Essays
A question for you about Field Notes I'm considering publishing my Field Notes—25 years of ethnographic observations from inside organizations around the world. I wrote these seriously, as organizational anthropology: what you'd document if you stumbled into an unknown tribe and tried to understand behaviors
Essays
I keep seeing versions of the same claim: that trust is the natural result of psychological safety. Or that it can be engineered through a formula. That’s tidy. It’s appealing and it’s convenient. It’s also not true. Psychological safety may create the conditions where trust could
Newsletter
I’ve been noticing something in conversations with clients lately: a kind of exhaustion that’s different from being busy. It’s the exhaustion of trying to lead through conditions that keep shifting faster than anyone can adapt to. These pieces won’t reduce that exhaustion. But they might help
Newsletter
I’ve been reading about how we learn, how we lead, and how we structure work. The pieces in this issue don’t follow a single thread, but they all challenge some assumption. Some are about rethinking development and growth, others about what actually drives people, and a couple about
work
We build organizations on assumptions that seem natural, even inevitable. These pieces show what happens when you look closely at five of them: that abundance means cheaper goods rather than better work, that hierarchy makes teams effective, that our workload reflects what’s necessary, that good conversations require agreement, and
Essays
A McKinsey type had managed to get on someone’s calendar. He had a pitch. I ended up in the room. He was already there when I walked in — standing at the head of the table, laptop open, smile polished. Oxford PPE and the particular self-confidence of someone who
control vs command
this is issue #76
Essays
I keep seeing versions of the same claim: that trust is the natural result of psychological safety. Or that it can be engineered through a formula. That's tidy. It's appealing and it's convenient. It's also not true. Psychological safety may create the
Essays
They celebrate your promotion to manager. You've finally arrived. Except you haven't. You've been amputated. Management isn't promotion; it's transformation through loss. Your expertise was once currency. Your output, tangible. Your control, complete. Each day ended with concrete evidence of
Newsletter
this is newsletter issue #75
Essays
A short plea against mistaking exposure for understanding
team connections
this is Issue #74