Category: Organizational Culture

Soul-Making

Soul can be a dif­fi­cult word when it is asso­ci­at­ed with a work­place. Work and busi­ness are the domain of mea­sure­ment and man­age­ment, of pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, log­ic, struc­ture, sys­tems, strate­gies and align­ments. Often these are things that have lit­tle obvi­ous con­nec­tion to the deep­er sto­ries of the peo­ple with­in the sys­tems. Those hid­den sto­ries may con­tain… Con­tin­ue read­ing Soul-Mak­ing

Leadership and Co-Design

Although the term, co-design, has more spe­cif­ic, for­mal mean­ings, I like to think of it very infor­mal­ly as two or more peo­ple think­ing togeth­er as equals about some spe­cif­ic change they want to make. In my field of orga­ni­za­tion dynam­ics, that could be shift­ing how the work is done or how an orga­ni­za­tion is struc­tured,… Con­tin­ue read­ing Lead­er­ship and Co-Design

The Side Effects of Hierarchy and Other Perils

A few days ago, in a con­ver­sa­tion with Amy Edmond­son of the Har­vard Busi­ness School, she sage­ly shared with me how hier­ar­chy “does not intend” its neg­a­tive side effects. She was speak­ing specif­i­cal­ly of ingrained dynam­ics that cause peo­ple to seek approval and avoid rock­ing the boat rather than ask­ing for help and speak­ing up… Con­tin­ue read­ing The Side Effects of Hier­ar­chy and Oth­er Perils