Organize for Complexity

is an excellent book by Niels Pflaeging (isbn 978-0-9915376-0-0). As usual I'm going to quote from a few pages:

What Taylor pioneered was the idea of consistently dividing an organization between thinking people (managers) and executing people (workers).

Problem-solving in a life-less system is about instruction.
Problem-solving in a living system is about communication.

Any attempt to motivate can only lead to de-motivation.

Ultimately, organizing for complexity and self-organization are always about empowering teams ... not about empowering individuals.

Actual teams of people working for and with each other.

Nobody is in control. Everybody is in charge.

To be intensively involved in selection [recruiting] is a matter of honor.

A hallmark of great selection is that it is highly time-consuming.

Management is a mindset that will not just go away all by itself.

When employees think for themselves and make entrepreneurial decisions automonomously, you must at all times bear joint reponsibility for those decisions, even if you or other members of the organization might have decided differently.

A "beta" kind of organization produces many such stories: Peculiarities, unusual practices, by which they can be instantly recognized among so many over-managed and under-led organizations.

People do not need to be forced to work. However, this deeply-seated prejudice about people and their relationship to work is what keeps management alive.