Organizational Myopia

The book examines the mechanisms that generate myopia in organizations and explores how organizations can foresee and contain unexpected events.

Drawing on European philosophies, this book examines collective myopia and its role in global business through various case studies of Japanese organizations, including the Tokyo Electric Power Company.

SILOS IN BUSINESS ARE NOT BAD--STOP BREAKING SILOS DOWN! Over the years, I've witnessed organization after organization struggle to improve its operational excellence. Most fail! Companies that fail to bridge the gap between strategy and execution are seriously suffering. One thing often resides at the heart of the problem -- silos in an organization. Throughout my career, I've examined the shortsightedness, or myopia, that can develop because of silos and discovered ways to overcome it. Silos exist in every organization larger than a small business startup. They must exist for an organization to operate. - We want silos! - We need silos! - We naturally form silos! So why are we taught that silos are bad? Because of the myopia, that can affect any organization in which silos are not managed properly. There are nine root causes that occur within silos that, without identification and management, can cause any organization to become myopic. Shortsighted organizations--those that fail to see the big picture or fail to have a strategic long-term vision -- suffer from Organizational Myopia (OM). An organization suffering from OM is less effective or efficient at fulfilling its mission, or is simply unable to do so at all. All organizations are naturally susceptible to OM. Most suffer from it. Unfortunately, the normal quick-fix methodologies employed by leaders and managers to deal OM -- restructuring or tearing down silos -- are almost always ineffective and only short-term solutions. So, how do we solve OM? Any leader can take actions to solve the negative effects of OM. The nine root causes must be identified and managed through a consistent and systematic application of a full-spectrum of strategic and organizational improvement methods. OM can be overcome, and silos can be good! From a technical and teaching perspective, this book provides you with the tools to break through silos and improve any organization facing OM-related issues. As a guide, reference, and roadmap, this book is designed to provide you with strategic and organizational methods that you can apply, like a surgeon, to identify and eradicate specific OM issues within your organization. This book is based on 30 years of business improvement experience. It is already proven through several executive, business consultant, and educator pre-reviews. Written for Presidents, CEOs, Executives, and Business Leaders, this book is something everyone should have dogeared and tape-flagged on their bookshelf! However, anyone in the business world, concerned about improving operations, should own a copy. John Knotts is a strategic business advisor with 30 years of experience in military, non-profit, and commercial leadership and consulting. He has an extensive background in strategy, change, process, leadership, management, human capital, training and education, innovation, design, and communication. John believes strongly in a holistic and no-nonsense approach to establishing operational excellence. Overcoming Organizational Myopia is John's initial work, highlighting the many areas of expertise where he has worked to break through siloed organizations. This book forms a platform for several future business titles related to many of the nine areas addressed.

This book assembles into one volume a comprehensive collection of the key current thinking regarding the use of C. West Churchman's Design of Inquiring Systems as a basis for computer-based inquiring systems design and implementation. Inquiring systems are systems that go beyond knowledge management to actively inquire about their environment.

This book investigates the phenomenon of strategic myopia, which refers to important cognitive distortions that managers systematically display. It captures narrow views and preferences, which are likely to hurt firms’ long-term prospects. Instead of accusing managers of imperfections, opportunism, or blindness, this book explains how strategic myopia stems from individual dispositions, how it is shaped by team contingencies, and encouraged by organizations’ design. The reader will learn how a metaphor introduced to explain business failure evolved over decades to become a concept useful in understanding intertemporal choices, technology substitution, competitive advantage erosion, competitive blindspots, and missed opportunities. In addition to explaining the mechanisms that encourage myopic behaviors, readers are offered a set of effective ways to address strategic myopia. A key benefit of this work is that the structure of the book allows the use of chapters separately. The core message is that eliminating strategic myopia is hardly possible, and may actually hurt the firms’ short-term efficiency. However, organizations may develop capabilities, and implement designs that favor balancing the short-term benefits of myopia and alleviate its long-term drawbacks. This book will be of interest to scholars, researchers, advanced students and experienced managers in the fields of strategic management and organizational behavior.

As organizations struggle to implement effective security measures, all too often they focus solely on the tangible elements, such as developing security policies or risk management implementations. While these items are very important, they are only half of the equation necessary to ensure security success. CISO Soft Skills: Securing Organizations Impaired by Employee Politics, Apathy, and Intolerant Perspectives presents tools that empower security practitioners to identify the intangible negative influencers of security that plague most organizations, and provides techniques to identify, minimize, and overcome these pitfalls. The book begins by explaining how using the wrong criteria to measure security can result in a claim of adequate security when objective assessment demonstrates this not to be the case. The authors instead recommend that organizations measure the success of their efforts using a practical approach that illustrates both the tangible and intangible requirements needed by a healthy security effort. The middle section discusses the root causes that negatively influence both a CISO and an organization’s ability to truly secure itself. These root causes include: Employee apathy Employee myopia or tunnel vision Employee primacy, often exhibited as office politics The infancy of the information security discipline These chapters explain what a CISO can do about these security constraints, providing numerous practical and actionable exercises, tools, and techniques to identify, limit, and compensate for the influence of security constraints in any type of organization. The final chapters discuss some proactive techniques that CISOs can utilize to effectively secure challenging work environments. Reflecting the experience and solutions of those that are in the trenches of modern organizations, this volume provides practical ideas that can make a difference in the daily lives of security practitioners.

Optimal development of contemporary businesses is dependent on a number of factors. By creating novel frameworks for organizational behavior, effective competitive advantage can be achieved. The Handbook of Research on Organizational Culture and Diversity in the Modern Workforce is a comprehensive reference source for the latest scholarly content on components and impacts on effecting culturally diverse workplace environments. Highlighting a range of pertinent topics such as emotional intelligence, human resources, and work-life balance, this publication is ideally designed for managers, professionals, researchers, students, and academics interested in emerging perspectives on organizational development.

Resource-Based and Evolutionary Theories of the Firm: Towards a Synthesis explores the intersection of evolutionary theories of the firm with an emergent body of research in the field of strategic management that has been broadly referred to as the `resource-based view of the firm'. The volume approaches strategic questions from several vantage points, thereby fostering a useful cross-fertilization of ideas. The views presented spring from a variety of sources, namely the principles of strategic management, organisation economics, and population ecology.