Each week: three ideas to make work better. This week, those ideas will help you differentiate your product or service. “When everybody zigs, zag,” wrote Marty Neumeier in the appropriately named Zag — The #1 Strategy of High-Performance Brands. I read it years ago whilst working at a branding firm…

Each week: three ideas on the future of work and organization. This week: three ideas that help explain how the Viable Systems Model (VSM) can help balance organizational effectiveness and control. VSM is like a Unified Field Theory for organizational design and development. It helps us to unbundle organizations into…

Each week: three ideas on the future of work and organization. This week: three ideas that define Web 1, 2, and 3. (Originally published in the WorkMatters newsletter on Feb 4, 2022). I don’t know about you but I’ve found this whole Web3 thing to be more than a little…

Each week: three ideas on the future of work and organization. This week: Three takes on the old organization-is-an-oil-tanker analogy. You’ve heard it before: hierarchical organizations are like oil tankers — slow and difficult to maneuver. It’s an apt analogy, and I do like the armada-of-speedboats solution that typically follows…

Each week: three ideas on the future of work and organization. This week: a history lesson courtesy of the automotive industry. I’m reading Patrick Hoverstadt’s The Fractal Organization and it’s turning out to be a great read. Lessons in organizational design abound and I’m taking copious notes. One of those…

Each week: three ideas on and about the future of work. This week: three ideas on the lightweight process that I use to get WorkMatters published on time, every time. I recently had an opportunity to present my working process to a group of colleagues interested in personal productivity and…

Each week: three ideas about the future of work. This week: three ideas about InnerSource and how information is shared within organizations. InnerSource is the practice of using open source methods to develop proprietary software. The term was originally coined by Tim O’Reilly more than twenty years ago, but it…

Each week: three ideas on the future of work. This week: the three most liked, read, and referenced WorkMatters stories from 2021. (Originally published in the newsletter on December 31, 2021). 1. Data Analytics Back in June, I made a bit of a departure from my usual fair of structures and systems to…

Each week: three ideas on the future of work and organization. This week, those ideas serve to remind us that “people problems” are neither problems nor about people — they are opportunities to improve our management models Let’s dig in. 1. Smith on Becoming “The man whose whole life is spent in performing a…