4 min read

Organizational Design Series #5: The Informal Power Map (Who Actually Gets Things Done)

Formal authority rarely tells the whole story of how work advances or stalls. Mapping who accelerates initiatives, exercises hidden vetoes, and builds coalitions reveals the informal power system a redesign must engage without turning diagnosis into gossip.
2 min read

Organizational Design Series #4: Incentives Are the Infrastructure of Behavior

Incentives extend far beyond compensation to status, fear, promotion, attention, and forgiveness. Because people optimize for what organizations reward, leaders must examine where local or short-term metrics quietly produce gaming, conceal weak contribution, or damage the wider system.
2 min read

Organizational Design Series #3: The Coordination Trap (And How to Escape It)

Coordination becomes a trap when organizations patch structural interdependence with meetings, channels, and committees. Repeated handoffs, shared bottlenecks, dual authority, and information routed up and down often signal that team boundaries or services need redesign.
2 min read

Organizational Design Series #2: Decision Rights: Who's Actually Allowed to Decide What

Organizational friction often reflects conflicting authority, not clashing personalities. Assigning final say, required input, and narrowly scoped vetoes through lightweight decision cards reduces duplicated effort, stalled initiatives, hidden escalation, and costly alignment theater.
2 min read

Organizational Design Series #1: The Org Chart Is a Lie (And What to Read Instead)

Formal reporting lines reveal little about how work actually moves. Mapping real decisions, information flows, handoffs, and queues exposes informal authority, structural drag, and bottlenecks leaders must understand before redesigning the organization.
3 min read

Growth Systems Series #10: The Growth System Audit

A growth audit distinguishes genuine compounding from activity that merely looks productive. Reviewing the model, channels, loops, constraints, customer quality, retention, metrics, and operating cadence reveals what to stop, repair, and prioritize next.
3 min read

Growth Systems Series #9: Growth Metrics That Do Not Lie

Growth metrics should function as operating controls, revealing customer quality, activation, retention, expansion, channel health, capacity costs, and the current constraint. A decision-centered dashboard makes gaming harder and tells leaders what to scale, stop, or repair.
3 min read

Growth Systems Series #8: Distribution as Product Strategy

Distribution advantages are often built into products, workflows, data, integrations, ecosystems, and customer behavior rather than added through campaigns. Treating distribution as a product and strategy decision can strengthen retention, expansion, and reach through ordinary use.

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