March 2, 2026, 8 am ET / 1pm GMT / 2pm CET |
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“For leaders and organizations tired of transformations that promise change but deliver little, The Octopus Organization makes a compelling case for learning to thrive by behaving less like a machine and more like a living system.” — Financial Times
Far too many organizations are stuck in rigid structures bogged down in bureaucracy, trying and inevitably failing to learn and to adapt. With their new book, The Octopus Organization, Amazon Web Services executives in residence Phil Le-Brun and Jana Werner, present a different way. Like an octopus—intelligent, curious, resilient, and decentralized—organizations can thrive by balancing cohesion with autonomy and tapping into the distributed intelligence of their people.
On March 2, Phil and Jana will be joined by their HBR editor Scott Berinato to discuss the concept of the Octopus Organization, underpinned by real-world examples drawn from work they have undertaken with companies across the world. They will share some common “antipatterns”—the intuitive but outdated responses to complex challenges that repeatedly hold us back, and they will reveal practical levers that enable organizations to move forward. The session will show how to move beyond bureaucracy and nurture a living, learning system built for continuous transformation.
Register to confirm your place. You will receive the online link to the event in your confirmation email. You can also purchase a copy of The Octopus Organization at the discounted price of £23.00 by choosing the webinar + book/ebook ticket option. Please note the print edition can only be sent to UK residents, but the ebook is available wherever you are based.
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About the speakers
Phil Le-Brun is an executive in residence at Amazon Web Services and a former corporate VP and international CIO at McDonald’s Corporation. At McDonald’s, he co-led the consolidation and modernization of technology across thirty-eight thousand restaurants globally. In his current role, Phil engages with Fortune 500 executives and their teams and with public-sector customers to mentor, advise, and guide them on their journeys to become more adaptable organizations.
Jana Werner is an executive in residence at Amazon Web Services, where she guides the executive teams of Fortune 500 companies in building adaptive customer-centric organizations. Jana works with universities like Harvard, LSE and Oxford on executive education and joint organization design and leadership research.
Scott Berinato is a Senior Editor at Harvard Business Review Press. Prior to book editing, Scott wrote and edited regularly for HBR, focused mostly on stories about data, science, and technology, alongside creating successful visual storytelling formats. He is the author of Good Charts: The HBR Guide to Making Smarter, More Persuasive Data Visualizations. |
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