Aragon Court & Decentralizing Justice
Decentralized justice systems... might be the future of corporate governance?
Clay Parker Jones
I'm an organization designer at R/GA. I was a Co-Founder of August, and the Managing Partner of Undercurrent. Sign up for ways of working guides and a semi-weekly newsletter:
Rethinking Dynamism
The truth about most organizations, especially the big ones, is that they're structurally quite fast-moving and dynamic.
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
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.
Assessing Performance in Responsive Orgs
When we surveyed a bunch of organizations, we found that effectiveness was correlated with leadership helping create networks within the org.
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 from their catalog. Sitting at the
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 this advice; there seems to be
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 is, not only does it depend
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 think big and consider their business from a clean sheet. My bias is to do that while leaving them with
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 an issue that, for the team,
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. When these practices work for teams,
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 newly wet surface don't give you
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).
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 a watch!
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, we have developed five spreadsheets that
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