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Capital, Systems, and Objects: The Foundation and Future of Organizations
The value proposition
Organizations face a continuing barrage of new ideas and technologies. In recent years you have likely heard multiple times of digitization, blockchain, sharing economy, and a host of other managerial and technological innovations. These are means and not goals. It is too easy to become enchanted with a means that seems to solve multiple problems, but the long-term concern must be the enduring goals that a means can help achieve.
Capital creation is the enduring goal for all organizations. All are concerned with creating a mix of one or more types of capital: economic, human, organizational, natural, social, and symbolic. All need to focus on raising their capital productivity, Cʹ (C prime), to a level greater than their industry competitors.
There are five fundamental systems for creating capital: systems of engagement, framing, inquiry, production, and record. An organization, a capital creation system, has to continually modify, effectively manage, and efficiently integrate each of its multiple variations of these systems to enhance its Cʹ.
Breakthrough leaps in Cʹ in recent years can be understood in terms of object-oriented organizational design. Uber, for example, is based on the premise that drivers and riders are objects that can receive and respond to digital messages through their smart devices. In a connected world, nearly every person and asset is an object that can be assembled electronically in innovative ways to create new organizations with higher levels of Cʹ.
This book gives you a set of integrated frameworks – capital, systems, and objects – that transcend managerial or technology hype by focusing on the long-term fundamentals that sustain organizational success. Read this book if you want to be an effective practitioner of capital creation.
Organizations face a continuing barrage of new ideas and technologies. In recent years you have likely heard multiple times of digitization, blockchain, sharing economy, and a host of other managerial and technological innovations. These are means and not goals. It is too easy to become enchanted with a means that seems to solve multiple problems, but the long-term concern must be the enduring goals that a means can help achieve.
Capital creation is the enduring goal for all organizations. All are concerned with creating a mix of one or more types of capital: economic, human, organizational, natural, social, and symbolic. All need to focus on raising their capital productivity, Cʹ (C prime), to a level greater than their industry competitors.
There are five fundamental systems for creating capital: systems of engagement, framing, inquiry, production, and record. An organization, a capital creation system, has to continually modify, effectively manage, and efficiently integrate each of its multiple variations of these systems to enhance its Cʹ.
Breakthrough leaps in Cʹ in recent years can be understood in terms of object-oriented organizational design. Uber, for example, is based on the premise that drivers and riders are objects that can receive and respond to digital messages through their smart devices. In a connected world, nearly every person and asset is an object that can be assembled electronically in innovative ways to create new organizations with higher levels of Cʹ.
This book gives you a set of integrated frameworks – capital, systems, and objects – that transcend managerial or technology hype by focusing on the long-term fundamentals that sustain organizational success. Read this book if you want to be an effective practitioner of capital creation.
335 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 29, 2019
3 people want to read
About the author
Richard Watson
501 books48 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.
Richard Watson (born 1961) is an English author, lecturer and futurist known for his 2007 book Future Files: a Brief History of The Next 50 Years and for his infographics, especially his Trends & Technology Timeline 2010-2050 and the Timeline of Emerging Science and Technology 2015-2030.
He has written 5 books about the future and is the founder of What’s Next, a website that documents global trends. He has been a blogger on innovation for Fast Company Magazine and has written about creativity, innovation, and future thinking for a variety of publications including Future Orientation (Copenhagen Institute for Future Studies) and What Matters (McKinsey & Company). He is a proponent of scenario planning and an advocate of preferred futures, believing it is incumbent upon organisations to create compelling visions of the future and work towards their realisation.
In addition to writing, Watson works with the Technology Foresight Practice at Imperial College London and Lectures at London Business School and the King's Fund. He is also a network member of Stratforma and has worked with the Strategic Trends Unit at the UK Ministry of Defence, the RAND Corporation, CSIRO, the Cabinet Office and the Departments of Education in the UK and Australia.
Richard Watson (born 1961) is an English author, lecturer and futurist known for his 2007 book Future Files: a Brief History of The Next 50 Years and for his infographics, especially his Trends & Technology Timeline 2010-2050 and the Timeline of Emerging Science and Technology 2015-2030.
He has written 5 books about the future and is the founder of What’s Next, a website that documents global trends. He has been a blogger on innovation for Fast Company Magazine and has written about creativity, innovation, and future thinking for a variety of publications including Future Orientation (Copenhagen Institute for Future Studies) and What Matters (McKinsey & Company). He is a proponent of scenario planning and an advocate of preferred futures, believing it is incumbent upon organisations to create compelling visions of the future and work towards their realisation.
In addition to writing, Watson works with the Technology Foresight Practice at Imperial College London and Lectures at London Business School and the King's Fund. He is also a network member of Stratforma and has worked with the Strategic Trends Unit at the UK Ministry of Defence, the RAND Corporation, CSIRO, the Cabinet Office and the Departments of Education in the UK and Australia.
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