Managing the Unknowable

It's What You Don't Know That Counts

Discover the important roles chance and uncertainty play insuccessful strategic planning. In this ingenious work, author RalphD. Stacey shows managers how their companies can benefit from theunexpected developments that impact their business and how they canprepare to creatively leverage the opportunities such developmentspresent. He explains how an appreciation of conflict and teamdialogue can help managers discover and build on the innate energyof their organizations. And he illustrates his theories withreal-world examples from Sony, Kodak, Federal Express and othernoted market innovators. Preface.

The Author.

New Mind-Sets for Managing the Future.

The Failure of Conventional Management: Using Orderly Strategies ina Disorderly World.

Stable Instability: Creating the Far-from-EquillibiumOrganization.

Creativity and Continuous Chaos: Discovering the Undiscovered inComplex Organizations.

Strategic Thinking and Continuous Contention: Confronting anOpen-Anded Future.

Strategic Agenda: Deciphering the Patterns in Goals andActions.

Strategic Control: Managing the Boundary Between Plans andChange.

Participation, Heirarchy, and Stability: Finding the MiddleGround.

Steps Toward Managing an Unkowable Future.

Note.

Index.

Ralph Douglas Stacey is a British organizational theorist and Professor of Management at Hertfordshire Business School, University of Hertfordshire, in the UK and one of the pioneers of enquiring into the implications of the natural sciences of complexity for understanding human organisations and their management.

Shows managers how successful strategic planning is based on understanding and directing the complex, often chaotic daily interactions that take place within companies. Explains how an appreciation of the roles of control, conflict, and team dialogue can help managers discover and build on the innate energy of their organizations and urges managers to find a new respect for the positive power of instability and chaos.Discover the important role chance can play in successful strategic planning. In this ingeneous work, author Ralph D. Stacey shows managers how powerful planning is based on understanding and directing the complex, often chaotic, daily interactions that take place in business. He explains how an appreciation of the rols of control, conflict, and team dialogue can help managers discover and build on the innate energy of their organizations. And he illustreates his theories with real-world examples from Soney, Kodak, Federal Express and other noted market innovators. This creative approach to successful strategic planning is based on understanding and directing the complex, often chaotic daily interactions that take place within companies. Ralph Stacey explains how an appreciation of the roles of control, conflict, and team dialogue can help managers discover and build on the innate energy of their organizations and urges managers to find a new respect for the positive power of instability and chaos.