More often, a better idea confronts an entrenched one. Asking for permission to change typically results in permission being denied. What's a good soldier to do?

I've started gathering stories of Organizational Insurgents and their Insurgencies. Before you start calling me a terrorist or a supporter of terrorists, I'll point you to the dictionary, where insurgency is defined as:“Insurgency: the quality or state of being insurgent; specifically: a condition of revolt against a government that is less than an organized revolution and that is not recognized as belligerency. Latin insurgent- to rise up, from in- + surgere to rise.” (from Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary)

Following is a first story. I'm gathering more. If you have one you'd like to share, please contact me. I think there's a pattern of successful insurgencies. Could be useful to tease it out. Slip over here for more ...

I'm with you. This idea upsets me greatly and doesn't, on the face of it, seem to describe how we produce output in companies today. Joel, you note that much of this already happens, and I agree with you. And if we closely investigated how Hoover Dam actually WAS built, we might be surprised at how much of what I tried to describe happened even there.

My invitation: Observe what you do for a week. Watch how much of what you do depends upon unplanned and unplannable exchanges.

Here's a little poem to guide the inquiry. Slip over here for more ...

We live in a time immersed in a culture focused upon processes. I believe this is a fundamental misinterpretation, one which causes many of its own shortcomings.

I warmly appreciate Gregory Howell and his colleagues for pointing out an obvious truth: the metaphor we unselfconsciously use to guide our work is faulty. We see work as a series of disembodied input-process-output processes, though much of the work we engage in these days cannot be effectively characterized in this way. How we think about work influences everything.

How would it be if we characterized work as primarily relational rather than primarily transformational. In this frame, work is the product of interacting relationships, not compliance with disembodied processes. Each is free, within ethical boundaries, to engage in offer-bid-accept trades intended to achieve results. How they engage, when they engage, and to a very large part how they produce results is in the individual trader’s hands, understanding that the future viability of the community depends upon sustaining relationships, not simply fulfilling a current need.

I invite you to join this consideration. I need your help, whether that comes as biting criticsm or encouragement. Consider how this frame of reference might change the work you do and we’ll talk.
Slip over here for more ...