There’s No Way an Algorithm Made This Playlist
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What’s the link between what makes a good radio show and a good building? It might be generating a sense of wholeness.
Category Archives: book riffs
A Conversation is the Smallest Unit of Change
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The only way we can make ourselves is through making each other. And we always have a choice in how we make others. Do we do it using generative, both/and, mutually thriving stories, thoughts, and language, or do we do it using narcissistic, better than, zero-sum ideas? The choices we make for how we make others drives who “we” are.
The Power of Purposeful Innovation
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Firms often view doing good and making a profit as trade-offs – if you do well at one, its at the expense of the other. However, the story of the Herman Miller company is just one that shows that the two actually often go hand in hand.
Technological Revolutions and the Governance Gap
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There is often a gap between how fast technology changes, and how fast human institutions respond to this change. This Governance Gap is one of the core problems of management today.
Do The Hard Work
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Many people want to act empathetically, but you can’t do this if you don’t first build empathy. And that’s the hard part.
It Doesn’t Have to Be the Way It Is
Innovation is subversive
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Ideas change the world. It’s up to us to make sure they change things for the better.
Before Tom Peters, before Peter Drucker, we had Mary Parker Follett
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If we flatten out our hierarchies and manage more inclusively, our organisations are more successful. So why don’t we do this?
Here’s Your License to Innovate!
All the Permission You Need
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People often wait for permission before they’ll try out new ideas. Now you have it.
How to Use Polarity Management to Support Innovation
You Need Both Execution and Innovation to Succeed
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To be a successful organisation, we need the skills to both find and execute new ideas. These two skill-sets often seem to be opposites. However, it is much more productive to think of them as a polarity – an interdependent set of skills which are both simultaneously necessary for success.
Never Delegate Understanding
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We often look for shortcuts to change, but there are none. The design process used by Charles and Ray Eames gives us insight into how we have to do the hard work if we want to change the world.
How to Design for Outcomes
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If we want to change the world, it’s not enough to have great ideas. We also have to have the managerial skills needed to execute our ideas. The baby incubator from Design that Matters is a great case study showing the obstacles we face.
How Should We Organise for the Social Era?
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Our organisations are idea-processing machines. This means that we need to think about how we get work done in new ways. There are some fascinating lessons in how to do this in the world’s first organisation chart, from 1854!