Top-down, bottom-up

Posted by Kirsten Gibbs on January 23, 2019

  • I get the feeling that top-down thinking is very unfashionable at the moment. It smacks too much of command-and-control, over-complicated buraeucracy, and having things ‘done to you’ instead of ‘done with you’ – or even ‘done by you’.

    Bottom-up thinking is great for quick wins, incremental change and emergent consensus, but top-down can uncover opportunities for radical change that bottom-up thinking will miss, because you’re asking higher-level questions – “How should we keep our promise?”, rather than “How do we open the office?”.

    And often, by answering these high-level questions, we can remove whole chunks of low-level procedure that would otherwise go unquestioned.

    We shouldn’t let our thinking get trapped in our organisational structure.

array(7) { [0]=> object(WP_Term)#1269 (10) { ["term_id"]=> int(1) ["name"]=> string(32) "Discipline makes Daring possible" ["slug"]=> string(32) "discipline-makes-daring-possible" ["term_group"]=> int(0) ["term_taxonomy_id"]=> int(1) ["taxonomy"]=> string(8) "category" ["description"]=> string(0) "" ["parent"]=> int(0) ["count"]=> int(225) ["filter"]=> string(3) "raw" } [1]=> object(WP_Term)#1270 (10) { ["term_id"]=> int(41) ["name"]=> string(18) "Enabling Framework" ["slug"]=> string(18) "enabling-framework" ["term_group"]=> int(0) ["term_taxonomy_id"]=> int(41) ["taxonomy"]=> string(8) "category" ["description"]=> string(0) "" ["parent"]=> int(28) ["count"]=> int(38) ["filter"]=> string(3) "raw" } [2]=> object(WP_Term)#1271 (10) { ["term_id"]=> int(42) ["name"]=> string(14) "Process Design" ["slug"]=> string(14) "process-design" ["term_group"]=> int(0) ["term_taxonomy_id"]=> int(42) ["taxonomy"]=> string(8) "category" ["description"]=> string(0) "" ["parent"]=> int(41) ["count"]=> int(73) ["filter"]=> string(3) "raw" } [3]=> object(WP_Term)#1272 (10) { ["term_id"]=> int(28) ["name"]=> string(20) "Responsible Autonomy" ["slug"]=> string(20) "responsible-autonomy" ["term_group"]=> int(0) ["term_taxonomy_id"]=> int(28) ["taxonomy"]=> string(8) "category" ["description"]=> string(0) "" ["parent"]=> int(0) ["count"]=> int(111) ["filter"]=> string(3) "raw" } [4]=> object(WP_Term)#1273 (10) { ["term_id"]=> int(32) ["name"]=> string(12) "Scaleability" ["slug"]=> string(12) "scaleability" ["term_group"]=> int(0) ["term_taxonomy_id"]=> int(32) ["taxonomy"]=> string(8) "category" ["description"]=> string(0) "" ["parent"]=> int(0) ["count"]=> int(43) ["filter"]=> string(3) "raw" } [5]=> object(WP_Term)#1274 (10) { ["term_id"]=> int(50) ["name"]=> string(25) "The Autonomous Enterprise" ["slug"]=> string(25) "the-autonomous-enterprise" ["term_group"]=> int(0) ["term_taxonomy_id"]=> int(50) ["taxonomy"]=> string(8) "category" ["description"]=> string(0) "" ["parent"]=> int(1) ["count"]=> int(93) ["filter"]=> string(3) "raw" } [6]=> object(WP_Term)#1275 (10) { ["term_id"]=> int(39) ["name"]=> string(4) "Tips" ["slug"]=> string(4) "tips" ["term_group"]=> int(0) ["term_taxonomy_id"]=> int(39) ["taxonomy"]=> string(8) "category" ["description"]=> string(0) "" ["parent"]=> int(0) ["count"]=> int(24) ["filter"]=> string(3) "raw" } }
Posted in:
    Back to Blog
    Join our Blog
    • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.