Stop Treating Your Company Like a Machine — Norman Wolfe on the Living Organization

Norman Wolfe spent 40+ years inside organizations, including a long stretch at Hewlett-Packard, before noticing something nobody could explain: 70% of companies fail at strategy execution, despite shelves of books telling them how to succeed. His answer? We're stuck in a paradigm trap, treating organizations as machines and people as component parts.In this conversation, Norman shares the framework behind his book The Living Organization, the three forces that actually create results (doing, relationships, and context), and the story of how he once crushed a goal at HP that he completely forgot about and never tracked. We also get into why mental models quietly run our lives, how improvisation is a more useful operating system than control, and why the leaders who push hardest often achieve the least.A conversation for anyone who's tired of grinding and wondering if there's a better way to lead.Find Norman at quantumleaders.com.Chapters00:00 Why organizations aren't machines03:00 The 70% strategy execution problem06:30 What 40 years of leadership taught Norman about ease09:00 The three forces: doing, relationships, and context13:00 The HP goal he hit without trying 17:00 Why who you're being is what you attract20:00 The non-time based reality of results24:00 Leading through uncertainty in 202626:00 What improvisation teaches us about control33:00 Mental models and why they break36:30 Norman's one piece of advice for living your best lifeFull show notes: coachfulcoaching.com/coachful-coaching-leadership-podcast/living-organization