GA 656 | The Octopus Organization with Jana Werner

Most organizations are not failing because of bad strategy or lazy people. They are failing because they were designed for a world that no longer exists. Jana Werner, author of The Octopus Organization and executive in residence at Amazon Web Services, has a framework for naming that problem and a very different model for solving it. The contrast she draws between what she calls the Tin Man organization and the octopus organization cuts straight to the heart of why so many transformation efforts stall before they ever take hold.

In this episode you’ll learn:

• What it means to be two steps ahead of your organization (2:42)
• How great leaders move from having big ideas to actually bringing people along (3:12)
• Why most transformation advice tells you what to do but not how (6:30)
• What the Tin Man metaphor reveals about how most organizations are still designed (8:38)
• Why organizations feel so slow and what structure is causing it (10:45)
• How distributed ownership changes the way decisions get made (12:10)
• Why anchors matter more than ever in fast-changing organizations (16:58)
• The difference between complicated and complex, and why it changes everything (19:03)
• How AI can expand a professional’s thinking without replacing judgment (22:47)
• How to start changing your organization one anti-pattern at a time (28:55)

“Leaders often put the power of interpretation in just the hands of a few.” – Jana Werner

Keep Learning

If Jana’s point about leaders creating conditions for emergent solutions resonated with you, the School of Leadership can help you build the coaching and systems-thinking habits that make that possible in practice.
Learn More About School of Leadership at https://www.gembaacademy.com/leadership

Podcast Resources

• The Octopus Organization
• The Octopus Organization on Substack

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Where in your organization are people waiting for permission to do work they are already capable of doing on their own?

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