As we progress into the 21st century, organisations are faced with many challenges that seem paradoxical in nature, both at the macro level and the micro level. In many ways, today’s organizations are working very well. But few institutions anywhere, particularly business institutions – are serving societies' and individuals’ needs as well as they could.
 
Today’s firms are more technically capable and more economically efficient than ever before. Often, however, these highly efficient organizations are not achieving what we humans really want. The current models of “bottom-line” driven economic activity are intensifying economic inequity. It is also eroding critical environmental systems. And it is generating unsustainable stresses on people within the same organisation, even those "succeeding" in the systems, which are often unable to resolve questions of work-life balance meaningfully. .

In short, today's remarkably efficient organizations may be taking us, ever more rapidly, to a place where we don't really want to go.*

At the micro level, organisations are facing the challenge of focusing on task and focusing on people at the same time; striving for efficiency and cost-reduction even while working towards quality, innovation and customer satisfaction; seeking clarity while simultaneously embracing ambiguity – the list is long.

At O&A, we believe that productive, sustainable and fulfilling alternative courses of action are possible for all organisations, so that they are able to manage these multiple, and seemingly paradoxical concerns effectively. Not that we have all the answers. But we do believe our experience in working with varied organisations in the last decade and half have given us a handle on the problems, and combined with our skills of tapping the collective wisdom present in our client systems, we can assist them to move towards creative alternatives.