Labor Day was initially established in the 1880s to celebrate the contributions of the nation’s workers and to bring attention to labor conditions. While the nature of work has changed since the Industrial Revolution, people are just as important as ever (how could they not be?) I’m glad I’m reminded of the importance of celebrating...
The joy of an industrial ageThe period when humans developed large complex organizations based on machines. Factories, assembly lines, plantations, and railroads were dominant during the Industrial Age. The Industrial Age organizational design was optimized to use humans to reduce variability and comply with their masters’ instructions. This fundamental structure shapes our organizational design and language...
From Boeing (737MAX, 787 rollout) to NASA (Columbia, Challenger), we’ve seen disastrous examples of how bad news from people low in the hierarchy gets distorted as it moves to the top of the organization. The distortion is consistently in one direction: it mitigates the bad news, making it sound less severe and less likely than...
