Adaptive Management

It is a practical leadership handbook full of real-life stories, insights and tips based on the authors’ many years of experience in senior leadership roles. A key insight is the need for leaders to recognise that one size does not fit all in the way they lead their organisation and interact with their people. Leaders need to be adaptive to the context and the person.

Despite how much is written about strategy, and money spent on it, reports of chronic failures persist. Two causes dominate. Strategy is still not fully defined, and strategy practice is still largely based on a planned view of the world. Change and innovation, however, are not wholly planned but emerge from the myriad interactions of the players involved—some by design, many not. This science of complex adaptive systems must be the bedrock on which strategy is built.

Culture change strategist Jason Richmond and coauthors Jeanne Kerr and Malcolm J. Nicholl reveal how companies whose leaders ignite their culture are able to weather any storm and get ahead of the competition. Based on hands-on experience helping senior corporate executives navigate the turbulence of the 2020-2021 pandemic, the authors distill their findings into five key disciplines.

Daniel Siegel, bestselling author and one of the leading researchers on the neuroscience of mindfulness, talks about creating adaptive, resilient organizations.