Four open questions
Creating space for people to not to have a say, cohesiveness in decentralization, and when to not systems think
Hello, The Overlap readers!
I don’t have a fully fleshed-out idea this week. I spent a lot of my last two weeks driving, spending time with family, with some climbing here and there. I wrote about my parents recently too.
At work, my team and I just launched a major project for a large tech company and started new work with another large tech company. Wish I could disclose who they are, but I’m going to respect their confidentiality. I’m genuinely stoked about the work garden3D is doing. I can share that XXIX, garden3D’s brand design studio, designed this page for Figma’s new Variable Fonts feature. I work with some smart people.
Anyway, I have four questions bouncing in my brain. So a different essay this week.
1. For >3000-person companies, what does a feedback loop around how decisions get made look like?
I find it easier to do this with a 30-person org than a 3000-person org.
Perhaps some practices work for both small and large companies. Like closing rounds at the end of meetings.
But take a re-org for example. How do you reflect on how the re-org is going? Structure follows strategy (typically). Maybe you can have leadership reflect on how we’re doing against our new strategy, and use that as a way to invite the conversation about whether the re-org is working or not.
2. When is it best for people not to have a say?
Say you live in New York. You use the MTA. You care about the MTA being clean, not running late, not being expensive, having a/c, being available 24/7, and the employees being treated fairly. You probably don’t care as much about the color of the Metrocard. Or the seats. Or Supreme.
Maybe you do care about those things. I don’t.
This is probably a bad example — New Yorkers are opinionated about everything. But my point is that some people just want to do the thing they enjoy doing the most. Designing. Coding. Writing content. They care less about having to weigh in on every decision — it feels like management, which isn’t what they signed up for.
As org designers, let’s remember this. We believe in consent so much that we feel like everyone should always have a say in every decision. The tradeoff is that this overwhelms folks. Some days don’t want to make a ton of decisions. You just want to go from point A to point B, predictably.
I see DAOs struggling with this too. Members have to weigh in on tons of proposals as a result of everyone needing a say in every decision.
Can we focus the decision-making activity to the people who have the most expertise and/or are most impacted?
How do we create a culture where folks less passionate or impacted about certain topics don’t feel pressured to have a say? To what extent is this just on that individual? To what extent is this on the organization?
3. What does cohesiveness look like for a company that has tons of unique products?
What does cohesion look like for companies that have products that solve different use cases (productivity tools, eCommerce, ads)? Is there a needle to thread here, or do we fully accept that each product is different and that’s okay?
4. How much can we unlock by focusing on people, rather than the system?
garden3D recently participated in an awesome workshop with Tia from Affirma, a DEI consultant. Tia pointed out that when we tend to think in systems, we forget to think about people and their core needs. I was intrigued. I’m such a systems thinker. I believe that improving systems can improve the lives of people. But she reminded us that thinking from the other person’s perspective — particularly about their core needs — can create change at a local level, which ultimately will impact the system. Start small.
What would be possible if we focused on which core needs aren’t being met, rather than the dysfunction of our systems? What can be unlocked there? What can’t be unlocked there?
What I’m Reading
The chaos theory of startups. Not me sharing this because it brings together chaos theory, organizations, and the Lakers.
Thin Platforms. On how Microsoft and Stripe are thin (rather than thick) platforms. Building off of the idea vs thin clients (software that’s designed to communicate with a server, like Pokemon Go) vs thick clients (software that can function without a server, like Pokemon Arceus).
Co-ownership as a web3 social primitive. I don’t intend for this newsletter to become web3/DAO newsletter. But I like sharing examples of how folks in the DAO space are grokking concepts that org designers think about too.
This Tweet:
What I’m Sending
Led my first 5.11a in Holcomb this weekend. Called Chaps My Hide. I had to look up what that meant.
I don’t sport climb as much as I boulder. And it was my second time lead climbing (attaching clips to the bolts as you go up as opposed to climbing with the rope attached to the top of a climb) outside. Basically, leading is hard — it’s a different animal from bouldering, let alone toproping. So this is a big accomplishment for me!
I’m still a boulderer at heart, but I’m starting to love sport climbing. The focuser in me feels torn!
Anyway. See you in two weeks,
–tim