This week Ron and Ed welcomed William Donaldson, author of Simple_Complexity to the show. Every business leader knows a business is a system, yet very few have studied systems thinking or system dynamics. This is a critical oversight, one that Simple_Complexity remedies. Simple_Complexity reveals the fundamental system archetype at work in your enterprise and prescribes new and exciting ways to reinvigorate your management thinking.

About Dr. William Donaldson
Dr. William (Willy) Donaldson has over 35 years of experience and has been CEO of 8 companies, and helped start dozens of companies. Willy is the Founder and President of Strategic Venture Planning, a management consulting firm that assists boards, investors, families, and senior management teams to maximize results.

Use these show notes to follow along with audio…

Segment one:

Thank you to Mark Gandy for introducing us to Willy Donaldson. He interviewed Willy on April 30th https://cfobookshelf.com/the-systems-thinking-mindset/
Much of the credit for getting into systems thinking goes to Willy’s father. They both have an engineering background in aeronautical and industrial engineering, father and son respectively
The two top enemies of systems thinking are politics and academics, which might explain why you didn’t learn about this topic in school
The book, Simple_Complexity, has the background you need on systems thinking. Here is the Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/Simple_Complexity-Management-Guide-Systems-Thinking/dp/1683500741
Regarding systems thinking: “There are no boundaries between any of the departments or actions. They are all integrated.” —William Donaldson

Segment two:

So WHY the underscore between Simple and Complexity in Willy’s book, Simple_Complexity? “You have to tie the two together.” —William Donaldson https://www.amazon.com/Simple_Complexity-Management-Guide-Systems-Thinking/dp/1683500741
Our guest today, William Donaldson, author of Simple_Complexity, loves this quote from George Box: “All models are wrong. Some are useful.”
Willy visited the Enron website the day they filed for bankruptcy and pulled down their statement of values. They included transparency, honesty, and integrity. Of course they did!
Unless you have the context [in a system] you’ll get completely lost. Imagine how often a manager does this and does not provide context for something. On #AskTSOE, we call this the effing debate

Segment three:

“We have to make our systems predictable and repeatable so that we can scale.” It’s a worthy goal but a fools errand. The model you are setting the system up for is constantly changing. You have to change as well.
If you want to hear why Willy sometimes calls governance boards the “Chowder and Marching Society” then listen to segment three of the show. https://www.thesoulofenterprise.com/457
Culture emerges from the system. There is no culture in an organization initially. It’s just an assemblage of people. Your culture emerges and people pick it up. It comes from the interaction of the elements in an organization.
Why are organizations calling people back to the office? One part of it is that if you’re not in person, you are missing out on serendipity and richness of interaction.

Segment four:

“Strategy is the art of being able to stay one step ahead of needing to be efficient.” —Dr. Jules Goddard
“The future is already here – it's just not evenly distributed.” —William Gibson
“Change brings about great uncertainty unless we are very clear and very precise with our language.” —William Donaldson; In other words, “Common language, common mental model”
A big THANK YOU to Willy Donaldson for joining us today. His book is “Simple_Complexity: A Management Book For The Rest of Us: A Guide to Systems Thinking”. https://www.amazon.com/Simple_Complexity-Management-Guide-Systems-Thinking/dp/1683500741

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