I Have 21 Radical Ideas

I’ve spent the summer—and parts of the last few years—sharing my approach to running an organization. In trying to piece together why it sometimes goes well and often doesn’t, I’ve been surprised to discover that my core assumptions are so radical. I have to keep reminding myself that these aren’t widespread.

Most of these underly Yammer’s development methodology.

• People have valuable insights, regardless of seniority.
• No matter what your title, everyone in your organization is better than you at something.
• Process prevents mistakes while also preventing innovation.
• Ambiguity provides opportunity for innovation.
• Efficiency is not a goal; it is a means that should be weighed against other means of increasing output.
• When managers are responsible for people and directly credited for their output, perverse incentives abound.
• Reporting structures do not need to dictate workflow; these can be decoupled.
• Speeding up feedback loops is more effective than improving analysis quality.
• A plan’s value decreases with time, even as the plan is being executed.
• Planning only in increments provides opportunities to test assumptions and discover new strategies; this does not preclude having a long-term vision.
• You must trust everyone you employ to do a good job; trust issues should be dealt with directly, not mitigated by constraints.
• Solutions that come from people close to problems tend to be best.
• Individual ownership of domains creates opaque silos, while rotational assignments break them down to increase transparency.
• Consistency and quality emerge from transparency and empowerment.
• Processes, reviews and standards that enforce quality and consistency limit them to local maxima.
• The total cognitive capacity of the people at the bottom of an org chart exceeds that of the people at the top.
• Leaders can drive better results by empowering and aligning than by managing.
• Leadership is a role, not a rank.
• Making the system work better is more effective than making the people work harder.
• People are intrinsically motivated to work harder in a better system.

Most importantly, and possibly most radically:

• A system can be built to take advantage of all of the above in any field, in any industry.

Since writing this, I’ve co-founded a health technology company called Clover and worked to build these ideas into our leadership culture. We’re using technology to take responsibility for improving the health outcomes and social conditions for seniors in the United States. We’re hiring!

You can find me on Twitter: @kgale