I know two ways to think about help.
The first way: think about a vampire and a blood bag.The second way: think about coincidence.
Organisations aren’t important.What matters is the moments where we take the initiative.
Look at everything that anyone has ever made in the world: cathedrals, global social justice movements, teapots…
When you need to get something done and you can’t do it yourself, then you need help.When you need a lot of help, you need a lot of people.And when you have a lot of people, then someone is likely to tell you that you need an organisation.
Vision, intention, purpose, USP, mission, goal, outcome, output, values, objective… There are too many words to describe the point of what we do at work. And who knows what any of them really mean?
I gave this speech on Monday at a mini-conference on collaboration in Waterloo, Belgium. It was a gathering of 20 people working with Peter Koenig’s Source Theory — an approach to organisational design that prioritises authorship and intuition over convention and job titles.
Here’s what happens when someone starts something.
You’re sitting around minding your own business.Perfectly happy. Doing nothing.Maybe combing the dog. Drinking a margeurita.Maybe both at the same time.