The Soul At Work: Unleashing the Power of Complexity Science for Business Success [Hardcover]

If you already know something about complexity science and its business applications and want to learn more or simply want to get started on the subject, this is the book you should read. Here's why.

First, the authors are very fine writers. They also seem to have had outstanding editing. The book is by far the best written of any that I have read on this subject, and is among the best written of any business books I have read as well. This quality particularly shows up in clarifying ideas that can be hard to grasp (complexity science), explaining very interesting examples, and connecting the ideas to the examples in very useful ways.

Second, most of the examples are fresh, so you will learn something new by reading these cases. Most business books choose the same examples over and over (do IBM and Coca-Cola seem familiar?), and it gets a little tiring for the reader. The one example in The Soul at Work that I was familiar with was Verifone, and the authors developed lots of new material there that substantially added to my understanding.

Third, the cases have a lot of variety in them (as to type of organization, size of organization, the people profiled, the cultural background of the organization, and so forth) which provides a multidimensional perspective that is very helpful.

Fourth, the authors successfully contrast their ideas with the humanistic approach to management and the engineering approach, which is a useful backdrop for understanding what they have to say. Anyone who does prefer the humanistic approach will like this book, and will get many new ideas for employing that direction.

Fifth, and most importantly, the central theme of the book rings very true to me based on my over 30 years of consulting experience with organizations of all kinds. Trust-based relationships are an essential element of how organizations become more effective. Improve the trust, and any organization works better. The main reason is that trust helps overcome the stalls of poor communication, procrastination, bureaucracy, tradition, disbelief, and avoiding unattractiveness. Although others have made this point, The Soul at Work makes the point better. If you think about the new electronically-connected world, you can see that its main limitation is establishing trust before we can each feel comfortable extending ourselves and our connections in new directions.

If you only read one business book this year, please consider this one. It's one of the best business books I have read since The Living Company by Arie de Geus.

Intuitively most people feel that 'things must be able to be done differently', put the human aspect (the soul) into what we are doing and -with that!- actually achieve better results.

Read this book! The introduction, explaining complexity science in its most practical way is indeed perfect starter. The case studies that follow, ranging in diversity from St Luke's, the successful UK advertisers, to Cornelia Street (NYC) and Monsanto, the 'life-sciences' company, are told mainly in the words from the people who experienced the power (and difficulties!) from the subject matter. Very convincing. The last part of the book condenses all the lessons and creates a view on how to use them.

Everyone who is into this and may have read Roos, Oliver, Lissack and perhaps 'Rethinking the Future'(Gibson) and are looking for a guide. This is it! If you are NOT into this, and think that the 'way you do things around where you are' is OK. This is also it! You will be converted. This is a book that can help change the world. For the better.

In one word: fab (and that is an english abbreviation that I have picked up since I live in the UK...)