Deck 8: Complexity, learning, and Innovation

Question 1

Investors and top managers who are frequently involved throughout the process of innovation development and often serve a variety of changing and conflicting roles are referred to as ____________________.

Answer 1

sponsors

Question 2

Through ____________________,innovators learn about action-outcome relationships;in particular,they learn through successive experimentation which actions reliably produce desired outcomes.

Answer 2

testing

Question 3

____ is the process of learning about action-outcome relationships through successive experimentation of actions producing desired outcomes.

A) Discovery
B) Nurturing foresight
C) Improvisation
D) Testing

Answer 3

Testing

Question 4

____ is the tendency for interventions to be delayed,diluted,or defeated by the response of the system to the intervention itself.

A) Regulation resistance
B) Policy resistance
C) Regulation refusal
D) Policy refusal

Question 5

____________________ involves the acquisition of knowledge or skills through study,instruction,or experience.

Question 6

Innovation efforts within established organizations require a constant flow of internal "____________________" in the form of human resources,managerial support,and budgetary allocation.

Question 7

Through ____,innovators learn about possible action alternatives,outcome preferences,and contextual factors.

A) guessing
B) actions
C) discovery
D) production

Question 8

Peter Senge's 1990 book,The Fifth Discipline,described ____________________ as places where "people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire,where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured,where collective aspiration is set free,and where people are continually learning to learn together."

Question 9

____ dynamics are a set of concepts and tools developed at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the 1950s to help corporate managers improve executive decision making about industrial processes.

A) Structural
B) Systems
C) Organizational
D) Contemporary

Question 10

____ feedback loops counteract or oppose whatever is happening in a system.

A) Reinforcing
B) Balancing
C) Task-oriented
D) Combative

Question 11

Three common myths or misconceptions about innovation are that (1)innovation is good, (2)there is a formula,and (3)innovation is ____.

A) infinite
B) finite
C) linear
D) circular

Question 12

When organizations operate at the edge of chaos,new ideas,products,practices,and relationships can spontaneously emerge that are neither predicted nor anticipated by participants or observers.This is known as the phenomenon of ____________________.

Question 13

____________________ are arrangements of interacting,interdependent parts that produce emergent behavior.

Question 14

Management theories reflect the "____________________" of their time.

Question 15

Health care organizations exhibit three characteristics of complex systems: interdependence,nonlinearity,and ____________________.

Question 16

The ____ effect is the tendency to infer specific characteristics of a person or organization from our overall impressions or feelings about that person or organization.

A) abstraction
B) illusory
C) perception
D) halo

Question 17

The noun ____________________ refers to an "idea,practice,or object that is perceived as new by an individual or other unit adopting it."

Question 18

For managers,one the most perplexing features of health care organizations is that they frequently exhibit ____ behavior.

A) counterintuitive
B) predictable
C) variable
D) costly

Question 19

____ learning is when problem solvers adjust their behavior and work processes in response to changing events or trends.

A) Adaptive
B) Creative
C) Organizational
D) Generative

Question 20

Managers can use "____," as described by Sterman,to help them understand dynamic complexity and gain insight into sources of policy resistance.

A) corporate models
B) corporate simulators
C) management models
D) management simulators

Question 21

Match each item with a statement below:

Situation where a complex system's behavior follows an inherently unpredictable path,but it does so within limits

A)dynamic complexity
B)systems thinking
C)bounded instability
D)double-loop learning
E)team learning
F)combinatorial complexity
G)shared vision
H)personal mastery
I)mental models
J)single-loop learning

Question 22

Match each item with a statement below:

Discipline of seeing wholes,perceiving the structures that underlie dynamically complex systems,and identifying high-leverage change opportunities

A)dynamic complexity
B)systems thinking
C)bounded instability
D)double-loop learning
E)team learning
F)combinatorial complexity
G)shared vision
H)personal mastery
I)mental models
J)single-loop learning

Question 23

Match each item with a statement below:

Discipline of constantly surfacing,testing,and improving our assumptions about how the world works

A)dynamic complexity
B)systems thinking
C)bounded instability
D)double-loop learning
E)team learning
F)combinatorial complexity
G)shared vision
H)personal mastery
I)mental models
J)single-loop learning

Question 24

Match each item with a statement below:

Arises from the number of constituent elements of a system or the number of interrelationships that might exist among them

A)dynamic complexity
B)systems thinking
C)bounded instability
D)double-loop learning
E)team learning
F)combinatorial complexity
G)shared vision
H)personal mastery
I)mental models
J)single-loop learning

Question 25

Match each item with a statement below:

Discipline of generating a common answer to the question,"What do we want to create?"

A)dynamic complexity
B)systems thinking
C)bounded instability
D)double-loop learning
E)team learning
F)combinatorial complexity
G)shared vision
H)personal mastery
I)mental models
J)single-loop learning

Question 26

Match each item with a statement below:

Discipline of creating alignment such that team members think insightfully about complex problems,synergize their knowledge and skills,and produce coordinated action

A)dynamic complexity
B)systems thinking
C)bounded instability
D)double-loop learning
E)team learning
F)combinatorial complexity
G)shared vision
H)personal mastery
I)mental models
J)single-loop learning

Question 27

Match each item with a statement below:

Arises from the operation of feedback loops

A)dynamic complexity
B)systems thinking
C)bounded instability
D)double-loop learning
E)team learning
F)combinatorial complexity
G)shared vision
H)personal mastery
I)mental models
J)single-loop learning

Question 28

Match each item with a statement below:

Discipline of individual learning,without which organizational learning cannot occur

A)dynamic complexity
B)systems thinking
C)bounded instability
D)double-loop learning
E)team learning
F)combinatorial complexity
G)shared vision
H)personal mastery
I)mental models
J)single-loop learning

Question 29

Match each item with a statement below:

Simple error-and-correction process whereby problem solvers look for solutions within an organization's policies,plans,values,and rules

A)dynamic complexity
B)systems thinking
C)bounded instability
D)double-loop learning
E)team learning
F)combinatorial complexity
G)shared vision
H)personal mastery
I)mental models
J)single-loop learning

Question 30

Match each item with a statement below:

Where problem solvers attempt to close the gap between desired and actual states of affairs by questioning and modifying the organization's policies,plans,values,and rules

A)dynamic complexity
B)systems thinking
C)bounded instability
D)double-loop learning
E)team learning
F)combinatorial complexity
G)shared vision
H)personal mastery
I)mental models
J)single-loop learning