I lead Organizational Design at Airbnb. Previously: August, Undercurrent.
Standardizing timing changes everything. Scheduling and resourcing used to be a complete mess at Undercurrent. Individuals and teams would be double- and triple-booked some weeks, while their colleagues had nothing to do. Building a team required hours of concerted effort: Who works well together? What’s the right team
A lot of what we do these days at Undercurrent falls under the “Organizational Design” banner. But that banner falls short by failing to align with one of my most strongly held beliefs: that nobody can design an organization that’s good enough, that fulfills on enough of our success
Innovation Labs need rules. Here are 21 that I documented in 2014 during my work inside and alongside four different such labs. They work!
Chick-Fil-A; The Agency Problem; NFL broadcasters; The Unsexy Side of Responsiveness; Amazon Fulfillment Centers
Basic premise: because technology (and other factors), firms were able to flatten, putting more managers under the direct control of a senior leader.
Conditions for a team; Measuring team effectiveness; Chautauqua; New customer relationships mean new responsibilities; Why do companies exist; The Shift Index.
For every dollar spent on hardware, companies need to spend nine dollars in software, training, and business process redesign. (I think that's way low.)
I very much enjoyed this article from the FT. I am not the first person to worry about the joint-stock company. Adam Smith, founder of modern economics, argued: “Negligence and profusion . . . must always prevail, more or less, in the management of the affairs of such a company.” His concern
Handelsbanken; Cross-subsidy; Regulatory capture; The origins of Venmo; Goldman Sachs.
Expensive communications loops; Edgerati; Leaders are awesome; The purpose of Gawker; Apple's operational effectiveness.
Purposeful autonomy has been, and always will be, the main goal of organizing.
Whether or not AI eats your job has to do with three bottlenecks: Perception & Manipulation; Creative Intelligence; Social Intelligence.
Type to search posts, essays, and chapters.
