#158 - Jana Werner & Phil Le-Brun: How to Build an Organization That Learns and Adapts Fast

Episode notes

Jana Werner is a global executive advisor and Executive in Residence at Amazon Web Services, where she works with Fortune 500 leadership teams on organizational transformation and enterprise strategy. She holds a PhD in uncertainty dynamics in projects and has contributed to academic research and teaching at institutions including Oxford and the London School of Economics. Phil Le-Brun spent 31 years at McDonald’s, serving as International CIO and leading technology delivery across more than 120 countries. He is now an Executive in Residence at AWS, serving as an enterprise strategist and evangelist, with advanced degrees in systems thinking. Together, they are the authors of The Octopus Organization: A Guide to Thriving in a World of Continuous Transformation . Most large companies still operate like machines. Rigid hierarchies, tight controls, and permission-based decision making may deliver predictability, but they quietly kill ownership, learning, and innovation. By contrast, the most adaptive organizations operate more like living systems, distributing intelligence, empowering teams, and enabling continuous transformation.

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