Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book aims to support managers and practitioners in developing self-governed, more effective organisations, capable of continuously learning and adapting, through more agile and balanced relationships within themselves and with the environments they co-evolve. The STM aims to facilitate systemic learning of participants in a VSM project, by introducing the main VSM distinctions, and guiding them in the process of mapping their organisational complexity. The difference between a viable organisation and being a viable and sustainable organisation is that in the second case, an organisation actively addresses the challenges and paradoxes of moving into a regenerative rather than extractive development model; and while doing so, develops capabilities for sustainable self-governance.