The Octopus Organization: A Guide to Thriving in a World of Continuous Transformation
(Hardback)
Publishing Details
The Octopus Organization: A Guide to Thriving in a World of Continuous Transformation
By (Author) Phil Le-Brun
By (author) Jana Werner
Harvard Business Review Press
Harvard Business Review Press
18th March 2026
United States
Classifications
General
Non Fiction
Organizational theory and behaviour
Production and quality control management
Business strategy
Physical Properties
Hardback
256
Width 155mm, Height 234mm
Description
Leave large-scale transformation efforts behind. Drive lasting change with a new, nimbler operating model focused on small-scale, continuous change.
Large-scale organizational transformations usually don't work. What originally starts as a way of improving an organization becomes an all-consuming distraction, a value-destroying set of activities that, even as it becomes clear they will fail, must be completed at any cost.
But there is a better way: becoming an Octopus Organization.
The octopus is everything you need your organization to be in these turbulent times: extremely smart, endlessly adaptable, and highly resilient. Its eight arms work beautifully in concert, but crucially, each arm can think for itself if it needs to work independently. Your organization can work as intelligently and as beautifully as these amazing creatures, if you change your operating model.
Authors Phil Le-Brun and Jana Werner, veteran executives and leaders in Amazon Web Services who've worked with hundreds of large firms, show you how to become an Octopus Organization in this hyperpractical manual of best practices from organizations that have left behind the old, broken model of large-scale change and adopted this modern, nimbler model of small-scale, continuous change.
The Octopus Organization shifts to focus on incremental experiments and persistently improves through a newfound ability to evolve and adapt. It is a complex, living system driven by internal capabilities such as talent, relationships, workflows, and purpose, and by external forces such as new technologies and changing customer desires. It draws on the collective intelligence found within the organization to continuously identify the best levers for improvement, creating meaningful change in months, not years.
Providing a new way to think about transformation, The Octopus Organization offers strategies that will empower leaders to turn their organizations into nimble, adaptive, and highly resilient systems.
Author Bio
Phil Le-Brun is an Enterprise Strategy Director at Amazon Web Services (AWS) and former Corporate Vice President of Global Technology Development and International CIO of McDonald's. He engages with hundreds of executives and executive teams of Fortune 2000 and public sector customers to mentor, advise, guide, and share best practices on their journeys to becoming cloud-based digital organizations. At McDonald's, he was a leader in accelerating the impact of technology across 38,000 restaurants conducting more than 70 million transactions.
Jana Werner leads AWS's Enterprise Transformation Practice in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, advising and guiding executive teams of AWS's strategic customers. Werner combines this broad insight with hands-on experience, having led a digital transformation at Tesco Bank UK across all levels, from executive to engineering, and facets, from culture to cloud.
