Poem: It bends like a sheet

I don't judge you for having views,It's what people do by default we'd expect them to,I kinda judge though if they're too consistentToo insistent too convicted they persist without contradictionUnencumbered by the healthy helping of unhelpful fictionsUnshaken by the invasion of new information, Solidity consistently mistaken for wisdom,See, If you were paying attention,you should have the … Continue reading Poem: It bends like a sheet →

Mapping Organizational Ecosystems: Predetermined vs Relational Roles

This is an excerpt from an essay I'm working on to describe developing perspectives and practices for mapping an organizational ecosystem. I recently ran a workshop with Agitare, the Defense Entrepreneurs Forum, and the Federal Innovation Network to explore how we view, create, and use maps of our massive, interconnected community, and how co-created and inter-subjective approaches … Continue reading Mapping Organizational Ecosystems: Predetermined vs Relational Roles →

Innovation, Design, and the Adjacent-Possible

This is a simple depiction of this concept called the adjacent-possible. I'm going to use this visualization to describe a few thoughts about innovation strategy and practices that I hope you will find useful. The concept of the adjacent possible originated from Stuart Kauffman, who used it to describe evolutionary potential in biology. For any … Continue reading Innovation, Design, and the Adjacent-Possible →

Leadership in Complexity – Conversation, Values, Democracy, Slippery Slopes, and Genuine Evil

https://youtu.be/4S0K7MAT_KA Text: I posted something in an Air Force Facebook group the other day that went something like this: I think more of our mid-tier leaders -- officers and NCOs -- need to be enabled, educated, and empowered to engage in the difficult task of rooting out, tamping down, and expelling extremist, sectarian ideologies among … Continue reading Leadership in Complexity – Conversation, Values, Democracy, Slippery Slopes, and Genuine Evil →

2020-A Shared Illusion

I’ve been spending a bit of time on what I intended to be a retrospective post about the year 2020... but struggling. Perhaps that is appropriate, as 2020 was characterized by nothing if not struggle. Perhaps I should consider this piece on different types of alignment to be my official retrospective post, which explores some … Continue reading 2020-A Shared Illusion →

Alignment: Artifacts and Rituals

Allow me to be transparent in a way that might make all of us uncomfortable. Over the course of the year that I worked at my last unit, I felt quite unaligned to their strategy and culture. I struggled to pin down who, what, and why we were, consistently coming up short. I was (very generously) handed a job that … Continue reading Alignment: Artifacts and Rituals →

My White Privilege

When I was a kid, we used to go out after curfew and run from the local cops as a fun game. We would dodge their spotlights and run through private property to stay out of sight. Not for a second did we fear for our lives. If we got caught drinking or one of … Continue reading My White Privilege →

The Logic

There's a very real kind of logic to the type of agitation we're seeing in the riots in cities across the United States right now, and I see constant reminders that many of my fellow white Americans haven't had the opportunity to learn to understand it. Many lack the capacity to feel empathy for the … Continue reading The Logic →