Sherpa Alliance

The nature of change itself has changed.  It has become much more like a dynamic journey on a shifting landscape. 

In his 1999 book, Birth of the Chaordic Age, Dee Hock puts it this way:

“Fasten your seatbelts. The turbulence has scarcely begun. With accelerating speed, we’ve transcended boundary after boundary of diversity and complexity. The past is ever less predictive; the future is ever less predictable and the present scarcely exists at all”.

 Are you on top of diversity and complexity? Or are diversity and complexity on top of you, leaving you feeling buried, overwhelmed and frustrated? Are you driving it or is it driving you? Driving you crazy, up the wall and around the bend? Part of the secret is in understanding that there are two types of complexity:

“There are two types of complexity – detail complexity and dynamic complexity. The real leverage in most management situations lies in understanding dynamic complexity not detail complexity”  (Peter Senge, 1990, The Fifth Discipline).

So our challenge is to master dynamic complexity.   What do we mean by dynamic complexity?  Find out more at The Traffic of Dynamic Complexity.

Its not that we can afford to forget about detail complexity - our education system is good at giving us those skills and we need to keep evolving them through continuing education to a level of mastery.  But we must also bring our mastery of dynamic complexity upto the same level - when was the last time your continuing education system offered you some training and development in dynamic complexity?  We are not talking "time management" or "priority management" training, or something like that - that is only a very small part of the whole problem/solution of dynamic complexity we face in business.

We need a whole new chassis of business acumen, addressing detail complexity and dynamic complexity - our work is about mastering the challenge of the “and”, helping you be more in the driving seat of your business. Just like in the driving seat of your car, it’s a whole person challenge, comprising an inner journey and an outer journey. The outer journey is about mastering the big AND of 3-Dimensions with your business, translating strategy and execution into traction. The inner journey is about mastering the new DNA of change, travelling the learning curve to the winning side of dynamic complexity. Together, it’s about mastering the higher order strengths of breakthrough leadership.  The journey to mastery is not an easy one:  Dabbler, Obsessive, Hacker or Master?

The bottom-line is your organizational agility – the ability to deal with rapidly changing circumstances, while out-executing our competition and stake-holder expectations (of customers, employees, suppliers & shareholders). That’s a great way to travel. Enjoy the journey.