a notebook from Organization Design Studio®

Every organization was designed by human beings. Someone decided how the work gets done, who does it, how decisions get made, and how the pieces fit together. Sometimes those design decisions were deliberate. More often, they were a series of responses to problems: a rule added after a bad quarter, an approval step added after an audit, a division of labor after an argument nobody remembers.

Either way, the result is a design. And while individually they each made sense at the time, collectively they slow everything down, giving bureaucracy a bad name.

Good news: what humans designed, humans can redesign on purpose to be responsive, flexible, and adaptive.

That is what The Design Behind It is for. Once a month, Organization Design Studio® sends you a notebook entry with actionable ideas on organization design, using and integrating AI into your organization design practice, and research findings to inform your design process and designs.

No hot takes. No countdown lists of ways artificial intelligence will transform everything. When we make a claim that rests on research, we show you the study, and we tell you where the research is thin or contested, because when we act on shaky evidence, we get the results we deserve.

What arrives each month

There are four sections in each monthly issue.

Featured Blog Article: The short version of that month's blog article, with the full article linked. Concepts and practices you can put to work, and the research behind them.

The Bench: Using AI to design the systems, and redesigning them so AI is built in, not layered on. Includes key digital technology advances, how to get the most benefits, and mitigate the risks.

The Evidence: One study, what it changes, and what it doesn't. Including the limits: sample, setting, whether anyone has managed to replicate it, and the implications for organization design.

From the Studio: What we're building, publishing, and teaching.

Overall, about five minutes. Once a month. Occasionally a Special Edition when something genuinely warrants it.

Start here

A Special Edition: Four Foundation Articles provides a solid starting point for exploring the Studio: why design is the lever, what an organization actually is, the nine systems that make one work, and the methodology for redesigning any of them. Read the Special Edition 

Consciously or not, we designed our way into these problems. Design is the way out.

Welcome aboard.

— John