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Management Innovator’s Bookshelf: Out of Control by Kevin Kelly (1994)

Published by Casey Coleman on August 11th, 2009 under Culture, Leadership, Management and Operations,

Last year when I started Around the Corner I promised a place where we could challenge some of our assumptions, explore something new or discover something unknown. Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World by Kevin Kelly is the second in the list of Gary Hamel's essential reading for management innovators. It presents a wonderful opportunity to challenge, explore and discover.

Kelly, previously the founder and Executive Editor of Wired Magazine and member of the Board of the Long Now Foundation, imagines a world for us in which biological principles can help to enable human collaboration. For instance, the typical organizational structure is very hierarchical and top-down driven. But Kelly suggests a beehive model might be informative for our modern knowledge economy. The members of the beehive do not have formal roles and responsibilities, but each member makes a contribution. The beehive as a whole is adaptive, distributed, and organic. Likewise, a spider web is a useful model to describe the interrelated nature of suppliers, employees, customers, and stakeholders in today’s complex organizations. These and other systems in nature don’t generally follow a centralized hierarchy, but instead work through networks of cooperation. In some cases the group seems to possess a kind of knowledge that surpasses the individual intelligence of any one member. Consider migrating geese. None of the flock have made the trip before, yet somehow the flock knows its migration path from hemisphere to hemisphere

Another of Kelly’s key ideas is that complex systems work best when they grow incrementally: “The only way to make a complex system that works is to begin with a simple system that works. Attempts to instantly install highly complex organization without growing it, inevitably lead to failure..... Time is needed to let each part test itself against all the others...."

Out of Control is not a quick read, but it is a thoughtful book that challenges the reader to think about future possibilities. As technology professionals we know from what we experience every day that success requires careful attention to every detail and that progress is slow and most times really quite laborious. Possibilities are endless in Out of Control. It is worth the reading because we're too often led to exclude possibilities rather than wonder what's Around the Corner.

It's on my bookshelf and I hope you have the time to add it to yours!




3 Comment(s)

  1. 1) Management Innovator’s Bookshelf: Out of Control by Kevin Kelly (1994)
    Al Dominick on 8/19/09 14:03:36

    Casey,

    Thanks for the recommendation! Your post reminded me of a book I read last year (Closing the Innovation Gap by Judy Estrin) that provided a framework for understanding the process of sustainable innovation + our capacity for change. Here's the link to the site: www.theinnovationgap.com. Thought you might like to check it out.

    -Al

  1. 2) Management Innovator’s Bookshelf: Out of Control by Kevin Kelly (1994)
    Haris Khan on 8/16/09 23:18:42

    I was really looking for a thoughtful book and this is a very interesting topic. We definitely need such approach across all of our systems and processes. Thanks for sharing it..

  1. 3) Management Innovator’s Bookshelf: Out of Control by Kevin Kelly (1994)
    Cecelia Lane on 8/11/09 15:30:10

    I have been an advocate of this kind of Team Approach to business for years. The hierarchical structure still so prevalent in most firms is much better suited for those organizations whose activities are predominantly task-oriented with duties clearly defined almost solely by their position in the structure.

    With collaboration leading the way as “how to get things done right”, previously clear lines of demarcation have virtually disappeared. The Island Theory, as I like to call it, has run its course as the leader of organizational management. No one is satisfied anymore with just good products or services, everyone wants the best. In an age where things are faster, easier, and more readily available, the work of “just one” is no longer enough. Instead, it takes a team of highly developed individuals to produce the kind of synergy that today’s complex systems and savvy consumers.

    If we should take a step further and give mention to what I believe is the greatest challenge presented to businesses today, change management, we may actually be forced to finally close the door on the antiquated mindset that led to the development of the first hierarchy. Change happens so fast; most responses to change are usually outdated by the time they get implemented. The bottlenecks of information-flow that occur so readily in a hierarchy, literally cripples this structure from dealing with change in any kind of efficient or effective manner.

    As more and more firms such as EA Games and Yahoo move away from the traditional hierarchy and instead choose to embrace more collaborative approaches to business, we can expect to see great changes in how business in done as well as the level of outputs that are produced.

    Thanks for sharing Casey. I will definitely be adding this one to my reading list!

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