The Light and Fast Organisation: A New Way of Dealing with Uncertainty

The Light and Fast Organisation presents a blueprint for organisations looking to thrive in today's rapidly evolving business landscape. VUCA - Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity - has become the dominant mode of modern business, and leaders are overwhelmed. Competition and instability has increased while barriers to entry have fallen, chronic employee disengagement is on the rise and the global economic recovery is incredibly fragile; business leaders are uncomfortable, with threats to their business looming on all sides. This book proposes an alternative to the VUCA paradigm, one in which we learn to be comfortable with being uncomfortable, and a model for helping your organisation climb above the fray. Case studies from both business and mountaineering illustrate the benefits and practicalities of becoming light, fast, and agile and underscore the importance of self-awareness and self-reliance in minimising your exposure to risk.

Business and mountaineering share many parallels, including frequent operation outside of the comfort zone. This book shows you the strong skills and effective strategies you need to reach the summit.

• Get comfortable with discomfort
• Adopt an 'Alpine Style' approach to business
• Operate outside of the VUCA paradigm
• Stretch outside your comfort zone to achieve more, faster

Leaders must accept the current VUCA state and assess their preparedness, but it's possible to move beyond it by ingraining a 'light and fast' approach at the core of their organisations' values and operations. It's only through reaching beyond the 'safe' zone that we learn what we're made of, and build the foundations for successful leadership and teamwork. The Light and Fast Organisation is your practical coach for climbing the mountain, and your guide to the quickest route to the summit.

About the Author

Patrick Hollingworth works with people, teams and organisations to help them deal with a world which is becoming more volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous by the day.

After studying anthropology, geography and psychology at university, he spent a decade with a large international consultancy, working on the some of the largest and most complex infrastructure projects ever built in Australia. He’s seen the very best of what large organisations can create, and also the very worst.

At the same time he began exploring the uncertainty and complexity which go hand in hand with mountaineering. Firstly, he learned the art of alpine style in the mountains of New Zealand, Canada and France, and then the science of expedition style in the mountains of Pakistan, Nepal, Tibet, Alaska and Argentina.

It’s taken him to great heights—literally. He’s summited multiple 8000 metre peaks, including Mount Everest. Over the past 15 years he’s been a member of small light and fast alpine-style teams, and he’s led rather large heavy and slow expedition-style teams. He’s seen the very best of what alpine style can offer, and also the very worst of what expedition style can deliver.

So Patrick lives and breathes this stuff.

Patrick is based in Australia and travels internationally to deliver keynote presentations, workshops, mentoring and consulting to a range of organisations. These include multinational companies such as British retailer Marks and Spencers, American energy giant Chevron and British-Australian miner Rio Tinto, through to mid-sized, Australian, Asian and European banks, medical and technology companies, and government departments and educational institutions.