Michael Lissack
uncertainty. Organizations cannot predict or control these developments, but they can cultivate the coherence needed to navigate them. This requires a fundamental shift in how we think about organiza- tional design—from static structures to dynamic capabilities, from rigid alignment to resilient coherence. The organizations that thrive will be those that can maintain purpose and identity amid continuous change, that can coordinate without centralization, and that can learn faster than their environment evolves. In the chapters that follow, I’ll explore specific practices that foster this dynamic coherence—from simple guiding principles that enable au- tonomous action to storytelling that creates shared context for distributed decisions. These practices don’t eliminate complexity, but they create the conditions for coherent navigation within it. The jazz metaphor with which I began offers a fitting conclusion. A jazz ensemble achieves coherence not by eliminating complexity but by embracing it within a framework of shared musical understanding. The music emerges from the interactions of autonomous musicians, each re- sponding in real time to what others are playing. There is structure, but it’s generative rather than constraining—creating conditions for something new to emerge. This is the form of coherence organizations need today—not rigid alignment but dynamic integration, not standardization but shared un- derstanding, not control but connection. In complexity, coherence isn’t a state to be achieved once and for all; it’s a capability to be continuously cultivated. The next chapter explores the first cornerstone of this capability: men- tal models that shape how we perceive and navigate complexity.
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