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The Octopus Organization: A Guide to Thriving in a World of Continuous Transformation
Leave large-scale transformation efforts behind. Drive lasting change with a new, nimbler operating model focused on small-scale, continuous change.
Large-scale organizational transformations usually don't work. What originally starts as a way of improving an organization becomes an all-consuming distraction, a value-destroying set of activities that, even as it becomes clear they will fail, must be completed at any cost.
But there is a better becoming an Octopus Organization.
The octopus is everything you need your organization to be in these turbulent extremely smart, endlessly adaptable, and highly resilient. Its eight arms work beautifully in concert, but crucially, each arm can think for itself if it needs to work independently. Your organization can work as intelligently and as beautifully as these amazing creatures, if you change your operating model.
Authors Phil Le-Brun and Jana Werner, veteran executives and leaders in Amazon Web Services who've worked with hundreds of large firms, show you how to become an Octopus Organization in this hyperpractical manual of best practices from organizations that have left behind the old, broken model of large-scale change and adopted this modern, nimbler model of small-scale, continuous change.
The Octopus Organization shifts to focus on incremental experiments and persistently improves through a newfound ability to evolve and adapt. It is a complex, living system driven by internal capabilities such as talent, relationships, workflows, and purpose, and by external forces such as new technologies and changing customer desires. It draws on the collective intelligence found within the organization to continuously identify the best levers for improvement, creating meaningful change in months, not years.
Providing a new way to think about transformation, The Octopus Organization offers strategies that will empower leaders to turn their organizations into nimble, adaptive, and highly resilient systems.
Large-scale organizational transformations usually don't work. What originally starts as a way of improving an organization becomes an all-consuming distraction, a value-destroying set of activities that, even as it becomes clear they will fail, must be completed at any cost.
But there is a better becoming an Octopus Organization.
The octopus is everything you need your organization to be in these turbulent extremely smart, endlessly adaptable, and highly resilient. Its eight arms work beautifully in concert, but crucially, each arm can think for itself if it needs to work independently. Your organization can work as intelligently and as beautifully as these amazing creatures, if you change your operating model.
Authors Phil Le-Brun and Jana Werner, veteran executives and leaders in Amazon Web Services who've worked with hundreds of large firms, show you how to become an Octopus Organization in this hyperpractical manual of best practices from organizations that have left behind the old, broken model of large-scale change and adopted this modern, nimbler model of small-scale, continuous change.
The Octopus Organization shifts to focus on incremental experiments and persistently improves through a newfound ability to evolve and adapt. It is a complex, living system driven by internal capabilities such as talent, relationships, workflows, and purpose, and by external forces such as new technologies and changing customer desires. It draws on the collective intelligence found within the organization to continuously identify the best levers for improvement, creating meaningful change in months, not years.
Providing a new way to think about transformation, The Octopus Organization offers strategies that will empower leaders to turn their organizations into nimble, adaptive, and highly resilient systems.
- GenresBusiness
368 pages, Hardcover
Published December 16, 2025
54 people are currently reading
256 people want to read
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
December 10, 2025
As someone who works in the change management and transformation space, I found this book excellent. The authors center the content around three core themes—clarity, ownership, and curiosity—and break each one down into practical, digestible pieces. I especially appreciated the short chapters, which stand on their own yet weave together a cohesive narrative.
Even though I initially received a digital advance copy through NetGalley, I pre-ordered a physical version and immediately began highlighting, dog-earing pages, and scribbling in the margins. Each chapter ends with a QR code linking to additional resources and a helpful “map” pointing to complementary sections throughout the book.
The conclusion is particularly strong, tying the concepts together into an actionable plan for leaders. The included templates and action steps offer a useful starting framework, especially given how common it is for organizations to identify their bad habits and then try to fix everything at once—a sure path to failure.
As I read the book, I kept thinking about how these ideas apply directly to leaders: the need for clarity of purpose, ownership of actions, and curiosity to experiment and adapt. With the pace of change accelerating, building resilience and adaptability is more important than ever. While I’ll certainly be thinking about how to apply this framework to the organization I support as well as my personal development goals in 2026.
Overall, the authors do a great job blending theory, real-world examples, and storytelling without veering into name-dropping, which I really appreciated.
Even though I initially received a digital advance copy through NetGalley, I pre-ordered a physical version and immediately began highlighting, dog-earing pages, and scribbling in the margins. Each chapter ends with a QR code linking to additional resources and a helpful “map” pointing to complementary sections throughout the book.
The conclusion is particularly strong, tying the concepts together into an actionable plan for leaders. The included templates and action steps offer a useful starting framework, especially given how common it is for organizations to identify their bad habits and then try to fix everything at once—a sure path to failure.
As I read the book, I kept thinking about how these ideas apply directly to leaders: the need for clarity of purpose, ownership of actions, and curiosity to experiment and adapt. With the pace of change accelerating, building resilience and adaptability is more important than ever. While I’ll certainly be thinking about how to apply this framework to the organization I support as well as my personal development goals in 2026.
Overall, the authors do a great job blending theory, real-world examples, and storytelling without veering into name-dropping, which I really appreciated.
Displaying 1 of 1 review