Organizations & Culture
Dear Leaders, It’s Time To Wake The F*ck Up
When I was working in consulting there was an unspoken truth. To say it would undermine 75% of the work that these firms do each day. That truth is that most companies will not change without a genuine crisis. Right now, every company finds itself in a crisis. From the supermarkets who are realizing they ... Read more
Rethinking Meetings In A Remote World
In a short podcast episode, Seth Godin makes the argument against using remote work to copy in-person working habits, especially meetings. Meetings give us insight as to who’s up and who’s down. Who’s being honored and who’s being disrespected. We live in a meetings culture. It is very hard to change it even if you’re the boss. ... Read more
Virtual Spaces: How To Teach & Engage With Virtual Communities
I’ve been self-employed for three years and after landing remote gigs in my first couple of months and enjoying the freedom and flexibility, I decided to “default to remote” with everything I worked on. Two years ago I moved to Asia and “default to remote” went from a nice idea to the only option to ... Read more
Work From Home
“Ah, right” Pete had forgotten. It took him 34 years to get to his current role of SVP of Operations and he didn’t regret any of it. He deserved it. After all who cared more about the organization? But now a weird feeling was creeping in. What was that? Was it compassion? Was he sad? ... Read more
The Reality of The New Economy: Go Tech, Go Solo Or You’re SOL
A year before I applied to grad school, the name of the program I was applying to was changed from “Leaders for Manufacturing” to “Leaders for Global Operations” to align itself better with the modern business world. When I started the program in 2010 it was at the beginning of the economic recovery and there ... Read more
Going Remote? Here are five tips from companies who are already fully remote
I’ve worked remotely on global teams for most of my career. At first this was working at a consulting firm working as a researcher with many teams across time zones and more recently as a freelancer living abroad and working remotely the last three years. I’ve also been writing about the potential of remote work ... Read more
The (Real) Dark Side Of Management Consulting
The secrecy of the industry make it a prime target for attacks, but the real problems with the industry are more subtle and perhaps harder to solve Pete Buttegieg’s experience at McKinsey & Company has been a hot-button issue in the 2020 democratic primaries. Similar to the attacks on Mitt Romney working at Bain Capital in ... Read more
The Boomer Blockade: How One Generation Reshaped the Workforce and Left Everyone Behind
The baby boom led to the largest shift in the demographics of the modern workforce. As baby boomers entered the workforce it coincided with steady and prosperous economic growth and a dearth of older workers to compete with as they moved through the ranks. They were promoted to the senior ranks earlier than previous generations ... Read more
Learn the game, don’t become the game
Paul Graham’s recent essay “Lesson to Unlearn” helped articulate something I’ve been thinking about for the past several years. He says: There are certainly big chunks of the world where the way to win is to hack the test. Graham talks about “bad tests” – ones that incentivize people to re-orient their entire attention towards doing well on ... Read more
The Big Law Trap | Guest Essay by Ranjit Saimbi
The following is a guest essay by Ranjit Saimbi. I remember a kid called Rupert saying that he wanted to be a “corporate lawyer” when he grew up. We had this conversation at age fifteen, and Rupert knew as much of the world as I did. That’s to say, not very much. When you have ... Read more