Notes on systems, noise and decisions.
These are the things that come up in my work again and again. I wrote them down so I can stop explaining them over and over.
Meetings Are Often a Symptom, Not the Problem
Before you cancel the weekly meeting, find out what it was quietly doing. Most of them are a workaround for information that has nowhere else to go.
What Technical Support Taught Me About Organizational Design
In thousands of support calls, the problem the caller described was almost never the real fault. But how they described it told me exactly where they were standing.
Sometimes the Correct Recommendation Is: Don't Buy Anything
The hardest advice to charge for is the advice to buy nothing. Most consultants are set up so they cannot give it.
Writing next
Why the Hardest Business Problems Don’t Belong to One Department
The gaps between teams. The problems nobody owns. The problems that outlast every shake-up.
Your Organization Has Noise — Even When Everyone Is Good at Their Job
Getting different answers to the same question is not a sign that people are bad at their jobs. That is exactly why nobody fixes it.
The First Answer in the Meeting Is Not Necessarily the Best Answer
Why the first answer sticks, why speaking order matters, and what a confident voice costs you.
Stop Treating Employees Like Deterministic Machines
People have good days and bad days. Design the work to expect that, instead of punishing it.
When Every Department Is Performing Well but the Company Still Isn’t
How each team doing its best can still add up to a company doing worse.
Why Customer Complaints Often Begin Far Away From Customer Service
Tracing a complaint back through the departments that caused it.
The Difference Between Solving a Problem and Moving It to Another Department
How work gets pushed somewhere else and counted as done.
The Value of the Person Who Doesn’t Answer Immediately
Silence, thinking time, and who gets heard in a room.
Why Another Meeting May Be Evidence That Your Information Architecture Failed
The meeting as a workaround for a system that does not share information on its own.
Would you rather just talk it through?
Most of these started as something a client described in a first call. If one of them sounds like your situation, describe it to me directly.