SATORI PARTNERS
Helping normal people do extraordinary things
DR STEVE MORLIDGE
THINK WRITE SPEAK ADVISE
What is Satori Partners?
In Zen Buddhism, 'satori' is the experience of sudden enlightenment or awakening.
Following this same spirit I set up Satori Partners as a vehicle for my work.
My mission is to help people deal with the challenges of managing complex organisations in a dynamic and unpredictable world.
What I do
I help to fix broken business processes, drawing on a unique blend of deep practical experience as a finance practitioner in a prestigious multinational company and two decades as an independent thinker and researcher on the cutting edge of management innovation.
My alter ego is the ‘Radical Pragmatist’.
‘Radical’ because I dare to challenge cherished assumptions and practices responsible for many of the problems associated with traditional management.
‘Pragmatist’ because progress depends on normal people in normal jobs can put these radical ideas into practice and so deliver real business benefits.
What motivates me is being able to share the fruits of my experience, research and thinking. I want to inspire practitioners at all levels and help make their working life more interesting, challenging and fulfilling.
Inspiration
The ultimate source of my ideas are problems.
They are the many dumb ideas and broken processes that I encountered and inflicted on other people during my two decades long business career.
One major source of problems, annual budgeting, started me on this journey as one of the founding members of the Beyond Budgeting movement in 1998.
Beyond Budgeting has provided a constant thread through my working life ever since. Most of my books are aimed at helping practitioners translate BB concepts into practice.
But all my work is underpinned by what I have learned from studying the application of systems concepts in complex organisational settings. I believe that the practice of management is a craft, but to accelerate progress our interventions must be based on robust ‘scientific’ principles.
The Benefits
Better business performance
We know why traditional approaches often don't work and what needs to be done differently. And we can see the results in business performance almost immediately - higher growth, lower costs.
More fulfilling work
By breaking free of the mindless drudgery of traditional practices work becomes more challenging and fulfilling, making best use of the talents and latent enthusiasm of workers and leaders alike.
Creating a learning culture
And for people like me there is the stimulation and fulfilment that comes from understanding what makes orgsanisations tick and how to make them work better.
The Books
Together the books form a cohesive body of work, linked by the common theme of Beyond Budgeting and underpinned by scientific principles. You can buy most of these books directly from me in physical or PDF format from my bookstore.
Alternatively, go to individual books pages to learn more before making a purchase.
The Little Book of Beyond Budgeting is a pocket guide to the concepts for busy people who are new to the concepts. And although they have value as standalone pieces of work, other books explain in detail how the processes of business forecasting (Future Ready), understanding performance (Present Sense) and managing resources (Cost Matters) work in a Beyond Budgeting world. And the Viable Map Workbook describes a methodology to help apply these ideas in practice.
Zen and the Art of Organising Work is a guide to the world of systems written and illustrated in a way that helps make the most arcane and complex ideas intelligible to practitioners who want to acquire deeper mastery.
And the Little Book of Operational Forecasting summarises what I have learned from my adventures in the world of short term forecasting, where the scope for improvement is enormous but largely unrecognised and untapped.
You can also learn about new book projects here.
About
Steve is a qualified accountant and has a BA from Durham University and PhD in Management Cybernetics from Hull Business School. He is a visiting fellow at Cranfield University Business School and visiting professor at BPP University. He was also inducted into Foresight Magazine Hall of Fame in 2022.
He is the author of six books and has written over 15 articles in trade and professional journals. He is also an experienced speaker at management conferences and the co-founder of CatchBull, a software company selling forecast performance management software.