organizational behavior
Evolution or Extinction
Today is Charles Darwin's birthday. It has me thinking about his core idea of "survival of the fittest" and how the concept is frequently misused in business. Fittest does not mean strength. It means the most resilient and adaptable in a particular environment or ecosystem.... Have you noticed that when workplace performance dips, people's first reaction is to rush to explain it? What they rarely do is slow down long enough to notice how the work started to feel different first.
And that doesn't show up in dashboards - but it does show up everywhere else.
The teams that recover fastest are the ones that say, 'Something feels off. Let's talk about that.' And that's irrespective of incentives, or even tighter processes.
In my experience, performance doesn't fall off when people stop caring, it falls off when people stop being sure about what caring looks like anymore.
This probably stands out to me because I spend a lot of time inside teams when performance is under pressure.
If you have any perspective on this, I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Ralph, Thank you. This is a really thoughtful extension of the point and I agree with you on the core issue: more time is often a very blunt response to a nuanced performance problem. What you’re describing at the policy level mirrors what I see inside organizations.... Have you noticed that when workplace performance dips, people's first reaction is to rush to explain it? What they rarely do is slow down long enough to notice how the work started to feel different first.... Incorruptible Organizations AMA with Eric Ries. Wednesday 2/4 at 3:00 PM CT
Lean Startup author who now focuses on legal structures to protect mission-driven organizations from corruption. incorruptible.co
Free book giveaway! Register here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNfb54LuzwII love how Eric keeps referencing mainstream examples like Vanguard and Novo Nordisk and Costco, so many organizational ideas blanket exclude big companies (often with the exception of Patagonia, lol) just because they're big.... Incorruptible Organizations AMA with Eric Ries. Wednesday 2/4 at 3:00 PM CT
Lean Startup author who now focuses on legal structures to protect mission-driven organizations from corruption. incorruptible.co
Free book giveaway! Register here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNfb54LuzwIIt is quite impossible to prevent or entirely rid any ‘mission-driven’ organization or institution of corruption. Authentic human behavior and personal motives are, of necessity, subordinated to ‘mission’ or greater cause.... Incorruptible Organizations AMA with Eric Ries
Wednesday 2/4 at 3:00 PM CT
Lean Startup author who now focuses on legal structures to protect mission-driven organizations from corruption. incorruptible.co
Free book giveaway! Register here.
Trust scores. Brand new, but the onboarding info suggests Trust Scores reflect how much a post's source "reflects my worldviews"? I'm not really looking for an echo chamber platform and had assumed these scores would focus more on good faith, or even veracity, as opposed to viewpoint alignment. I could totally see upvoting something/one I completely disagree with as long as I see them as using logic and rationality to support their good faith views. Am I misinterpreting?
I wholeheartedly agree. the "onboarding" is where most of my energy is going right now bc it needs a lot of work. It sets a big context for how people engage and understand what's going on here, what's different, and therefore what can be different.... Deliberately Development Orgs are bullshit?
I expect others here read and were influenced by An Everyone Culture: Becoming a Deliberately Developmental Organization by Kegan and Lahey? I remember first being introduced to it in a circling retreat probably 8 years ago or so.... "You know, there are 13 ways of doing anything. 11 of them will work. Just pick one and do it.”. Dennis Hightower, who at the time was head of Disney International.
https://www.nfx.com/post/9-habits-world-class-startupsHe asked me why I wasn’t doing something, and I responded by explaining the pros and cons of two different ways of doing it. Thoughtfully, he replied “You know, there are 13 ways of doing anything. 11 of them will work. Just pick one and do it.”
The best Founders avoid over-analyzing. At a startup, you don’t have time — and the result will most likely be marginal. Pick a way and do it. Be consistently decisive.I think there's something to this that is disincentivized by cultural scorekeeping. it's like when I did the math problem in my head and the teacher asked me to "show my work." As organizations grow, tracking becomes obsessive.... The Relateful Company should embrace more job titles. We’re under-appreciating orange.
We’ve included the green critiques, like the classic:
What gets measured gets managed — even when it’s pointless to measure and manage it, and even if it harms the purpose of the organisation to do so
- V. F. Ridgway, 1956But we need to embrace more healthy competition, striving for excellence, even rankings.
one way we can do this is to make more liberal use of titles, and brag on people. @Valerie Daniel is the MANAGING DIRECTOR, and we should have her listed as such in emails and things
What else is healthy orange and how can we transclude it?
What do we already do that is already healthy orange?Jordan, it looks like there’s a common thread here about reconciling differing perspectives on expertise and innovation. Specifically: Annabeth is facing a challenge between embracing competition and potential pushback, indicating a need for psychological safety in hierarchical... The Relateful Company should embrace more job titles. We’re under-appreciating orange.
We’ve included the green critiques, like the classic:
What gets measured gets managed — even when it’s pointless to measure and manage it, and even if it harms the purpose of the organisation to do so
- V. F. Ridgway, 1956But we need to embrace more healthy competition, striving for excellence, even rankings.
one way we can do this is to make more liberal use of titles, and brag on people. @Valerie Daniel is the MANAGING DIRECTOR, and we should have her listed as such in emails and things
What else is healthy orange and how can we transclude it?
What do we already do that is already healthy orange?I guess I’m also leaning in here because I think these ideas are super duper relevant to what we’re creating with UpTrust. we can welcome everything, but we can also privilege some ideas as better / more useful in the world / more grounded.... The Relateful Company should embrace more job titles. We’re under-appreciating orange.
We’ve included the green critiques, like the classic:
What gets measured gets managed — even when it’s pointless to measure and manage it, and even if it harms the purpose of the organisation to do so
- V. F. Ridgway, 1956But we need to embrace more healthy competition, striving for excellence, even rankings.
one way we can do this is to make more liberal use of titles, and brag on people. @Valerie Daniel is the MANAGING DIRECTOR, and we should have her listed as such in emails and things
What else is healthy orange and how can we transclude it?
What do we already do that is already healthy orange?It seems really plausible to me that Ellyn and Thea have some knowledge/expertise here is being missed, and that when you have that knowledge it kind of ethically obliges to do certain straightforward things (and make a best effort on some others) in order to meet a minimal duty... What do you think of Circling Europe dropping the term "Circling?". I almost don’t want
Circling Europe
to show up in my feed, but I am very curious about people’s thoughts and reactions.I get really curious about what these leftover feelings are that you haven’t attended to and what it means… what is the undesired outcome… if you give CE your attention.... Attempted Trump Assasination- Was he actually hit by a bullet? (meta commentary: I imagine the future of uptrust will host more conversations of this nature… so let’s see how we navigate it)
On Saturday, former president Donald Trump was the target of an attempted assassination.
Two things I want to talk about–
Was Trump actually hit by a bullet? I’m skeptical that a bullet grazed his ear, and think it’s more likely that a piece of shrapnel clipped him. I’m not intending to minimize the fact that someone definitely tried to kill him, but rather I am irritated by his spinning and inflation of the story if there is a truer thing to be said about what happened.
The secret service really fucked up. How on earth do they miss a lone sniper on a roof that many of the bystanders identified before them? I don’t think there is a conspiracy theory here, but do believe someone should probably be fired for their oversight.
I’d like to hear others’ opinions on this + where your credibility comes from. Name your news source or experience that leads you to believe what you’re sharing.
I have half remembered bits and pieces in my head about the different law enforcement groups involved in these kinds of things typically not collaborating about things like this - ie there is all kinds of politics between the groups about who gets to do things like secure sites... The Relateful Company should embrace more job titles
We’re under-appreciating orange. We’ve included the green critiques, like the classic: "What gets measured gets managed — even when it’s pointless to measure and manage it, and even if it harms the purpose of the organisation to do so" - V. F.... Attempted Trump Assasination- Was he actually hit by a bullet? (meta commentary: I imagine the future of uptrust will host more conversations of this nature… so let’s see how we navigate it)
On Saturday, former president Donald Trump was the target of an attempted assassination.
Two things I want to talk about–
Was Trump actually hit by a bullet? I’m skeptical that a bullet grazed his ear, and think it’s more likely that a piece of shrapnel clipped him. I’m not intending to minimize the fact that someone definitely tried to kill him, but rather I am irritated by his spinning and inflation of the story if there is a truer thing to be said about what happened.
The secret service really fucked up. How on earth do they miss a lone sniper on a roof that many of the bystanders identified before them? I don’t think there is a conspiracy theory here, but do believe someone should probably be fired for their oversight.
I’d like to hear others’ opinions on this + where your credibility comes from. Name your news source or experience that leads you to believe what you’re sharing.
in terms of leaning into disagreement—the secret service fucked up, but whether or not someone should be fired is super context dependent. I’m reminded of this classic story of the salesman who lost a million dollar deal at IBM, trying to resign, and his boss saying "Why would I...