Project Overview: What the book is about "It may not be possible to predict when an institution will face a challenging event, but it is possible to predict the organization's ability to manage the event as it emerges." (Introduction Chapter IX) Performance is the reason for the existence of organizations. Through performance organizations that meet the needs of internal and external stakeholders as defined in their mission, goals and objectives.

This is true for all institutions. If the retailer does not store the goods the customer wants, the customer will shop elsewhere.

If a religious organization does not meet the needs of its followers, it leaves. If worship does not meet the needs of its members, it pursues its goal elsewhere.

If the manufacturing center can not produce goods that meet customer standards, the customer will reject them. Complexity theory, a tool used to examine the nature of dynamic systems such as organizations, can contribute to our understanding of institutions and ways to improve their performance. The models and materials described in the book illustrate the ways in which competencies, programs, processes and regulatory procedures are used to manage emerging risks, threats and vulnerabilities that challenge today's organizations.

This combined information enables the identification of individual enterprise profiles as a means to enhance our understanding of an important theory, and complexity, in an application-organization environment. Unique paradigms describing organizations (four types), events affecting organizations (six types), and organizational structure are presented to predict the organization's ability to manage different events as they arise and how to organize behavior about these events. Academics studying organizations and practitioners interested in improving them can use this information to facilitate basic descriptive thinking and analysis or more sophisticated tests aimed at understanding the dynamic nature of organizations as fully functioning systems.

At the heart of this effort is what is needed to achieve the performance required to achieve a vision or task, and why, despite planning, training and evaluation, a few institutions can ensure or maintain the required performance levels when confronted with events and routines to the maximum extent, . Particular emphasis is placed on understanding how to design knowledge, assessment, information and communication management practices to fit specific organizations rather than treating them as a "one size fits all" approach.

These are not merely limited theoretical discussions but are presented as ways of effectively talking about the individual institution's profile or competencies within a category or in contrast to other organizations.