About Me
Hello there! Thanks for coming to my (newest) site – I've been blogging off and on since 2007, at first about advertising, then about digital strategy, then about organization design.
Hello there! Thanks for coming to my (newest) site – I've been blogging off and on since 2007, at first about advertising, then about digital strategy, then about organization design.
About My Work
I found my way to this work through practice. When I moved to New York to work for Undercurrent in 2009, we were a practice focused on helping the world's biggest, most consequential firms figure out how to market in a post-digital world. In 2009, we were pushing the rock uphill, but by 2012 we started to realize that the world didn't need guidance on marketing or "digital" strategy, but instead needed to figure out how to reorganize to take advantage of the productivity gains made possible by new technologies.
All of our work was focused on getting new stuff to market – new products, new initiatives, new services – and we stopped telling people what to do, and instead helped them get it done with new ways of working and organizing. We tried labs. We tried separate business units. Sure, we got stuff done, but nothing really worked until we started to change the firm itself by changing its foundational methods: how decisions got made; how work was prioritized; how work was assigned and assessed. It felt like we'd stumbled upon real magic.
In 2015, along with a few friends from Undercurrent, I started August. We pushed this OD magic to the maximum. August continues to be an employee-owned, self-organized and self-managed, transparently operated, B-corp. In 2019, I left August and joined IPG: first with R/GA, and then with Black Glass.
Today, I'm fully focused on helping CMOs with Org Design for Marketing Orgs, and I think it's working: in 2023, Black Glass was named one of Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies and I was listed as one of Campaign's 40 Over 40.
Speaking
I love sharing insights from my work with groups large and small. Just email me and we'll make it happen.
Testimonials
Citations/Appearances
Large Conferences
Corporate Training Series
Private Corporate & Education Events
Large Corporate Conventions
Other Stuff
I love to cook, ride and work on bicycles, and play tennis. I have a cat, named Ian, and I live in Boerum Hill – a neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York – with my wife, Emily.
Read Next
Why Nothing Gets Done Around Here
Hundreds of thousands of hours are getting wasted on bad decision-rights. It’s got to stop. (Contains at least two good ways to fix this problem.)
The Matrix Design Canvas
A tool that helps managers and individual contributors design systems that get better performance out of dual-reporting roles.
Five Org Design Things N° 8
Turns out it's about learning, all the way down: How basic technologies shift strategy; Microsoft's org structure research; X-Teams; building Service Design capability; democracy at work
Netflix, Democracy, and ~Operational Excellence
Why Netflix's approach to complexity – going all the way back to 2001 – creates better results.