Notes on Organizations

Observations, ideas, and practical tools for understanding and improving organizations.

Title River

Seeing organizations more clearly

Organizations are living systems with recurring patterns. Those patterns have been studied across many disciplines. Rather than promoting a single methodology, OrgRiver collects, connects, and interprets enduring ideas that help people see organizations more clearly and make better decisions.

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Field Notes

Observations and essays exploring how organizations work—and why.

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Field Guide

Concepts, laws, and mental models that sharpen organizational understanding.

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Toolkit

Practical frameworks and resources for improving organizations.

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Latest Writing

  • 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.

    Read →: Bob Dylan Teaches Change Management

  • 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.

    Read →: Too Few Bridges

  • 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…

    Read →: What Does Your Org Whisper?

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