Notes on Organizations
Observations, ideas, and practical tools for understanding and improving organizations.
Latest Writing
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Bob Dylan Teaches Change Management
When Bob Dylan went electric at Newport in 1965, the crowd booed. What they were reacting to wasn’t the quality of the music. It was a lesson in why good changes provoke resistance.
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Too Few Bridges
Employee surveys keep finding the same problem, and reorgs keep failing to fix it. Maybe the walls aren’t a mistake. Maybe they’re what expertise looks like from the outside.
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What Does Your Org Whisper?
The org chart is not the only place status gets assigned 4 min read In 2008, Paul Graham published a short essay called “Cities and Ambition.” His claim: every city whispers something. Not through billboards, but through the ambient culture of the place, the conversations overheard at dinner, the questions strangers ask when they meet…
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