Each week: three ideas to help up create better organizations. This week: three ideas to help us work with uncertainty. (Originally published in the WorkMatters newsletter in April 2022). “Every piece of work has two phases”, writes Ryan Singer in Shape Up: Stop Running in Circles and Ship Work that…

Each week: three ideas to help us build better organizations. This week: three ideas on how a bit of self-awareness can protect us from bouts of over-confidence. I’ve been reading Adam Grant’s book Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know. It’s an entertaining read and I’ve particularly…

Each week: three ideas on and about the future of work. This week: three ideas about Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAO). (Originally published in the WorkMatters newsletter on March 18, 2022). DAOs are purpose-driven communities governed by code that is collectively owned and managed by members, without traditional leadership. Depending on…

Each week: three ideas on the future of work. This week: three ways for organizations to manage variety. (This post was originally published in the WorkMatters newsletter on March 11, 2022). The Law of Requisite Variety tells us that an organization’s ability to manage variety must match the variety of…

Each week: three ideas on and about the future of work. This week: three perspectives on the topic of self-managed organizations. This article was originally published in the WorkMatters newsletter on March 4, 2022. We tend to think of self-organization in terms of freedom and autonomy for the individual. That’s…

Each week: three ideas for how to build better organizations. This week: three ideas on role-based hiring. Originally published in the newsletter on Feb 25, 2022. As I’ve written about previously, MAQE is transitioning from a position-based to a role-based org structure. It’s a transformation in the true sense of…

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…