Logic Lords and the Oracles, supra-human beings whose ability to truecast the future maintains the status quo. But all this is about to change. In a crowded marketplace a mysterious, beautiful woman is brutally cut down by a militia squad's graser fire. Amongst the horrified onlookers is young Tom Corcorigan. He recognizes her. Only the previous day she had presented him with a small, seemingly insignificant info-crystal. And only now, as the fire in the dying stranger's obsidian eyes fades, does he comprehend who - or what - she really was: a figure from legend, one of the fabled Pilots. What Tom has still to discover is that his crystal holds the key to understanding mu-space, and so to freedom itself. He doesn't know it yet, but he has been given a destiny to fulfill - nothing less than the rewriting of his future, and that of his world... Spectacularly staged, thrillingly written and set in a visionary future, Paradox places John Meaney at the forefront of science fiction in this new century.
