Hidden Patterns

A book about fixing the invisible stuff that makes work suck. Not the obvious stuff like bad bosses or dumb policies, but the deeper patterns that slow teams down, kill good ideas, and waste everyone's time.

It gives you small moves that actually help work get better, no matter where you sit in the org.

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Foundations

Bedrock principles upon which effective organizations are built, covering essential aspects like shared purpose, transparency, and trust. You’ll find patterns here that create clarity about why teams come together, how purpose shapes boundaries, and why trust and openness are necessary for long-term success.

  1. True Purpose: The enduring reason that drives meaningful action and connects individuals, teams, and organizations to shared goals.
  2. Rule of Law: Nobody in the organization is above the rules that the org sets for itself.
  3. Structural & Psychological Safety: Psychological safety allows for innovation and learning, while structural safety ensures that decision rights and organizational status are protected.
  4. Expanded Available Power: When leaders give away some of their decision-making authority and resources to other levels, innovations and adjustments in course are possible without the say-so of the boss.
  5. Curiosity: Lead with wonder, and allow rapid experiments and shared insights to outpace tidy certainty.
  6. Do No Harm: Actively prevent unnecessary harm, whether to employees, communities, or the environment.
  7. Wholeness: Allow employees to bring their full selves to work.
  8. Role-Soul Distinction: Decouple your personal identity from your professional roles.
  9. Dissolvability: Teams, roles, and processes should be assumed to be temporary and regularly reassessed.
  10. Consent & Consensus: Distinguish between consent (acceptable) and consensus (actively supported).
  11. Pace Layers: Different aspects of an organization evolve at different speeds; structure decision-making to respect these layers.
  12. Cooperation: Cooperation thrives in environments where discord is acknowledged and structured into productive negotiation.

Structuring

These patterns illuminate how to thoughtfully shape teams, departments, and even entire organizations. From deliberately small, autonomous groups designed for agility to interconnected yet independent units that support resilience, these patterns help you understand how structure impacts innovation, collaboration, and efficiency.

  1. Network of Teams: Networks of teams balance autonomy with structured coordination through explicit interfaces and protocols.
  2. Distributed Management: Management responsibilities are shared within a team, rather than centralized in an individual human.
  3. Elections: Leaders are chosen through structured elections rather than appointments.
  4. Purpose, Customer, Platform: Structure the organization around purpose-driven customer needs, with platforms enabling customer-focused work.
  5. Platform Teams: Internal support teams (HR, finance, IT) function like product teams, offering scalable self-service tools.
  6. Self-Managed Teams: Teams operate autonomously within clear boundaries, making decisions independently.
  7. Lean Teams: Small, focused teams outperform large teams by reducing complexity and improving execution.
  8. Talent Marketplace: A digitally enabled marketplace for talent and work within the organization.
  9. Guilds: Cross-team communities that voluntarily share knowledge and learning.
  10. Chapters: Role-based communities set standards and share best practices, allowing teams to remain independent.
  11. Domains, Assets & Standards: Clear ownership of domains and assets reduces friction; each team knows its decisions and resources.
  12. Upward Representation: Teams select representatives to participate in higher-level decisions, ensuring decisions reflect teams’ input.
  13. Team Incentives: Incentives structured at the team level promote collaboration instead of competition.

Direction

Clear, compelling visions and making decisions inclusively and effectively. Patterns around transparent goal-setting, decision-making frameworks that favor clarity and consent over slow-moving consensus, and strategies for clear, purpose-driven communication are outlined.

  1. Do the Right Thing: Clarify long-term purpose before optimizing execution.
  2. Active Steering: Empower teams to make frequent, smaller adjustments rather than relying on rigid plans.
  3. Objectives & Key Results: Define ambitious objectives with measurable results to track and adjust progress.
  4. Strategy Heuristic: Simplify strategy into memorable rules that clarify decision-making.
  5. Structured Decision-Making: Use explicit, transparent processes for making major decisions.
  6. Advice: Separate input from decision-making authority to increase valuable feedback.
  7. Transparency: Default to open information sharing, balanced with privacy when necessary.
  8. Relative Targets: Use relative performance benchmarks rather than rigid annual budgets or goals.
  9. Pull Updates: Leaders directly access updates rather than relying on reports.
  10. Demos: Replace status reports with demonstrations of actual work.
  11. Metrics Review: Regularly integrate performance metrics into discussions.
  12. Backlog Management: Maintain a clear backlog to keep priorities explicit and transparent.
  13. Conflict as a Resource: Treat constructive conflict as essential and beneficial for progress.
  14. Conflict Resolution: Implement clear, structured methods to resolve conflict effectively.
  15. Colleague Letter of Understanding: Explicitly document working agreements among colleagues.
  16. Open Space Technology: Run self-organizing, participant-driven workshops.
  17. Future Backward: Envision ideal outcomes first, then identify steps needed to achieve them.
  18. Team Charter: Explicitly define team purpose, roles, decisions, and processes in writing.

Practice

The routines, habits, and processes that support great work. These patterns aren’t mere procedures but deep practices: frequent retrospectives that promote continuous improvement, simple communication habits that build trust, and lightweight documentation approaches that enable rapid learning and adaptation.

  1. Check In & Out: Brief check-ins at meeting start and end create space for presence and connection.
  2. Only Important Notes: Limit notes to decisions, key changes, and actions to reduce information overload.
  3. Iterative Shipping: Frequently share work in progress for early input rather than polishing in isolation.
  4. Action Meeting: Structure meetings explicitly around actions rather than passive discussion.
  5. Rounds: Structured turns in conversation to be sure everyone has a voice without interruption.
  6. Adaptive Agenda: Keep meeting agendas flexible and dynamically prioritized.
  7. Work in Public: Make work visible through shared documents and dashboards instead of private updates.
  8. Meeting Roles: Clearly assigned facilitator, notetaker, and timekeeper roles keep meetings structured (but that’s only the start).
  9. Triage: Assess and categorize issues by urgency and importance before tackling them.
  10. Have One Conversation: Meetings should have a single conversation at a time for discipline and clear focus.
  11. Pairing: Pair work enhances learning, quality, and shared problem-solving.
  12. Kanban: Use visual task boards to clarify workflows and priorities.
  13. Facilitation: Skilled facilitation structures conversations and supports decision-making.

Learning

Patterns to cultivate learning at every level. Patterns in this section emphasize the importance of continuous feedback, safe-to-fail experimentation, and proactive knowledge sharing across boundaries. You’ll learn how to build cultures that naturally evolve, grow, and thrive through ongoing, collective learning.

  1. Logbook: Record key decisions and insights in a team logbook to track progress and history.
  2. Emergent Leadership: Leadership emerges from expertise and context.
  3. Health Check: Regularly assess team and process health to proactively identify issues.
  4. Hack Day: Periodically dedicate time to explore new ideas freely outside regular routines.
  5. Flow State Work: Design environments that support focused, uninterrupted periods of deep work.
  6. Experimentation: Regularly test new ideas through small experiments to continuously improve.
  7. Team/Process as Product: Apply product management thinking to continually refine how teams operate.
  8. Length Limit: Impose explicit length constraints on assignments and policies.
  9. Cadence: Establish consistent cycles for work and reflection to sustain steady progress.
  10. Retrospectives: Regular team reflection sessions identify improvement opportunities.
  11. Boundary Management: Clearly define role and team boundaries to prevent confusion and enhance accountability.

Space

The physical and virtual environments that shape daily interactions and productivity. These patterns consider how environments can either nurture creativity or (oops!) hinder it. You’ll get insights into creating spaces that actively encourage the behaviors, interactions, and cultures your organization seeks.

  1. Process on the Wall: Make workflows visible and accessible by putting processes on display.
  2. Fail Wall: Publicly document failures and learnings to normalize experimentation.
  3. No Leadership Offices: Leaders sit with teams to reinforce transparency and approachability.
  4. No Assigned Desks: Flexible seating encourages collaboration.
  5. Space for Work: Design physical spaces intentionally around the types of work performed.
  6. Hiding Places: Provide quiet, private spaces for focused, uninterrupted work.
  7. Whiteboards at Intersections: Place whiteboards in common areas to encourage spontaneous collaboration.
  8. Movable Everything: Furnish the workspace with flexible, movable elements to adapt quickly.