Software for Scaled Organizing
TL;DR: PowerPoint is a terrible tool for organization design, and we need a trusted alternative designed to match our values. And, sorry, leader-owned maps of reporting lines aren't the answer.
Structure
Structure is the deepest variable in organizational life. Most everything else here points back to it.
49 posts
The Trouble With Hierarchy
Hierarchy lets leaders learn more; it pushes the org to learn about itself, not about customers; it creates busywork. A network of teams is the answer.
John Collison on Stripe's Org Design
Three takeaways: the power of small, coherent teams; speed as a quality of life metric; focusing on the value of the marginal team.
Less Strategy, More Structure
Explaining why big, transformative top-down projects never seem to work, and two simple recommendations to fix the glitch: less strategy; more structure.
Five Org Design Things N° 4
Tesla and vertical integration; hotels and the theory of the firm; Shipt dystopia; Range's newest raise; digital service.
Aragon Court & Decentralizing Justice
Decentralized justice systems... might be the future of corporate governance?
Rethinking Dynamism
The truth about most organizations, especially the big ones, is that they're structurally quite fast-moving and dynamic.
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
August's Starter Governance Kernel
Governance is recorded as either Roles or Policies. All of it is changeable with data on a cycle-by-cycle cadence, at open, facilitated Governance Meetings. Policies apply to teams that create them, and to any sub-teams. Everything else is up to your best judgement.
Type 2 Organizations
Some decisions are consequential and irreversible or nearly irreversible — one-way doors — and these decisions must be made methodically, carefully, slowly, with great deliberation and consultation. If you walk through and don’t like what you see on the other side, you can’t get back to where you were before.