Systems and Complexity
People are easy to see. Systems are hard to see. Posts that explore how to see and influence systems + how to lead and manage in complexity.
Blog Posts

How do you create an environment for great work? Where healthy self-organization happens? You notice...

In ecology, the process through which rocky ground becomes a forest is referred to as...
When there’s an issue in an organization, people have a tendency to focus on fixing...

Systems drive behavior. They also influence patterns of thought. When we enter a system—a company...

When I say “work on system,” I mean influencing factors that contribute to patterns of...
I recently sat down for an interview with Marcus Blankenship of Programming Leadership. We talked...
Many problems are easier to solve when you have data. However, there is a difference...
I don’t doubt that its possible to have an organization with out traditional managers. I’ve...
I recently did an interview with the nice folks at Softhouse.se for their Lean Magazine....
In response to my recent post on Agile Metrics, a reader asked, “Why did you...
Recently, I attended two retrospectives. Different teams, different states, different facilitators. I’m usually on the...

How can managers support teams to truly support team responsibility? In the early days of...
Podcasts

We, humans, are greatly influenced by the people around us. Our social networks affect our...

Changing the paradigms—beliefs and assumptions about how things work—can be powerful in changing systems. But...

Systems reflect the beliefs and assumptions of the ppl & societies who create them. Changing...

We experience and respond to events—what’s in front of us now. But often, if we...

What do forests have to do with organizational change? The ecological process of forest succession...
Videos

Esther Derby keynote deals with how a human deals with patterns, she provides the audience...