There’s Got to Be a Better Way: How to Deliver Results and Get Rid of the Stuff That Gets in the Way
Nelson P. Repenning and Donald C. Kieffer
Basic Venture (August 2025)

How and why dynamic work design can produce better results faster in a VUCA world

As Nelson Repenning and Donald Kieffer explain, “In this book, we introduce a new way of working — dynamic work design — that enables you to find your own unique better way so that you are managing your organization rather than it managing you. Using the principles and approach of dynamic work design will allow you to calm the chaos of your organization and help you find new and ever-better ways  to deliver results.” [Page 2]

They add, “Gradually, dynamic work design — its five principles and its approach to change — emerged as the best description of how we, our students, and our clients were producing such striking results so quickly…Because dynamic work design is based on principles and discovery, not rules and rituals, it can be applied in almost any type of organization.”

The business world today is much more volatile, more uncertain, more complex, and more ambiguous than at any prior time that I can recall. It is also true that it continues to change much faster and more frequently, causing all manner of challenges that are unprecedented in terms of their nature as well as their impact.

Repenning and Kieffer  note, “The key idea underlying dynamic work design is simply that this widely accepted notion of continual change in the external environment is not reflected in the construction and management of most organizations. Put differently, most organizational structures and processes are essentially static, meaning they have not been designed to accommodate a rapidly changing, unpredictable world.”

In Part I, they examine the major obstacles to dynamic work design and then in Part II, they focus on five key principles of  that approach:

1. Solve the right problem.
Comment: “There is surely nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency what should not be done at all.” Peter Drucker

2. Structure for discovery.
Comment: “If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.” Eppie Lederer  (aka Ann Landers)

3. Connect the human chain. 
Comment: “People won’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” Theodore Roosevelt

4. Regulate the flow.
Comment: “Overloading work guarantees less will be completed properly and it will take longer and cost more. Usually much more.” W.E. Deming

5. Visualize the work.
Comment: “Be the ball.” Ty Webb

Repenning and Kieffer thoroughly explain HOW following each of these principles.  They view a workplace culture as a living organism, a community within which its inhabitants are most likely to thrive if (HUGE “if”) they embrace and apply the aforementioned principles. It is no coincidence that those companies annually rated most highly admired and best to work for are also annually ranked among those that are most profitable, with the greatest cap value in their industry segment.

There will always be a better way to do almost anything. Yesterday’s breakthroughs are today’s norms, and probably obsolete or at least insufficient tomorrow. This is what Charles Kettering had in mind when observing, “If you’ve always done it that way, it’s probably wrong.”

While reading this book, I was again reminded of the brilliant Renaissance artist Michelangelo. He was asked about the difficulties that he must have encountered in sculpting his masterpiece David. He replied with an unassuming and comical description of his creative process: “It is easy. You just chip away the stone that doesn’t look like David.”

I highly recommend There’s Got to Be a Better Way to all executives (especially entrepreneurs) as well as to those now preparing for a career in business or have only recently embarked upon one.

Repenning and Kieffer urge you to think boldly, set highly ambitious (others probably assume to be “impossible”) goals, and then pursue each with passion and determination. Eliminate (“chip away”) whatever — and whoever– cannot help you to do that.

In Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s words, make a total commitment “to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”

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Here are two suggestions while you are reading There’s Got to Be a Better Way: First, highlight key passages. Also,  perhaps in a notebook kept near-at-hand (e.g. Apica Premium C.D. Notebook A5), record your comments, questions, and action steps (preferably with deadlines). Pay special attention to the Introduction and to the remarks that conclude each of the nine chapters.

These two simple tactics — highlighting and documenting — will expedite your frequent reviews of key material later.