Leadership and Organizational Design

Learning by doing economics is the approach that one of us (SB) adopted as a new assistant professor in the late 1960s when assigned to co-teach the advanced micro-economic theory course in the PhD program at Harvard. We did not give a single lecture; we just asked questions to be discussed based on the readings and set problems to be solved [31]... See more

Even at the introductory level, to learn economics is to learn to solve problems, cranking through enough math that you develop an intuition for what is fundamental and what is contingent in an economic model.

Systems thinking makes strategy tangible: Her scientific training taught her to see whole systems, not isolated parts. In organizations, this means mapping how decisions, data, incentives, and users interact end-to-end. Strategy becomes easier when you locate the highest-leverage point—what single shift improves everything downstream. Leaders who... See more

The idea that Holacracy only works with highly self-driven workers misunderstands both the framework and the people inside it. The framework is not a test of individual capacity. It’s a tool that helps people see where they can contribute—and gives them permission to do so.

That’s a lot of room for leadership, creativity, and initiative—but it’s exactly that: room. The framework grants authority, but doesn’t force anyone to use it in a particular way or at a particular intensity.