Clay Parker Jones

Rethinking Dynamism

The truth about most organizations, especially the big ones, is that they're structurally quite fast-moving and dynamic.

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August

Onward!

I've left August to join R/GA. Some reasons why, along with a few thoughts on consulting.

Competitive Intensity, Business Models, and Distributed Authority

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Organization Design

Competitive Intensity, Business Models, and Distributed Authority

The correct answer to a question about the level of distributed authority doesn't just respond to the will of the people, or to some theoretical norm – it has to be in conversation with the market dynamics of the industry and the company's position in that market.

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The Trouble With Innovation

Several years and one company ago, I found myself in a mid-project meeting with a group of clients from a large hospitality company. We were sat in an innovation room that could have been plucked directly from the d.School – every single furnishing came

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innovation

21 Rules for Lab Development

Something that I wrote in 2014 when I was in the middle of working on a number of in-house innovation labs: 1 Start small. Everyone should agree at the outset to limit the scope of what the lab aims to do. Groups seldom follow

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Organizational Transformation

Cooperation & Discord

I'm going back and reading through my old Diplomacy & World Affairs texts. They're useful: Cooperation is contrasted with discord; but is also distinguished from harmony. Cooperation, as compared to harmony, requires active attempts to adjust policies to meet the demands of others. That

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Organizational Transformation

Creating The Conditions

This is what I delivered yesterday at a corporate offsite in beautiful Calistoga, California. It was a one-day session; the ask from the client was to get the team to

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Organizational Transformation

Small Experiments With Radical Intent

Several months back, Erica and I were doing an introductory session with a Global Operations team inside of one of August's larger clients. We started with a quick retrospective to understand the issues facing the team. Along with the usual teaming stuff, we noticed

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Organizational Transformation

Change Activism

“Change Activism” has been a handy if hard-to-use phrase to help me frame how I view change in an organizational context.[1] We invite teams to try simple practices that make it easier for them to change actively, on-purpose, and informed by user data.

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Change Activism

Peeling Carrots

As I was peeling carrots for soup last night (snow day!), I realized that I always do it the same way: by doing the big end first. If you peel the carrot the other way, starting with the skinny end, the diameter and the

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Interviews

On Organizational Constitutionality for August

Podcasting is fun! Emily interviewed Mike and me about August's new Constitution and the role of the Acting President (which I fill now, which is fun).

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Speaking

On Organizational Learning for YCN

Last year while in London helping Joe set up August's London office, I stopped by YCN to do a quick interview about how we help organizations learn. Good fun – have

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finance

Managing August’s Finances

Consulting is a simple business, with few logistical or financial challenges to master. Even so, we take operations pretttty seriously at August. Probably more seriously than most businesses of our size, but that’s what makes us great. Right? Over the last 18-ish months,

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finance

Bonuses At August

Occasionally in the course of running our business, we will create excess profits. Excess? Profits? I thought we were a for-profit business! Turns out you can have too much profit. For example, if you’re not expecting to have a big profit at the

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transparency

Ownership & Symmetry

Why do founders behave so poorly? Why do they struggle to distribute authority? Why is it so hard for employees to have their voices heard, for their good data from the edge of the organization to be incorporated into decisions? I believe all of