by Aaron Dignan
I’ll also point out that I spent months deliberating about whether to include juggernauts such as Google, Amazon, and Facebook on this list. They excel at learning and adapting in an almost unprecedented way, but they sometimes struggle to remain human, and their aggregate impact on the world concerns me. While they are often far ahead of the mean in terms of autonomy and transparency, they have a long way to go compared to many of the organizations on this list. With that in mind, I decided that while I would highlight some of their most admirable practices in the text, I would not characterize them as Evolutionary Organizations at this time. Therefore, below you’ll find two lists: Evolutionary Organizations—cultures that met the criteria above—and Sources of Inspiration—cultures that I deemed too nascent or uneven in their commitment but with much to teach us nonetheless.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my travels it’s that the world is a big place. In the course of writing this book I’ve been introduced to dozens of cases and cultures that deserve to be recognized, and I’m convinced that there are hundreds (or even thousands) more out there. So if you know of, or participate in an Evolutionary Organization, I invite you to visit BraveNewWork.com and share your story with the rest of us.
Evolutionary Organizations
AES
Askinosie Chocolate
Automattic
Basecamp
Black Lives Matter
Blinkist
Bridgewater
Buffer
Burning Man
Buurtzorg
BvdV
charity: water
Crisp
David Allen Company
dm-drogerie markt
elbdudler
Endenburg Elektrotechniek
Enspiral
Equinor
Evangelical School Berlin Centre
Everlane
FAVI
Gini
GitLab
Gumroad
Haier
Handelsbanken
Haufe-umantis
Heiligenfeld
Hengeler Mueller
Herman Miller
HolacracyOne
Ian Martin Group / Fitzii
Incentro
John Lewis
Joint Special Operations Command
Kickstarter
Lumiar Schools
Medium
Menlo Innovations
Mondragon
Morning Star
Nearsoft
Netflix
Nucor
Orpheus Chamber Orchestra
Patagonia
Phelps Agency
Pixar
Premium-Cola
Promon Group
Red Hat
School in the Cloud
Schuberg Philis
Semco Group
Spotify
stok
Sun Hydraulics
Treehouse
USS Santa Fe
Valve
Whole Foods
W. L. Gore
WP Haton
Zalando Technology
Zappos
Zingerman’s
Sources of Inspiration
Airbnb
Amazon
Chipotle
Chobani
Danone North America
Etsy
Facebook
GitHub
Google
Johnsonville
Lyft
Quicken Loans
Slack
Southwest Airlines
Stack Overflow
Toyota
Warby Parker
WeWork
Wikimedia
Zapier
USING THE OS CANVAS
The canvas can provoke incredible conversations and powerful stories. It can help you and your team identify what to amplify and what to change. It can even help you find unexpected sources of inspiration. But for your first foray into what can be an emotional and challenging conversation, we recommend a lightly structured workshop format that has proven to be both safe and effective. Here are some brief instructions that will help you on your way.
Setup. Reserve a quiet and spacious room with at least one big blank wall or window. Invite your team or a group of no more than fifteen interested participants from across the company. Print out each of the twelve OS Canvas dimensions (available at BraveNewWork.com) and place them on the wall prior to the session. Provide two pads of sticky notes (yellow and green) and a Sharpie for each participant.
Check-in. Ask each participant to “check in” to the meeting by answering the following question: What has your attention? Push the group for vulnerability and candor. Model it by checking in first.
Introduction. Introduce participants to the concept of the organizational operating system through selected passages from this book, and facilitate a brief discussion.
Tensions. Ask everyone to generate a list of tensions they’re feeling day to day based on the following questions: What is preventing you (or your team) from doing your best work? What is slowing you (or your team) down? What is our biggest problem as an organization? Ask each attendee to write down each of their tensions on a yellow sticky note (one per note), with a goal of at least five per person.
Bright spots. Ask everyone to generate a list of the things that are going well based on the following questions: What is working? What is enabling you to do your best work? What is speeding you (or your team) up? What is helping you make better decisions? What are you proud of in terms of the way we work? What is our biggest strength as an organization? Ask each attendee to write down each bright spot on a green sticky note (one per note), with a goal of at least five per person.
Placement. Now have each person place their tensions and bright spots on the canvas where they feel the issue is rooted most strongly. As they place each one, have them offer a short explanation to the group. Allow the notion that some tensions belong in multiple dimensions. Allow questions and answers.
Discussion. One dimension at a time, discuss the tensions that were placed on the canvas and identify themes and patterns. As a group, ask yourselves: Why are these issues present now? What underlying structures, rules, or processes are contributing to them? What personal behavior, attitudes, and assumptions are contributing to them? How are the tensions in different dimensions connected? Are there bigger patterns present in the canvas (e.g., we have limited trust, so we reserve all decisions for management, so we have lots of meetings with people asking for permission)?
Sensing. Based on everything you’ve all heard, ask the group what they would like to change. What one thing would they flip on its head? What addition or subtraction might unlock other possibilities? Capture any intentions or next actions and use them as fodder for your first few loops. For a refresher on looping see page 201.
Notes
PART ONE: THE FUTURE OF WORK
destabilize their own communities: William J. Donovan, Simple Sabotage Field Manual (Washington, D.C.: Oxford City Press, 2011).
Operating Organization of the Union Pacific: Ray Morris, Operating Organization of the Union Pacific and Southern Pacific Systems, Railroad Administration (New York and London: Appleton, 1920), Baker Old Class Collection, Baker Library Historical Collections, Harvard Business School.
With an estimated 311,000 signals: National Transportation Operations Coalition, “2012 National Traffic Signal Report Card: Technical Repot,” www.ite.org/pub/?id=e265477a-2354-d714-5147-870dfac0e294.
one for every 1,118 intersections: John Metcalfe, “Why Does America Hate Roundabo
uts?” CityLab, March 10, 2016, www.citylab.com/transportation/2016/03/america-traffic-roundabouts-street-map/408598.
work normally during power outages: “Roundabout Benefits,” Washington State Department of Transportation, accessed September 1, 2018, www.wsdot.wa.gov/Safety/roundabouts/benefits.htm.
“There’s no word for accountability”: Anu Partanen, “What Americans Keep Ignoring About Finland’s School Success,” The Atlantic, December 29, 2011, www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/12/what-americans-keep-ignoring-about-finlands-school-success-250564 [inactive].
“Stop trying to borrow wisdom”: Jason Yip, “Japan Lean Study Mission Day 4: Toyota Home, Norman Bodek, and Takeshi Kawabe,” You’d think with all my video game experience that I’d be more prepared for this: Agile, Lean, Kanban (blog), December 8, 2008, http://jchyip.blogspot.com/2008/12/japan-lean-study-mission-day-4-toyota.html.
“Hardly a competent workman”: Frederick Winslow Taylor, “Shop Management,” paper presented at the American Society of Mechanical Engineers meeting in Saratoga, New York, June 1903.
“All you have to do is take orders”: Robert Kanigel, The One Best Way: Frederick Winslow Taylor and the Enigma of Efficiency (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005), 214.
“your way of doing the job for mine”: Robert Kanigel, “Taylor-Made. (19th-Century Efficiency Expert Frederick Taylor),” The Sciences 37, no. 3 (May 1997): 1–5.
bestselling business books of the decade: Tim Hindle, Guide to Management Ideas and Gurus (London: John Wiley & Sons, 2008).
They develop a science: Frederick Winslow Taylor, Principles of Scientific Management (New York and London: Harper & Brothers, 1911), 36–37.
“going to do in future periods”: Duff McDonald, The Firm (New York: Oneworld, 2014).
you’ll get your toilet paper: NateIBEW558l, comment on “[Serious] Reddit, What’s the Worst Example of Workplace Bureaucracy You’ve Ever Encountered?” Reddit, r/AskReddit, October 18, 2014, www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/2jmvro/serious_reddit_whats_the_worst_example_of.
the word itself is the unlikely pairing: Merriam-Webster Dictionary Online, s.v. “Bureaucracy,” accessed May 26, 2013, www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bureaucracy; “-cracy,” accessed September 12, 2018, www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/-cracy.
23.8 million management roles: Gary Hamel and Michele Zanini, “Excess Management Is Costing the U.S. $3 Trillion Per Year,” Harvard Business Review, September 5, 2016, https://hbr.org/2016/09/excess-management-is-costing-the-us-3-trillion-per-year.
16 percent of our working lives: Hamel makes this inference about U.S. workers based on Australia data, “Get Out of Your Own Way: Unleashing Productivity” (Building the Lucky Country: Business Imperatives for a Prosperous Australia, no. 4), Deloitte, 2014, https://www2.deloitte.com/au/en/pages/building-lucky-country/articles/get-out-of-your-own-way.html.
“in the early stages of a startup”: Steve Blank, “Organizational Debt Is Like Technical Debt—but Worse,” Steve Blank (blog), May 19, 2015, https://steveblank.com/2015/05/19/organizational-debt-is-like-technical-debt-but-worse.
the average global citizen: Max Roser, “Economic Growth,” Our World in Data, 2018, https://ourworldindata.org/economic-growth.
sixfold increase in prosperity: Max Roser, “The Short History of Global Living Conditions and Why It Matters That We Know It,” Our World in Data, 2018, https://ourworldindata.org/a-history-of-global-living-conditions-in-5-charts.
by 2027 the average tenure: Innosight, “Creative Destruction Whips Through Corporate America” (executive briefing), Winter 2012, www.innosight.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/creative-destruction-whips-through-corporate-america_final2015.pdf.
will shrink to just twelve years: Scott D. Anthony, S. Patrick Viguerie, and Andrew Waldeck, “Corporate Longevity: Turbulence Ahead for Large Organizations,” Innosight, Spring 2016, www.innosight.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Corporate-Longevity-2016-Final.pdf; Scott D. Anthony et al., “2018 Corporate Longevity Forecast: Creative Destruction Is Accelerating” (executive briefing), Innosight, February 2018, www.innosight.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Innosight-Corporate-Longevity-2018.pdf.
all firms was roughly 10.5 years: Madeleine I. G. Daepp et al., “The Mortality of Companies,” Journal of the Royal Society Interface 12, no. 106 (2015), doi: 10.1098/rsif.2015.0120.
returns depend on volatility: Evelyn Cheng, “Just 10% of Trading Is Regular Stock Picking, JPMorgan Estimates,” CNBC, June 13, 2017, www.cnbc.com/2017/06/13/death-of-the-human-investor-just-10-percent-of-trading-is-regular-stock-picking-jpmorgan-estimates.html.
“the market is a voting machine”: Benjamin Graham as told to Warren Buffett. Recounted in Berkshire Hathaway’s 1987 letter to shareholders, available here: www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/1987.html.
ROA decline from 12.9 percent: Wassili Bertoen and Maarten Oonk, “The Big Shift,” Deloitte, January 6, 2017, https://www2.deloitte.com/nl/nl/pages/center-for-the-edge/artikelen/the-big-shift.html.
in 1965 to 8.3 percent in 2015: John Hagel et al., “Success or Struggle: ROA as a True Measure of Business Performance,” Deloitte, October 30, 2013, https://www2.deloitte.com/insights/us/en/topics/operations/success-or-struggle-roa-as-a-true-measure-of-business-performance.html.
mergers fail to provide the revenue: Scott A. Christofferson, Robert S. McNish, and Diane L. Sias, “Where Mergers Go Wrong,” McKinsey Quarterly, May 2004, www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/where-mergers-go-wrong.
83 percent of the deals had actually failed: John Kelly, Colin Cook, and Don Spitzer, “Unlocking Shareholder Value: The Keys to Success,” KPMG, 1999, http://people.stern.nyu.edu/adamodar/pdfiles/eqnotes/KPMGM&A.pdf.
34 has been declining since 1990: “Frequently Asked Questions About Small Business,” U.S. Small Business Administration, Office of Advocacy, August 2017, www.sba.gov/sites/default/files/advocacy/SB-FAQ-2017-WEB.pdf.
researchers started tracking this data: J. D. Harris, “The Decline of American Entrepreneurship—in Five Charts,” The Washington Post, February 12, 2015, www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-small-business/wp/2015/02/12/the-decline-of-american-entrepreneurship-in-five-charts/?utm_term=.c65afa6f0d87.
an entrepreneurial boom: Ben Casselman, “The Slow Death of American Entrepreneurship,” FiveThirtyEight, May 15, 2014, https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-slow-death-of-american-entrepreneurship.
in the space of two decades: Ian Hathaway and Robert Litan, “The Other Aging of America: The Increasing Dominance of Older Firms,” Brookings Institution, July 2014, www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/other_aging_america_dominance_older_firms_hathaway_litan.pdf.
sixteen times more patents: “Frequently Asked Questions About Small Business,” U.S. Small Business Administration, September 2012, www.sba.gov/sites/default/files/FAQ_Sept_2012.pdf.
In 2016 it was actually negative: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Multifactor productivity trends, 2017,” March 21, 2018, www.bls.gov/news.release/prod3.nr0.htm; Shawn Sprague, “Below Trend: The U.S. Productivity Slowdown Since the Great Recession,” Beyond the Numbers: Productivity 6, no. 2 (January 2017), www.bls.gov/opub/btn/volume-6/below-trend-the-us-productivity-slowdown-since-the-great-recession.htm.
the ratio of pay between the CEO: Lawrence Mishel and Jessica Schneider, “CEO Pay Remains High Relative to the Pay of Typical Workers and High Wage Earners,” Economic Policy Institute, July 20, 2017, www.epi.org/publication/ceo-pay-remains-high-relative-to-the-pay-of-typical-workers-and-high-wage-earners.
from 22.3:1 to 271:1: Mishel and Alyssa Davis, “Top CEOs Make 300 Times More Than Typical Workers,” Economic Policy Institute, June 21, 2015, www.epi.org/publication/top-ceos-make-300-times-more-than-workers-pay-growth-surpasses-market-gains-and-the-rest-of-the-0-1-percent.
Buurtzorg has been able to avoid: Claire Lickman, “Humanity Over Bureaucracy: New Models of Care, by Al
ieke Van Dijken,” The Happy Manifesto (blog), June 27, 2016, https://happymanifesto.com/2016/06/27/full-talk-humanity-bureaucracy-alieke-van-dijken; “Buurtzorg’s Healthcare Revolution: 14,000 Employees, 0 Managers, Sky-High Engagement,” Corporate Rebels (blog), June 21, 2017, https://corporate-rebels.com/buurtzorg.
leaders and functions for more than ten years: Frederic Laloux, Reinventing Organizations (Brussels, Belgium: Nelson Parker, 2014).
European holdout in its space: Brian M. Carney and Isaac Getz, Freedom, Inc.: How Corporate Liberation Unleashes Employee Potential and Business Performance (New York: Somme Valley House, 2016).
FAVI exports to China: Matthew E. May, “Mastering the Art of Bosslessness,” Fast Company, September 26, 2012, www.fastcompany.com/3001574/mastering-art-bosslessness.
Rooted in the work of psychologists: Abraham H. Maslow, Maslow on Management (Homewood, IL: R. D. Irwin, 1965); Carl R. Rogers, On Becoming a Person: A Therapist’s View of Psychotherapy (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1961).
“There may be said to be two classes”: Brené Brown, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead (New York: Gotham, 2012), 142.
The average human being has an inherent dislike of work: Douglas McGregor, The Human Side of Enterprise: Annotated Edition, commentary by Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld (New York: McGraw Hill, 2006), 4.
The expenditure of physical and mental effort: Ibid.
He asked students: Daniel H. Pink, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us (New York: Riverhead Books, 2009), 5–9.
control-oriented firms: Ibid., 89; Myrlande Davermann, “Why HR = Higher Revenues,” CNN Money, September 22, 2006, https://money.cnn.com/magazines/fsb/fsb_archive/2006/07/01/8380516/index.htm?postversion=2006092217.
