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The relationship between organization development, change management and...
Chapter 1 of the book I'm revising to be a third edition discussed 'what is organization design?' Ploughing on with writing chapter 2 and helped by the comments to my blog last week on Change...
View ArticleCo-located or dispersed teams?
There were conversations going on this week about the merits of having dispersed versus co-located team members. We are trying to decide whether to co-locate people. It's a fraught and complex issue...
View ArticleGrowth mindset
I'm working periodically with a small team of people in what we loosely call a learning set – basically they set a topic, I get some discussion ideas together on it and then we spend a couple of hours...
View ArticleDesigning resilience
I've just been listening to a talk by Martin Reeves on building 'resilient businesses that flourish in the face of change' that speaks to 6 principles - prudence, adaptation, embeddedness, modularity,...
View ArticleSimplifying design
A couple of years ago I wrote a blog on the Complexity of Simplicity so I wondered if I'd be repeating myself if I wrote again about simplicity. But having just re-read it I'm taking a different tack...
View ArticleFailure as a form of helpful feedback
I'd given myself the task today of starting chapter 3 of the new edition of my book. But instead – I've decided to write on learning from failure which is a topic I discussed in several conversations...
View ArticleRituals, restrictions, and relationships
What are the rituals, restrictions, and relationships that define cultures? I ask because last week I was in two events where multi-cultures were in play. Event one was in Dubai and one of the things...
View ArticleThinking about design
My blog topics usually arise from the week preceding Sunday – blog writing day. This week's looks in both directions. Back at last week's idea and forward into next week's event.Looking forward: next...
View ArticleDo organisation designers need political skills?
In a couple of work-shops I've been in during the last week we've started to explore 'politics'– both in a governmental sense and in an organisational sense. They're shorthanded as 'Politics' and...
View ArticleHandling multiple disjointed pieces of design work
During the week, I was contacted by someone I used to work with – I'll call him Bill - asking for help on a piece of work he'd just been asked to manage. Briefly his manager had asked him to develop a...
View ArticleMoral courage and intellectual humility
I watched Crimson Tide last weekend. It's a terrific film on all things leadership with a strong theme on the 'moral courage' shown in it by two men who take opposite views and hold on to them. Watch...
View ArticleAstonishment and don't know
'To be astonished is one of the surest ways of not growing old too quickly'. Sidonie-Gabrielle ColetteOne of the words that has not yet come into common organizational usage is 'astonishment' and I'm...
View ArticleOf nets and networks
Last weekend I was in Villajoyosa, a Spanish fishing port, 'birthplace of the fishing net industry'. Walking around the harbour and seeing the nets all piled up started me thinking about what was...
View ArticleYak shaving
Someone said to me that he was yak shaving and I had to look up the phrase. It turns out to be:'Any seemingly pointless activity which is actually necessary to solve a problem which solves a problem...
View ArticleEnergy use
Last week I accepted an invitation to have a Smart Meter installed to monitor my electricity usage. At pretty much the same time I got an email with an info sheet about the privacy aspects of smart...
View ArticleBunker days
A while ago, in our daily stand-up, one of our team said she was going to have a 'bunker day'. You may know that, 'A bunker is a defensive military fortification designed to protect people or valued...
View ArticleOn purpose and hope
There's a phrase painted along the corridor wall, on the way to the cafeteria, of a building I frequent. I'm assuming it's read by lots of people, walking by it to buy their lunch, although when I...
View ArticleHolding patterns
Last week I was reminded of my aeons ago primary school experience of having to bring in something for the 'nature table' and then being made to stand up and show it to my classmates and tell them...
View ArticleDesigning for happiness
What I didn't know when until I got to Dubai last week, to facilitate an organization design programme, was that 'The UAE Cabinet, chaired over by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum,...
View ArticleWhich organisation design programme?
Hi Naomi, I was hoping that you'd be able to give me a bit of advice, as I'd like to get a diploma or other qualification on organisation design but I'm not sure which programmes/trainings would be...
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