Open Boundaries: Creating Business Innovation Through Complexity [Paperback]

Howard Sherman (Author), Ron Schultz (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 8, 1999

Today’s businesses are constantly under pressure to innovate—to develop new products, processes, and even organizational structures—in order to remain vibrant and healthy. But many businesses fall into the trap of doing more of the same, only faster. How can they break free of old patterns without overextending their resources or losing sight of their core goals and capabilities?In Open Boundaries, Howard Sherman and Ron Schultz bring fresh, new insights from the field of complexity thinking—the study of dynamic evolving systems—to unleash creativity and innovation throughout the organization. Drawing from their groundbreaking research at the Santa Fe Center for Emergent Strategies, the authors challenge readers to explore the underlying principles, cognitive models, and rules that govern their decisions and actions to reveal—and, more importantly, overcome—obstacles to innovation and growth.Open Boundaries introduces a practical vocabulary to help managers understand, analyze, and nurture the creative process by eschewing linear ”cause-and-effect” approaches to decision making in favor of an approach that thrives on ambiguity and unpredictability. Showcasing the pioneering efforts of such organizations as Xerox-PARC, Applied Biosystems, Patagonia, and the United States Marine Corps, the authors vividly illustrate the power of complexity thinking in action—from creating new markets to establishing new ways of spreading emerging knowledge throughout the company.Ultimately, Open Boundaries is about ideas, the most powerful of which is realizing that organizations are not mechanical entities, but living systems that are constantly adjusting and adapting to both internal and external forces of change. By embracing this perspective, businesses can become far more creative, innovative, and profitable than they might have ever thought possible.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

For the past five years, the authors have been participants in the Business Network of the Santa Fe Institute, a 15-year-old independent institution devoted to multidisciplinary research into complex systems and "complexity thinking." Sherman and Schultz provide a look at the "state of the art" of chaos theory and the idea of organizations as complex systems that are adaptive and do not adhere to linear patterns. To reinforce this notion, the authors have not numbered their chapters. The pages, however, are numbered, and the authors face the difficult task of presenting a topic with "holographic dimensions" in a two-dimensional format. In spite of the many models and examples they use to illustrate their ideas, Sherman and Schultz will challenge readers who may be bound by "repetitive thinking behavior" or uncomfortable with ambiguity. But that's the point! Complex systems are ambiguous. David Rouse --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Howard Sherman is a managing director of the Santa Fe Center for Emergent Strategies, a leader in the application of complexity thinking to business. A former member of the Santa Fe Institute’s Business Network, he has also served as an executive at Midas Inc. and president of Dion Corporation. He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.Ron Schultz is a director at Senn-Delaney Leadership Consulting Group. Formerly a senior consultant to the Santa Fe Center for Emergent Strategies and a contributor to Omni magazine, he is a founding partner in Learning Arts Publications and has written and cowritten eleven books on business management. He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Howard Sherman is a managing director of the Santa Fe Center for Emergent Strategies, a leader in the application of complexity thinking to business. A former member of the Santa Fe Institute’s Business Network, he has also served as an executive at Midas Inc. and president of Dion Corporation. He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.Ron Schultz is a director at Senn-Delaney Leadership Consulting Group. Formerly a senior consultant to the Santa Fe Center for Emergent Strategies and a contributor to Omni magazine, he is a founding partner in Learning Arts Publications and has written and cowritten eleven books on business management. He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books (October 8, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0738201553
• ISBN-13: 978-0738201559
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,810,307 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best of class, October 19, 1998

By 

John Forman (Shoreline, Washington USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Open Boundaries: Creating Business Innovation Through Complexity (Hardcover)

Among the increasing number of books purporting to connect complexity to business, this one shines. If an organization takes nothing more than an understanding of co-evolution away from this book, they will be well served. And there is a great deal more to be mined for those organizations looking for ways to make innovation a way of life. A powerful and rigorous approach in spite of its Eurocentric underpinnings. Sherman's connection to the Santa Fe Institute combine with impressive business credentials and an encyclopedic philosophical mind to create a deep resource for exploring an exciting new way to think about business.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best integration of complexity and management yet!!, October 31, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Open Boundaries: Creating Business Innovation Through Complexity (Hardcover)

Open Boundaries represents a successful and all too rare attempt to synthesize the lessons of complexity science with the day-to-day lives of managers. Where many authors are content to describe science metaphors and leave it to the reader to draw out life's lessons, Sherman and Schultz take the opposite tack. They begin by asking what problems their readers' face and then address those problems from a perspective of complexity science and philosophy. How and what we think shapes and effects what we do. Complexity science has much to contribute to change our units of thought. Open Boundaries will change your life as a thoughtful and reflective manager -- just let it.

Michael Lissack, Director, Organization Science Related Programs, New England Complex Systems Institute

5.0 out of 5 stars Bringing business into the new world of complexity thinking., September 5, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Open Boundaries: Creating Business Innovation Through Complexity (Hardcover)

This book is about complexity thinking and its application to business. It explains how creativity and innovation, and overall competitiveness in business, requires an appreciation of the ways that ideas shape reality. Drawing upon the nonlinear way of thinking in science, the authors apply the concepts of chaos, complexity, complex adaptive systems, and emergence to reveal the dynamics and opportunities for achieving organizational change, adaptation, innovation and development. They seek to open up our thinking to a nonlinear, organic world in which traditional patterns of reasoning do not apply. As such, this book is at least as much about how we see the world and think as it is about innovation in organization. This is a spirited and challenging work that takes the reader into the ideas of an unpredictable, postindustrial world, going beyond the comfortable, clear-cut boundaries of linear logic.