Wholehearted: How it’s going and who it’s for

It’s time for an update, and let me begin with another video! Here I’m interviewed by Len Epp, co-founder of LeanPub, the platform on which Wholehearted: Engaging with Complexity in the Deliberately Adaptive Organisation has been pre-released:

(Wondering why there’s a cut halfway through? In my enthusiasm, I knocked over my microphone)

In case you missed them, here is the trio of March announcements, covering the LeanPub pre-release, the related cohort-based training, and supporting the latter, the latest version of Leading with Outcomes: Foundation:

(Pre)released today – Wholehearted: Engaging with Complexity in the Deliberately Adaptive Organisation Leading in the Knowledge Economy (LIKE): 7-week cohort-based training Leading with Outcomes: Foundation v3.1.2

And to the LeanPub edition, three highly encouraging responses on LinkedIn, all unsolicited:

“For those who have been working on building better organizations, a new book just came out – Wholehearted from Mike Burrows. …” – Alex Pukinskis “Can’t recommend Mike’s books enough, and this one is truly quite special. …” – Teddy Zetterlund (reposting Alex’s) “[A] must-read for anyone interested in transforming organisational design and strategy. …” – Rob Sanders

If you have engaged with any of those posts or are about to, thank you! I’m also getting invites for podcast interviews, meetups, webinars etc, and if you’d like to invite me to yours, don’t hesitate to ask. I’ll likely be appearing at least a couple of international conferences this year also.

Full release April 16th

The print and Kindle editions will be released on Amazon on April 16th, with the e-book available from that date on Kobo, Apple Books, and Google Play Books also. Google aside (which seems to be the slowest at completing its checks), the e-books are already available for pre-order, and the print edition will be too as soon as the cover is ready. You can track availability at agendashift.com/books/wholehearted.

Who it’s for

Really it’s for anyone who wishes that their organisation worked better – not only in process terms, but in terms of how different aspects of the organisation relate to each other. That includes how your part of the organisation relates to others, how it relates to its business environment, how aspects such as delivery and strategy relate to each other, how different scales of organisation relate to each other, and how leadership relates not only all of that but to many other aspects too. Role-wise, and especially in organisations large enough to have at least a few teams, those issues should concern leaders of many kinds and the practitioners (consultants, coaches, etc) who support them.

Behind it all, there is some very well-regarded theory, most notably the Viable System Model (VSM). To managers and others who have worked inside organisations for long enough to participate meaningfully in their conversations, the way I approach it will seem easy, obvious, and natural, because in its own way, it is! However, to practitioners and researchers already familiar with the model, I make clear that this is not your grandfather’s VSM. First, it starts from a very different place, one that much better suits the modern (e.g. digital, digitally-enabled, or customer-focussed) organisation. Second, and no less importantly, it takes care to embrace rather than gloss over the way different people’s experiences of the organisation differ, taking an approach by which you can much better tap into the organisation’s adaptive capacity. The book’s subtitle, Engaging with Complexity in the Deliberately Adaptive Organisation, speaks to that and more.

As for the book’s main title, Wholehearted, that’s squarely on leaders, leadership, and the organisation’s expectations on both. Are they engaging with the right challenges? Are they inviting people into the process? Are they celebrating their successes? Those questions raise further questions, but be in no doubt that there is much at stake here. Ultimately, your organisation’s continued wholeness may depend on its answers.