How quiet heroes can (calmly) achieve great things

A clever business book about the future of work and organisational development: one that throws contradictions into sharp relief and facilitates genuine transformation.

Today, new work, agility and digitalisation are the words on everyone’s lips. But rampant rules and regulations, inflexible processes and outmoded systems of incentives do not foster an environment of inspiration, creativity or collaboration. Instead, they programme us for rigid conformity, which blocks a spirit of vitality in the development of organisations.

It is vitality that lays the groundwork for self-organisation, both in companies and in broader society. Where space is created for self-organisation, this also gives rise to development and progress – in the truly evolutionary sense of the word. With this in mind, Luinstra makes the case a new ‘New Work’: a way of working that makes space for freedom, autonomy and responsibility as well as for societal participation, solidarity and an awareness of social and ecological consequences. People want to feel that their contribution is relevant – both at work and in society as a whole.

Luinstra has observed first-hand how infrequently vitality is felt in modern organisations - yet she also knows, from her work, that vitality often lies waiting to be unlocked. She presents numerous case studies from corporate practice, exploring how to find meaning, establish a culture of self-management, think and act autonomously and rethink the process of development. As she writes, Luinstra makes no bones about the fact that vitality also challenges us. It requires us to question our thoughts and actions and dare to initiate change. Thus, vitality is (also) always something of an imposition.

• 8 principles for injecting vitality back into organisations: finding meaning, establishing a culture of self-management, thinking and acting autonomously and rethinking development
• A range of case studies from everyday business
• An up-to-the-minute publication about the future of work and organisational development