How Things Work (or not really do): An attempt to understand how our minds shape communication in organisations

Ulrich Kies

Aug 2020 · Ulrich Kies

About this ebook

This book is my attempt to describe and explain what I am experiencing and observing in my work and private life, from stories told by friends and also me reading and watching the news. I tried to unveil recurring patterns, the mechanics behind them and finally ventured to assemble the bits and pieces into a framework that could help to explain those experiences and observations. Improving our understanding of how organisations work is essential. Organisations are everywhere: companies, politics, public administrations, and many others. We witness epic failures of organisations, experience mysterious ways of their workings and are often wondering how specific organisations survive the way they are -yet, they do. Does it have to be like this? Can a given organisation be, e.g. 10x as effective as it currently is?

If you are interested in understanding a bit more about how organisations work and why they work the way they do, this book might provide you with some useful thoughts and concepts.

The solutions that I describe are my conclusions from applying the framework assembled before. You may find some pleasing, others rather obvious and others that I would have forgotten or not thought of.