Six ways of seeing what’s actually happening at work.
Most advice about workplaces is opinion dressed up as expertise.
A framework is different. It’s a way of looking that holds up across industries, across decades, across the specific mess of your specific business.
The six below come from people who studied workplaces for a living — Deming, Argyris, Checkland — and from research I did at Griffith University on how small teams build difficult things together. I lean on them in my own thinking because they keep being right.
The six
Joy at Work
Why the work has gone heavy and the team has gone quiet — and how Deming would have you fix it.
Read →Single-Loop vs Double-Loop Learning
Why you keep solving the same problem. Argyris on the difference between fixing the symptom and fixing the assumption underneath it.
Read →Model I vs Model II Communication
Why otherwise-honest people stop telling the truth at work. Argyris on what your culture is teaching people to hide.
Read →The Eight Conditions
Eight conditions a small team needs in place to build something difficult together. From my PhD research at Griffith University.
Read →The Gapp-Fisher Model
How small businesses actually learn, change, and improve over time. The framework I used as the lens for my doctoral thesis.
Read →Soft Systems vs Hard Systems
Why people aren't machines, and why pretending they are breaks things. Checkland on the limits of process thinking.
In developmentWhich framework first?
If you're not sure where to begin, the diagnostic will point you to the one most relevant to your situation.