Extended book review and author interview: the rise of the ambidextrous organization: the secret revolution happening right under your nose

Abstract

The ambidextrous organization is not a new concept to readers of The Learning Organization journal. Volume 26, issue 4, guest edited by Nhien Nguyen and Alf Steinar Saetre, provides readers a special issue on the topic. Turn to the further readings section for more details on the articles within that issue. Jacob Brix's article in that special issue, "Ambidexterity and organizational learning: revisiting and reconnecting the literatures," offers an integrated view of the two ambidextrous streams that he describes as previously coexisting and evolving in parallel. Brix's article offers a foundation to Eric Zabiegalski's book, The Rise of the Ambidextrous Organization: The Secret Revolution Happening Right Under Your Nose. Both Brix's article and Zabiegalski's book explain the context dependency of ambidexterity and learning. Both Brix and Zabiegalski emphasize the varying levels of ambidexterity across organizations, and both explain that certain situations may require more exploitation while others more exploration. The two opposing sides of the ambidexterity discussion. The balance between both is rarely 50:50. The balance shifts across the organization and with the external environment. Ambidextrous organizational and individual capacity, just as learning at the organization and individual levels, facilitates organizational success. Not only do both ambidexterity and learning facilitate maneuvering with change, Zabiegalski goes as far as saying, every ambidextrous organization is a learning organization, and every learning organization is ambidextrous. The two are interdependent.For this book review, Zabiegalski has agreed to provide an interview format in explaining his key points. His responses offer readers depth beyond what is covered in the book. But, as he emphasizes, the book contains much more breadth than the interview can offer.The book begins with an explanation of the countering exploration-to-exploitation forces. The paradox whereby, "organizational exploitation drives out exploration [. . .] as organizations exploit the marketplace by doing what they do best for profit and market share, they consequently stop exploring and looking for new ideas" (p. 1). From this foundation, Zabiegalski introduces his solutions.Zabiegalski divides his argument into three logical progressive sections. First, he discusses the ambidextrous organization touching on concepts such as culture, learning and structure. This section sets the theoretical groundwork. Then, he addresses complexity and ever-changing environmental influences upon the organization. Here, his focus changes to complexity science, emergence, chaos, structure and governance. The final section addresses TLO 28,6 554

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