Harvard Business Review: The Octopus Organization

In partnership with AVT Business School, we invite members and stakeholders to a virtual event with Harvard Business Review authors Phil Le-Brun & Jana Werner on how to create adaptive and autonomous organizations in a dynamic world.

Most organisations today face the same paradox: they talk about agility but are buried in bureaucracy. They aspire to innovate but operate within systems designed to prevent failure rather than enable breakthroughs. And the usual fix — large, expensive, top-down transformation programmes — tends to make things worse, not better.

There is another way.

At this event, we explore the concept of the Octopus Organisation — a model inspired by one of nature’s most intelligent and adaptable creatures. Like the octopus, whose eight arms can act independently while still working in concert, the most resilient organisations are those that balance cohesion with autonomy, and central direction with distributed intelligence.

This is not another talk about digital transformation or culture change. It is a practical rethink of how organisations can be structured to genuinely learn, adapt, and thrive — by trusting the intelligence already present in their people.

If your organisation is ready to move beyond the outdated playbook of efficiency and control, this is a conversation worth having.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Phil Le-Brun & Jana Werner are both enterprise strategists at Amazon Web Service with extensive experience in guiding and consulting Fortune 500 companies, executives and teams.