Building High-Performance, High-Trust Organizations

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xxiv

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2. Complexity is a consequence of living in a sandpile world

   • Gerrit Broekstra

   Pages 1-23

3. Only variety absorbs complexity

   • Gerrit Broekstra

   Pages 24-49

4. Top-down decentralization and the folly of power

   • Gerrit Broekstra

   Pages 50-97

5. Going against the grain: aborted bottom-up decentralization

   • Gerrit Broekstra

   Pages 98-118

6. Common-sense decentralization by working with human nature—not against it

   • Gerrit Broekstra

   Pages 119-160

7. Deep leadership provides the social glue keeping high-variety organizations together

   • Gerrit Broekstra

   Pages 161-184

8. Epilogue

   • Gerrit Broekstra

   Pages 185-191

9. Back Matter

   Pages 192-200

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Some vanguard companies have evolved to a higher level of decentralization originating in the enabling-and-autonomy paradigm. A new kind of deep leadership is practiced by these spirit-driven organizations. This book brings together theory and case studies to cover historical origins and developments of both types of decentralization.

• Decentralization
• autonomous groups
• enabling organization
• ethics
• values
• deep leadership
• complexity
• self-organized criticality
• requisite variety
• railroads
• coal mining
• banking
• home health care
• organization
• organizations
• trust

• Nyenrode Business University, The Netherlands

  Gerrit Broekstra

Originally a physicist with a life-long interest in the complexity sciences, Gerrit Broekstra is Professor Emeritus of Organization Behavior at the Nyenrode Business University, the Netherlands. He was previously a professor and dean at the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, the Netherlands, and a visiting professor at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, USA.

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