Antifragile Organisation Design: A framework of Self-Organisation practices in today's complex and unpredictable economy.

by Dennis Kastner

The large majority of conventional centralised organisations are stuck in the paradigm of the Industrial Age. Incumbent practices such as the division of labour, top-down hierarchies and ignoring human needs have led to a high rate of employee disengagement, low productivity and lost innovation opportunities. Hierarchical organisations with an over-dependency on top-level-decision-takers are less agile and adaptive to fast-paced market changes, making them more vulnerable to disruptions and turbulences in a complex and uncertain business environment.

The Master's thesis by Dennis Kastner focuses on Resilience in Complex Adaptive Systems and Nassim Taleb’s concept of 'Antifragility'. The undertaken field research in several companies showed that 'Stakeholder Companies', especially those that practiced self-organisation principles displayed remarkable Antifragile characteristics in times of crises.

In order for companies to drive, strengthen and learn from turbulences in an interconnected and uncertain business environment, the developed the 'Antifragile Organisational Design' framework focuses and recommends the reader following

Firstly, self-organisation allowing agile decision-making and faster adaption to market changes. Secondly, a results-based culture e.g. 'profit sharing' to create 'ownership' and higher worker engagement. Thirdly, stakeholder diversity combined with organisational learning to increase the output of innovative initiatives. Finally, shared values, principles and missions could create a deeper sense of community and higher purpose amongst organisational stakeholders, especially in times of disruption it could be a valuable asset.

129 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 23, 2017

Reviews

[Edzo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great overview of the antifragile field. great start on how to apply antifragile to an organization.