# Improve Something Today > Improve Something Today is a blog, podcast & e-mail newsletter offered by Brian Kerr since 2016, helping directors, managers, consultants & dreamers practice continuous improvement & change methods in their organizations & lives. Public Ghost content for AI and LLM tooling. This file includes a bounded export of public pages first, then recent public posts. Append `.md` to any post or page URL to get the content in Markdown (for example, `/example-post.md`). ## Pages ### Hi, I’m Brian Kerr URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/brian-kerr/ Last updated: 2026-09-03T17:22:41.000Z ![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/2026/02/IMG_0236-1-1.JPG) There is only one way to find out which one of these tiny vehicles is fastest. ## Brief intro I live in Tacoma, Washington, USA with my sweetheart [Liana](https://lianareads.substack.com) and two kids. I’m a friendly, busy management consultant at Different Chairs. This is where I help my clients and their teams with things like group facilitation, deciding what to do and how to tell if they did it, and plain old making things a little less bad every day. [More about this work](http://differentchairs.joechip.net/). When I’m not doing all that, I read constantly, write intermittently, walk around my neighborhood, loiter in libraries, and meet friends for coffee. The garden is overgrown and thriving wild. I write here at Improve Something Today, with some other stuff like a podcast and newsletter available too; [welcome](https://www.improvesomething.today/welcome-letter/). ## Ways we can connect - Read: [e-mail newsletter](https://www.improvesomething.today/newsletter/), twice monthly, 3 minutes to read - Listen: [podcast](https://www.improvesomething.today/podcast/), \~weekly, 10 minutes or less - E-mail: [brian@joechip.net](mailto:brian@joechip.net) - Chit chat: [phire.place/@chrkrhc](https://phire.place/@chrkrhc) (Mastodon) - Zoom: [book a free 30-minute call](https://scheduler.zoom.us/brian-kerr-improve-something-today/30-min) - Work together: [consulting via Different Chairs](http://differentchairs.joechip.net/) ## Hang outs & affiliations I’m part of these local and online groups. Join me in any of them: - [Emerge (formerly Kaizen) Coffee](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/brianbuck%5Flean-kaizen-changemanagement-activity-7166907339768258561-%5FfWI). Monthly gathering of folks interested in continuous improvement and independent work. Rotates between locally-owned cafes. - A *sangha* with [Tacoma Buddhist Center](https://tacomabuddhistcenter.org/find-us.html). We sit weekly for meditation followed by community, readings, and discussion. - Lex Roman’s [Legends network](https://legends.revenuerulebreaker.com). An unruly gaggle of a couple hundred people figuring out how to do their best work. Additional memberships where I am less visible/active: - [Pacific Northwest Organization Development Network](https://www.pnodn.org) - [Center for a Loving Workplace](https://lovingworkplace.org)’s Principles Project ## Find me online Easiest ways to reach me: - E-mail → [brian@joechip.net](mailto:brian@joechip.net) - Mastodon → [phire.place/@chrkrhc](https://phire.place/@chrkrhc) Beyond that, I am: - Bookmarking web sites at [chrkrhc.later.place](https://chrkrhc.later.place) - Collecting indie games & media at [itch.io](https://chrkrhc.itch.io/) - Posting links for you follow along, but mostly not reading, horrible blue websites such as [~~LinkedIn~~](https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-kerr-98406) & [~~Bluesky~~](https://bsky.app/profile/chrkrhc.bsky.social) - Entirely not on Twitter, Meta horseshit, etc. ## Contact me anytime ## Thanks for stopping by If at this point you want the clearest possible view of what goes on inside my brain, you should probably swing by the [Quote barn](https://www.improvesomething.today/quote-barn/): [Quote barnRemember when we could make web pages about topics we liked or collecting material we found interesting? Welcome to the quote barn: a tossed-off joke realized. It is a web page with a barn full of quotations.![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/icon/Improve-Something-Today-sq-86b8c3a9-62dc-4555-8460-c30e9bf77ff9.png)Improve Something TodayBrian Kerr![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/thumbnail/IMG_1907-1-9a866f98-c599-4d56-90ea-7035a3bd8cf6.jpeg)](https://www.improvesomething.today/quote-barn/) Or enjoy some [recommendations](https://www.improvesomething.today/recommended/): [RecommendationsSelected books, newsletters, blogs & podcasts. Find something new.![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/icon/Improve-Something-Today-sq-3bd73483-eaad-47a1-910b-b615f60d948d.png)Improve Something TodayBrian Kerr![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/thumbnail/IMG_4650-677c3ef6-9224-4216-adcd-04ad1e876a9b.jpeg)](https://www.improvesomething.today/recommended/) ### A welcome note URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/welcome-letter/ Last updated: 2026-07-20T20:38:13.000Z ## Welcome to Improve Something Today Thanks for stopping by. I hope you find new, inspiring, or thought-provoking ideas here, and use them to (ahem) improve something today. Be well, -[Brian](https://www.improvesomething.today/author/brian/) ## A few starting points - [Premortem: before starting a new project, learn why it will end in failure](https://www.improvesomething.today/premortem-learn-how-a-project-failed-before-it-starts/)—the most popular thing on this site. A simple 15-minute method for uncovering big, ‘undiscussable’ risks. - [A lousy time to be a good idea](https://www.improvesomething.today/its-a-lousy-time-to-be-a-good-idea/)—the most important thing here. In which *“we send our hypotheses ahead, an expendable army, and watch them fall.”* - [The world of silence](https://www.improvesomething.today/the-world-of-silence/)—the most personal. On being a hearing-impaired person whose job is to listen, living in a country where Christian nationalist clowns are busily shredding human rights. Or browse by [topic](https://www.improvesomething.today/tags/), including: - [Facilitation methods](https://www.improvesomething.today/tag/facilitation/) to learn and practice. - Approaches to [continuous improvement](https://www.improvesomething.today/tag/continuous-improvement/) inside organizations. - [Monthly notes](https://www.improvesomething.today/tag/monthly-notes/) as a stream of readings and reflections. ## What you’ll find here In these offerings—[blog](https://www.improvesomething.today/), [podcast](https://www.improvesomething.today/podcast/), and [e-mail newsletter](https://www.improvesomething.today/newsletter/)—I share: - **Practical methods** for group facilitation and organizational work ([premortems](https://www.improvesomething.today/premortem-learn-how-a-project-failed-before-it-starts/), [strategic planning](https://www.improvesomething.today/the-strategy-culture-bicycle/), and [liberating structures](https://www.improvesomething.today/liberating-structures-facilitation-continuous-improvement/)). - **Consulting byproducts** about people, information, and technology inside our organizations ([undiscussables](https://www.improvesomething.today/undiscussables-2025/), [shifting baseline syndrome](https://www.improvesomething.today/vanishing-fish-boiling-frogs-the-dry-bed-of-the-sea/), or the [curse of knowledge)](https://www.improvesomething.today/notes-may-2025/#the-curse-of-knowledge-cursed-knowledge). - **Readings** from people I admire and whose work I value. - **Reflections** on Buddhist practice and life in and around Tacoma. ## Freely offered Everything here is free. There are no ads, solicitations, or paid memberships. That said, there are ways you can [support the site](https://www.improvesomething.today/support/). ## Your privacy Your activity on the site is private. No personal information is collected or stored. I don’t use third-party web analytics or other weird trackers. - **If you sign up for the e-mail newsletter**, I can see basic information such as your e-mail address and your subscription status. - **If you buy books** through links to [my reading list on bookshop.org](https://www.improvesomething.today/recommendations/), I get a small commission and an independent bookseller of your choice gets the sale. It’s awesome. ## The site tagline The site tagline, “simplicity, patience, compassion”, is a nod to the three treasures of Dao De Jing § 67\. > Simplicity, patience, compassion. > These three are your greatest treasures. > Simple in actions and in thoughts, > you return to the source of being. > Patient with both friends and enemies, > you accord with the way things are. > Compassionate toward yourself, > you reconcile all beings in the world. I try to make my actions reflect these principles. When I fall short—which happens often—these mark the spot from which I begin again. I’ve quoted [Stephen Mitchell’s](https://terebess.hu/english/tao/mitchell.html#Kap67) 1991 translation. Currently, I’d recommend reading [Ken Liu’s](https://bookshop.org/a/56572/9781668019368) translation and commentary published in 2024\. Liu translates these three as “love, thrift, and never daring to elevate myself.” ## Three invitations 1. **Want this stuff in your inbox?** Sign up for the [twice-monthly newsletter](https://www.improvesomething.today/newsletter/). Each one takes 3 minutes to read and brings you the best of what I publish here. 2. **Working on something difficult?** I [consult](https://www.improvesomething.today/consulting/) with organizations on continuous improvement, facilitation, and change management. 3. **Have a question or suggestion?** E-mail me directly at [brian@joechip.net](mailto:brian@joechip.net). I read and respond to every message. ### Recommendations URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/recommended/ Last updated: 2026-08-26T20:54:36.000Z ## Books Snooping around someone’s bookshelf is a great pleasure, but one constrained by remote work and ebooks. [I have a little shop on Bookshop.org](https://bookshop.org/shop/improve-something-today) where I organize books I rely on and recommend. If you buy a book there, in addition to getting a book in the mail and supporting an independent bookseller of your choosing, you’ll also kick a few pennies my way. This is a remarkable set of circumstances. [Browse around the entire collection at Bookshop.org](https://bookshop.org/shop/improve-something-today) --- ## Blogroll Some favorite web sites & the people who write them. ### Current events, ideas & circumstances - [Citation Needed](https://www.citationneeded.news), by Molly White - [Heated.world](https://heated.world/), by Emily Atkin - [Organizing My Thoughts](https://organizingmythoughts.org), by Kelly Hayes - [Unbreaking.org](https://unbreaking.org), a group effort ### Facilitation - [Play at the Office](https://patospace.com/resources/), by Lissy Torres ### Independent work - [Brand Burnout](https://brandburnout.beehiiv.com/), by Jamie R. Cox - [Cringe Letter](https://www.isabelsterne.com), by Isabel Sterne - [Revenue Rulebreaker](https://www.revenuerulebreaker.com), by Lex Roman ### Lean & continuous improvement - [Kaizen Success Stories](https://pi-partners.com/news), by Adam Lawrence - [The Lean Thinker](http://theleanthinker.com), by Mark Rosenthal - [Ness Labs](https://nesslabs.com/blog), by Anne-Laure Le Cunff ### Research & design - [Fight for the Human](https://www.fightforthehuman.com), by Cat Hicks - [Reading/Notes](https://sarahendren.com/reading-notes/), by Sara Hendren ### Writing you must read - [A Poem Miasma](https://buttondown.com/interrobang/archive/), by Erin Watson - [Brilliantcrank](https://brilliantcrank.com), by Greg Storey - [The Future is Like Pie](https://thefutureislikepie.beehiiv.com), by Lisa Maria Marquis - [Meant For You](https://meantforyou.beehiiv.com), by Charlotte Shane - [Phirelog](https://phirephoenix.com), by Jenny Zhang - [Tales from the Umwelt](https://talesfromtheumwelt.substack.com), by Dave Gray - [Time and Space Studios](https://time-and-space-studios.ghost.io), by Bianca Wylie - [The University of Winds](https://www.uofwinds.com), by Mita Williams --- ## Podcasts - [Change, Technically](https://www.changetechnically.fyi), by Ashley Juavinett & Cat Hicks. [Podcast feed](https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/2396236.rss) - [Games Studies Study Buddies](https://rangedtouch.com/game-studies-study-buddies/), by Cameron Kunzelman & Michael Lutz. [Podcast feed](http://rangedtouch.com/category/gamestudiesstudybuddies/feed/) - [Very Bad Wizards](https://verybadwizards.com), by Tamler Sommers & David Pizarro. [Podcast feed](https://feeds.libsyn.com/474285/rss) - [Wow If True](https://www.wowiftrue.com), by Amanda Silberling & Isabel J. Kim. [Podcast feed](https://rss.art19.com/wow-if-true) ### Get the newsletter URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/newsletter/ Last updated: 2026-09-02T06:45:30.000Z Across 20 years of consulting I’ve learned a few things. People know what’s wrong with their organizations, but struggle to talk about what’s going on. Figuring out what to do next is harder still. I’ve learned that stillness is a discipline, and that when it’s time to act, the best actions are usually pretty simple. Improve Something Today is where I share useful methods and human ideas I’ve noticed along the way. Recent topics include ↓ - Group facilitation: [liberating structures](https://www.improvesomething.today/liberating-structures-facilitation-continuous-improvement/), [how to end meetings](https://www.improvesomething.today/end-your-meetings-with-this-short-powerful-question/) - Organizational change: [premortems](https://www.improvesomething.today/premortem-learn-how-a-project-failed-before-it-starts/), [strategy and culture planning](https://www.improvesomething.today/the-strategy-culture-bicycle/) - Consulting byproducts: [undiscussables](https://www.improvesomething.today/undiscussables-2025/), [shifting baseline syndrome](https://www.improvesomething.today/vanishing-fish-boiling-frogs-the-dry-bed-of-the-sea/) Sign up for this free newsletter below. Thanks, —[Brian](https://www.improvesomething.today/brian-kerr/) ![](https://improvesomething.today/content/images/2026/03/IMG_4148-1.jpeg) ## Improve Something Today No fuss, no fee, no ads, no algorithm. Sign up (free) Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. Unsubscribe anytime. ## Schedule & topics I’ll send you at most two notes a month, each taking about 5 minutes to read. You’ll get writing on things I’ve been learning about, with practical methods you can use right away. Recent topics included [using zines for facilitation](https://www.improvesomething.today/zines/) and the history of [‘doing more with less’](https://www.improvesomething.today/on-doing-more-with-less/). ## Readers say ♥️ [Jamie](https://deptofenergymgmt.com) says: **“our friend writes a monthly email, a little collection of ideas that have struck him. you don't have to click any of the links if that feels like too much; just the little things he has chosen to excerpt, and the little bits of writing he has done in between, are wonderful”* ♥️ [Chris](https://fenwick.media/rewild) says: **“I’ve only met a few people in my life with a true genius for unearthing provocative questions—and Brian’s one of them. ... I'll never keep up with all the cool stuff in his newsletter. But if you want to open your mind, it*’**s marvelous.”* ## What it looks like ![CTA Image](https://improvesomething.today/content/images/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-13-at-1.33.46---PM.png) Recent example of an e-mailed newsletter. ## After you sign up 📧 Please check your e-mail for a note from me with a link that you’ll need to tap. This extra opt-in measure is because I don’t like spam any more than you do. ### Improve Something Today: Podcast URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/podcast/ Last updated: 2026-09-02T06:22:05.000Z Take Improve Something Today on a walk, as good company while you wash the dishes, or out for a drive. You might also discover which Muppet I’d like to eat for a meal. [Listen wherever you like ](https://pod.link/1413904169) Or: [see all posts also available as podcast episodes](https://www.improvesomething.today/tag/podcast/). ### Presentations & talks URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/presentations/ Last updated: 2026-04-01T17:59:26.000Z ## Presentations - Washington State Government Lean Transformation Conference - 2018: Improving Municipal-level Development Review Processes Using Lean Methods and Practices: Creating Lasting Results for the Community Through Improved Processes and Collaboration ([slides](https://results.wa.gov/sites/default/files/2018LeanConference/Michelle%5FLeigh%5FBrian%5FImproving%20Municipal%20Level%20Development%20Review%20Process.pdf)) - 2016: Lean contains multitudes: where to begin - 2015: Stop! Don’t send everyone to training ([slides](https://results.wa.gov/sites/default/files/Stop%21%20Don%27t%20send%20everyone%20to%20training%5FAndre%20Helmstetter%20and%20Brian%20Kerr.pdf)) - APHSA’s National Association for Program Information and Performance Measurement Educational Conference - 2018: Lean in Human Services: Developing an Agency-Wide Culture of Continuous Improvement - Iowa Lean Consortium - 2016: Lean in the office: it’s about developing people - International Technology and Persons with Disabilities Conference (CSUN) - 2012: Progressive enhancement case study ## Podcasts [PodcastEpisodes running from 2018–2021 & 2026–????.![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/icon/Improve-Something-Today-sq-10.png)Improve Something TodayBrian Kerr![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/thumbnail/Logo---for-hero-spot-2-2-10.svg)](https://www.improvesomething.today/podcast/) Guest appearances on: - Andy Vargo’s “Own Your Awkward”, episode #122, January 20, 2025: [watch on YouTube](https://youtu.be/b7A0GzBgf0w) or [listen in your podcast player](https://creators.spotify.com/pod/show/own-your-awkward/episodes/Awkwardly-Critical-with-Brian-Kerr-e2t8hc4?%24web%5Fonly=true&%5Fbranch%5Fmatch%5Fid=1410361669258874633&utm%5Fsource=web&utm%5Fcampaign=web-share&utm%5Fmedium=sharing&%5Fbranch%5Freferrer=H4sIAAAAAAAAA8soKSkottLXLy7IL8lMq0wuSk0syS8q1i1PTdJLLCjQy8nMy9ZP1Q8Jd80zD3QrtghIsq8rSk1LLSrKzEuPTyrKLy9OLbINTkxLLMoEAHaf7AVMAAAA) - The Understanding Group (TUG) Information Architecture Sunday Service podcast for [July 12, 2020](https://understandinggroup.com/architecting-information/briankerr) ## Guest lecture - University of Michigan’s School of Information 658 Information Architecture: “Why I am not an information architect” ### Brian Kerr’s consulting approach & experience URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/consulting/ Last updated: 2026-08-04T22:50:03.000Z Hi there, I’m Brian. I consult for clients in technology, finance, healthcare, the social sector, and government. My goal is to reduce suffering and wasted effort. Every consulting engagement is different, but typically: 1. First, we gather people together and get to agreement on the problems at hand and some potential solutions. 2. Next, we set up a measurement system to see what’s going on and respond appropriately to changes over time. 3. Then we roll up our sleeves and have at it—building on what works while learning from what doesn’t. I practice and teach methods drawing from [continuous improvement](https://www.improvesomething.today/tag/continuous-improvement/), [group facilitation](https://www.improvesomething.today/tag/facilitation/), [workshop design](https://www.improvesomething.today/liberating-structures-facilitation-continuous-improvement/), [strategic planning/deployment](https://www.improvesomething.today/the-strategy-culture-bicycle/), and [change management](https://www.improvesomething.today/tag/learning/). I’ve completed 81 engagements for 30 clients over a 20 year span. Here are a few of their organizations: ![Client organizations include Microsoft, Moss Adams, Xome, PATH, Brooks Running, Providence, University of Michigan, University of Texas at Austin, Colorado Department of Health Care Policy & Financing, CDSS, Boulder County, Colorado, County of San Mateo, California, County of Cuyahoga, Ohio, and FNS/USDA.](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/2025/11/Untitled-design.png) Whatever their field, my clients bring difficult problems to work through, curiosity about underlying causes of suffering, and a readiness to try something new. David, Compliance Team Lead at an IT services firm in Texas, says: **“Brian led an assessment engagement for my application development team which provided me with unexpected, actionable, and valuable insights into my team’s performance and ways that it could be enhanced. His approach was extremely effective and collaborative, which allowed him to develop the trust necessary to really understand what was going on with the team and to get honest and direct feedback that he turned into recommendations we still use for guidance a year after his visit.”* ## How I got here I started my first independent consulting project as a distraction from grad school, and it quickly turned into my chosen way of working. For the next decade I worked as an independent consultant, and then for a second decade as a staff consultant or manager at a few consulting firms. The focus throughout has been to help my clients and their teams find their way across their most difficult challenges and unpleasant circumstances. I love being able to support and learn from the far-flung set of people I’ve worked with along the way. #### Brian’s consulting story ❦ longer version After college I got a systems analyst job and enjoyed that for a few years. I went back to school for a Master of Science from the University of Michigan School of Information. During grad school, I started doing project-based work, and I haven’t looked back. I spent 10 years as an independent technical consultant with emphasis on applying UX methods to increase the value of working software—my ‘changesets for dollars’ era. Eventually I got tired of developing software that didn’t consistently make a dent in my clients’ organizations. Software is only sometimes the answer. This interest in outcomes led me to learn about applying lean and continuous improvement methods in a variety of larger organizations. For the next 5 years, I worked alongside clients in the public and nonprofit sectors, using and mutating continuous improvement methods to directly benefit the public. Finally, over the most recent 5 years, I’ve practiced additional skills, including approaches to organizational development, change management, and ways to link strategy to measurement. What I enjoy most about the work is helping people uncover mutually beneficial—often surprising—solutions to big problems. These solutions often originate from employees with lower status; I celebrate when their insights are heard, acknowledged, and realized. I look for ways of communicating and planning that take the usual bullshit, turn it upside down, and use it as fertile soil to grow something new. - Consulting résumé, case studies, etc., are available [upon request](mailto:brian@joechip.net). - See a list of [presentations and talks](https://www.improvesomething.today/presentations/), with links where available. - You can always [e-mail me directly](mailto:brian@joechip.net) or [schedule a call](https://scheduler.zoom.us/brian-kerr-improve-something-today/30-min). Jeff, Manager at a consulting firm in Washington state, says: **“Brian is an expert in Lean, kaizen, and process improvement. I thought I understood Lean principles until I met him; he helped (and demonstrated) how much more I had to learn. He lives and breathes and demonstrates respect for people in all that he does. He loves to challenge the status quo and drive the setting and process to where it should have been from the beginning. His ability to manage change is amazing to watch. He truly raises the bar every time he steps into a meeting or gathering of people. He may be the most humble man I have ever met.”* ## How I get results for my clients This consulting practice has been one long ‘apprenticeship to the truth’, as Emerson put it. The school of hard knocks. I try many different approaches. I discard the ones that don’t work. I keep and refine the ones that do. All this in order to get the most meaningful and durable results for my clients. The most recent decade of this effort is documented on this website. Sharon, HR Advisor in a government agency in Washington state, says: **“What I have appreciated most in my time working with Brian is his ability to gather multiple perspectives and feedback to craft solutions. Brian is impactful with his communication and listening skills, his ability to collaborate and his flexibility in adapting to changes in course. He is amazingly good at listening to and responding to critique. His end goal is a better whatever-it-is-he’s-working-on-or-towards and he has passion for making sure it includes the input of anyone who cares about the end result.”* ## Training & certification Here are the three programs I’ve found most beneficial, and which I broadly recommend to clients and colleagues alike: 1. [Technology of Participation (ToP) Facilitation Methods](https://www.top-training.net/w/courses/1-top-facilitation-methods) from the Institute of Cultural Affairs (ICA) 2. [Change Management Certification Program](https://www.credly.com/badges/099247eb-2189-4ab7-a573-c6ff65514c12?source=linked%5Fin%5Fprofile) from ProSci 3. [Foundations of Humane Technology](https://www.credential.net/4b9ee45c-829d-4c67-9500-8d83833156ed) from Center for Humane Technology **On lean/continuous improvement training:** most certification programs train the wrong people at the wrong time. Instead of this, I help clients introduce continuous improvement into what they already do. It’s cheaper and more durable. André, Continuous Improvement Specialist in local government in Washington state, says: **“‌‌Brian is an excellent listener and collaborator. As a result, he is able to turn ideas into tangible products and services with minimal waste and no excuses. He is the rare talent that can design and build complex software products and then turn around and teach an all-day workshop. As a facilitator he is able to guide clients through complex processes and push them to reach their goals. As much as I have appreciated his ability to do his job, I am even more impressed by how he does it. All of his work efforts and human interactions are guided by respect for people and a strong drive to continuously improve processes and places.”* ## My ideal client Youlead a project, team, department, or organization. You are swamped in uncertainty and can’t tell which competing (often oppositional) demands will help you in the long run. You need a plan for today, this week, this year that gets you somewhere new and valuable and useful for your customers. You can look out there, way out, and see where everybody needs to arrive. But how? ## Let’s make a plan The best next step is likely a conversation. Schedule ours here: [Book a free 30-minute 1:1 call](https://scheduler.zoom.us/brian-kerr-improve-something-today/30-min) ### Support this work URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/support/ Last updated: 2026-08-26T05:16:31.000Z ## Five ways to support my work on this site 1. Share a post with a friend or colleague who could benefit from it. 2. Sign up for the [e-mail newsletter](https://www.improvesomething.today/support/#/portal/). It’s free and sends twice a month. 3. Who do you know that needs a [skilled, chill consultant](https://differentchairs.joechip.net/)? Send ’em my way. 4. Try something from my [recommendations](https://www.improvesomething.today/recommended/) and tell me about it. 5. Make a donation to the International Rescue Committee. ↓ [The IRCThe International Rescue Committee (IRC) responds to the world’s worst humanitarian crises and helps people to survive and rebuild their lives. Find out how you can help the IRC offer lifesaving care and life-changing assistance to refugees forced to flee from war or disaster.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Front page - US![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/thumbnail/og-image-default.jpeg)](https://www.rescue.org) ### Site publication details URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/web-publishing/ Last updated: 2026-09-03T19:36:41.000Z ## Publishing schedule [Newsletter](https://www.improvesomething.today/newsletter/) subscribers get at most two e-mails a month, usually sent on the first and third Tuesdays of the month. I update the site whenever. Blog posts aren’t always sent out as e-mail newsletters, but are announced to those following along via RSS, social media, etc. And updates to things like the [Quote barn](https://www.improvesomething.today/quote-barn/) or [Recommendations](https://www.improvesomething.today/recommended/) are mostly snuck in along the way. The [podcast](https://www.improvesomething.today/podcast/) updates on Wednesdays, mostly weekly. ## Software - Content management system + newsletter plumbing: [Ghost](https://ghost.org/docs/) hosted on [Magic Pages](https://www.magicpages.co). Magic Pages is incredible, huge recommendation. - Theme: [Thoughts](https://www.priority.vision/themes/thoughts/) by [Priority Vision](https://www.priority.vision) - Font: [Heliotrope](https://mbtype.com/fonts/heliotrope/story.html) by [MB Type](https://mbtype.com) ## What are people reading? Take a look from the perspective of these aggregators. I’m curious to see which writing is most popular or easiest to pass along: [Bubbles.town](https://bubbles.town/source/improvesomething.today); [Hacker News](https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=improvesomething.today); [ooh.directory](https://ooh.directory/blog/8gknr7/). ## Style guide I have not been consistent over time. Trying to be more so lately. No harm in keeping notes visible. ### Punctuation - Titles use sentence case. Name of the site does not. Oops. - Use ampersands (&) in titles, headings, and excerpts, except after punctuation where it looks weird (the ‘looks weird’ rule): - Like this → *‘this, that & the other’* - Also → *‘this, that—and the other’* ### Quotations & citations - Block quotes `` don’t need surrounding quote marks. - Inline quotes do, and should be italicized. - Citations in callouts, at least in the [Quote barn](https://www.improvesomething.today/quote-barn/), such as: 📖 Achille Mbembe, **Necropolitics*, 2016 (English translation by Steven Corcoran, 2019) ### Word choice - Avoid: ~~just~~, ~~here~~, passive voice. ### Writing - Skip the jargon, or explain it. - Find the subject, the person, the point… ### Color ![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/2025/12/palette.png) ### Photos ‘Featured images’ for posts are 16×9\. The theme rounds corners. ![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/2026/01/placeholder-1600x900.png) Use real photos, mostly my own. ### Tags: explore by topic URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/tags/ Last updated: 2026-03-31T20:28:56.000Z _No content available._ ### Improve Something Today. Ways of looking for simplicity, patience & compassion URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/home-hero/ Last updated: 2026-02-03T21:54:20.000Z _No content available._ ### Quote barn URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/quote-barn/ Last updated: 2026-03-18T20:54:26.000Z ## Bees 📖 Santideva, **Bodhisattvacaryavatara (A Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life)* § 8.16 > Like a bee taking honey from flowers only to the extent it needs for her holy purpose, I shall roam everywhere as an unknown stranger like the new moon. 📖 Emily Dickinson (an entire, untitled poem) > The pedigree of honey > Does not concern the bee; > A clover, any time, to him > Is aristocracy. ## Circles 📖 Ralph Waldo Emerson’s ‘Circles’, written 1841 and found in [Essays (1st series)](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2944) > The eye is the first circle; the horizon which it forms is the second; and throughout nature this primary figure is repeated without end. It is the highest emblem in the cipher of the world. St. Augustine described the nature of God as a circle whose centre was everywhere and its circumference nowhere. We are all our lifetime reading the copious sense of this first of forms. One moral we have already deduced, in considering the circular or compensatory character of every human action. Another analogy we shall now trace, that every action admits of being outdone. Our life is an apprenticeship to the truth that around every circle another can be drawn; that there is no end in nature, but every end is a beginning; that there is always another dawn risen on mid-noon, and under every deep a lower deep opens. 📖 Charles Fort, **Lo!*, 1931, from chapter 1, only a page or two into any copy you might locate > Wise men have tried … to understand our state of being, by grasping at its stars, or its arts, or its economics. But, if there is an underlying oneness of all things, it does not matter where we begin, whether with stars, or laws of supply and demand, or frogs, or Napoleon Bonaparte. One measures a circle, beginning anywhere. (If you read this book, which I don’t particularly recommend, you will discover that he starts with frogs.) 📖 Achille Mbembe, **Necropolitics*, 2016 (English translation by Steven Corcoran, 2019) > Almost everywhere the law of blood, the law of the talion, and the duty to one’s race—the two supplements of atavistic nationalism—are resurfacing. The hitherto more or less hidden violence of democracies is rising to the surface, producing a lethal circle that grips the imagination and is increasingly difficult to escape. Nearly everywhere the political order is reconstituting itself as a form of organization for death. 📖 Jacques Rancière, **The Ignorant Schoolmaster*, 1987, pages 15-16 > The circle of powerlessness is always already there: it is the very workings of the social world, hidden in the evident difference between ignorance and science. The circle of power, on the other hand, can only take effect by being made public. But it can only appear as a tautology or an absurdity. … Those excluded from the world of intelligence themselves subscribe to the verdict of their exclusion. In short, the circle of emancipation must be begun. ## Community 💬 Wendell Berry’s speech from 1994 titled ‘Health is Membership.’ A dodgy PDF transcript [available here](https://www1.villanova.edu/dam/villanova/mission/faith/Readings/fall-2020/Health%20is%20Membership%20by%20Wendell%20Berry.pdf) > I am not ‘against technology’ so much as I am for community. When the choice is between the health of a community and technological innovation, I choose the health of the community. I would unhesitatingly destroy a machine before I would allow the machine to destroy my community. I believe that the community—in the fullest sense: a place and all its creatures—is the smallest unit of health and that to speak of the health of an isolated individual is a contradiction in terms. 💬 Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Instagram Stories on June 24, 2022\. Do these things have URLs? Can they be accessed without a Meta account? Who can say. But she said this: I watched it > The world we are fighting for is already here. It exists in small spaces, places, and communities. We don’t have to deal with the insurmountable burden of coming up with novel solutions to all the world’s problems. Much of our work is about scaling existing solutions, many created by small committed groups of people, that others haven’t seen or don't even know are around the corner. So while we can’t change the world in a day, we can and do have the power to make our own world within our four walls, or our own blocks. We can grow from there with the faith that somewhere out there, everywhere, others are doing the same. And we will come together. That’s why if you’re a parent, how you parent matters. If you’re a neighbor, how you are a neighbor matters. Many of our biggest problems are results of massively scaled up isolation from others. That means many of our solutions can be found in creating community. ## Continuous improvement 📖 W. Edwards Deming, *Out of the Crisis*, 1982\. Page 213 in 2000 edition > The aim of leadership should be to improve the performance of man and machine, to improve quality, to increase output, and simultaneously to bring pride of workmanship to people. Put in a negative way, the aim of leadership is not merely to find and record failures of men, but to remove the causes of failure: to help people to do a better job with less effort. 📖 W. Edwards Deming, **The Essential Deming*, 2012 (1st ed.) Page 21: > Everyone doing his best is not the answer. Everyone is doing his best. It is necessary that people understand the reason for the changes that are necessary. Moreover, there must be consistency of understanding and of effort. Page 157: > Joy in work comes from understanding why your work is important. Not from the work, but from knowledge of who’s going to use it. Whom are we working for, who is our customer? Who depends on us? Whom do we need to depend on? That’ll provide motivation. All that people need to understand is why the work is important. Pages 167-168: > The secret of reduction in time \[in development\] is to put more effort into the early stages. And to study the interaction between stages. Each stage should have more effort, more time, more expense, than the following stage. The Zero Stage, the most important of all, the costliest, if you want to get ahead. … It will be necessary for top management to block the privilege of anybody in top management or in any other level to come along at the end of the line with a bright idea. He belongs in the Zero Stage, now, not later. ## Effort 📖 Gene Wolfe, **The Citadel of the Autarch*, 1983\. This [5,000-word blog post](https://gwern.net/doc/culture/1983-wolfe-thecitadeloftheautarch-thejustman) might help you sort out the quote (I wish I were kidding) > Behind everything some further thing is found, forever; thus the tree behind the bird, stone beneath soil, the sun behind Urth. Behind our efforts, let there be found our efforts. ## Existence 📖 [Uppadasutta ‘Arising’](https://suttacentral.net/an3.136/en/sujato?lang=en&layout=plain&reference=none¬es=asterisk&highlight=false&script=latin) \[AN 3.136\] > Monks, whether Tathāgatas arise or not, this aspect of the world remains the same—this stable truth, this fixed truth: sabbe sankhara anicca (all conditional things are impermanent). A Tathāgata awakens to that and realizes that. Having awakened to it and realized it, he announces it, teaches it, describes it, expresses it, reveals it, explains it, and clarifies it: ‘All conditional things are impermanent.’ > > Monks, whether Tathāgatas arise or not, this aspect of the world remains the same—this stable truth, this fixed truth: sabbe sankhara dukkha (all conditional things are unsatisfactory). A Tathāgata awakens to that and realizes that. Having awakened to it and realized it, he announces it, teaches it, describes it, expresses it, reveals it, explains it, and clarifies it: ‘All conditional things are unsatisfactory.’ > > Monks, whether Tathāgatas arise or not, this aspect of the world remains the same—this stable truth, this fixed truth: sabbe dhamma anatta (all things are impersonal). A Tathāgata awakens to that and realizes that. Having awakened to it and realized it, he announces it, teaches it, describes it, expresses it, reveals it, explains it, and clarifies it: ‘All things are impersonal.’ ## Imagination 📖 A.D. Nuttall, [The Game of Death](https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v14/n11/a.d.-nuttall/the-game-of-death), London Review of Books 14.11, 1992 > The human capacity to think provisionally, to do thought experiments, to form hypotheses, to imagine what may happen before it happens, is fundamental to our nature and to our spectacular biological success (so far). I think the cleverest thing Sir Karl Popper ever said was his remark that our hypotheses ‘die in our stead’. The human race has found a way, if not to abolish, then to defer and diminish the Darwinian treadmill of death. We send our hypotheses ahead, an expendable army, and watch them fall. It is easy to see how the human imagination might begin to exhibit a need, in art, for a death-game, a game in which the muscles of psychic response, fear and pity, are exercised and made ready, through a facing of the worst, which is not yet the real worst. ‘The worst is not so long as we can say “This is the worst!”’ (King Lear) 📖 John Fowles, **The French Lieutenant’s Woman*, 1969\. No citation as you owe it to yourself to read the damn novel and arrive at this passage in the proper moment > I said earlier that we are all poets, though not many of us write poetry; and so are we all novelists, that is, we have a habit of writing fictional futures for ourselves, although perhaps today we incline more to put ourselves into a film. We screen in our minds hypotheses about how we might behave, about what might happen to us; and these novelistic or cinematic hypotheses often have very much more effect on how we actually do behave, when the real future becomes the present, than we generally allow. ## Interconnectedness 📖 Donella Meadows, *Thinking in Systems*. This book exists in various forms. In the (eventually published) 2008 version, this passage is near the beginning of chapter 4 > Everything, as they say, is connected to everything else, and not neatly. There is no clearly determinable boundary between the sea and the land, between sociology and anthropology, between an automobile’s exhaust and your nose. There are only boundaries of word, thought, perception, and social agreement—artificial, mental-model boundaries. ## Learning 📖 Ralph Waldo Emerson’s ‘Considerations by the Way’, one of the 9 sections of [The Conduct of Life](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/39827) (1860/1871; this link and quote draw from the 1871 text) > Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss. As we go gladly to Faneuil Hall, to be played upon by the stormy winds and strong fingers of enraged patriotism, so is a fanatical persecution, civil war, national bankruptcy, or revolution, more rich in the central tones than languid years of prosperity. What had been, ever since our memory, solid continent, yawns apart, and discloses its composition and genesis. We learn geology the morning after the earthquake, on ghastly diagrams of cloven mountains, upheaved plains, and the dry bed of the sea. > > In our life and culture, everything is worked up, and comes in use,—passion, war, revolt, bankruptcy, and not less, folly and blunders, insult, ennui, and bad company. Nature is a rag-merchant, who works up every shred and ort and end into new creations; like a good chemist, whom I found, the other day, in his laboratory, converting his old shirts into pure white sugar. Life is a boundless privilege, and when you pay for your ticket, and get into the car, you have no guess what good company you shall find there. You buy much that is not rendered in the bill. Men achieve a certain greatness unawares, when working to another aim. ## Meditation 📖 Tilopa’s ‘six nails’ in their entirety; [McLeod translation & discussion](https://unfetteredmind.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/sixwords.pdf) > Don’t recall. > Don’t imagine. > Don’t think. > Don’t examine. > Don’t control. > Rest. ## Obligation to survive 📖 Carl Sagan, **Cosmos*, 1980\. Chapter 13; closing sentences of the book > We are the local embodiment of a Cosmos grown to self-awareness. We have begun to contemplate our origins: starstuff pondering the stars; organized assemblages of ten billion billion billion atoms considering the evolution of atoms; tracing the long journey by which, here at least, consciousness arose. Our loyalties are to the species and the planet. We speak for Earth. Our obligation to survive is owed not just to ourselves but also to that Cosmos, ancient and vast, from which we spring. ## Optimism 2 zingers from [Elbert Hubbard](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elbert%5FHubbard) (founded Roycroft; died aboard *Lusitania*): > The sad thing about the optimist is his state of mind concerning himself. > A pessimist is a man who has been compelled to live with an optimist. 📖 First is from **A Thousand & One Epigrams*, 1911 📖 Second found in **The Note Book of Elbert Hubbard: Mottoes, Epigrams, Short Essays, Passages, Orphic Sayings and Preachments*, 1927 ## Project selection 📖 Ursula Franklin, **The Real World of Technology*. This is from chapter 6 both the 1990 & 1999 editions (1990 is 6 chapters; these become the first of 10 chapters in the 1999 edition) > Let’s make a checklist to help in the discourse on public decision-making. Should one not ask of any public project or loan whether it: (1) promotes justice; (2) restores reciprocity; (3) confers divisible or indivisible benefits; (4) favours people over machines; (5) whether its strategy maximizes gain or minimizes disaster; (6) whether conservation is favoured over waste; and (7), whether the reversible is favoured over the irreversible? The last item is obviously important. Considering that most projects do not work out as planned, it would be helpful if they proceeded in a way that allowed revision and learning, that is, in small reversible steps. ## The purpose of life 📖 Santideva, **Bodhisattvacaryavatara (A Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life)* § 3.17-23 > May I be a protector for those who are without protectors, a guide for travelers, and a boat, a bridge, and a ship for those who wish to cross over. May I be a lamp for those who seek light, a bed for those who seek rest, and may I be a servant for all beings who desire a servant. To all sentient beings may I be a wish-fulfilling gem, a vase of good fortune, an efficacious mantra, a great medication, a wish-fulfilling tree, and a wish-granting cow. Just as earth and other elements are useful in various ways to innumerable sentient beings dwelling throughout infinite space, so may I be in various ways a source of life for the sentient beings present throughout space until they are all liberated. Just as the Sugatas of old adopted the Spirit of Awakening, and just as they properly conformed to the practice of the Bodhisattvas, so I myself shall generate the Spirit of Awakening for the sake of the world; and so I myself shall properly engage in those practices. ## Rafts & piano tops 📖 [Alagaddūpama Sutta](https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/MN/MN22.html) \[MN 22\]. [Explore other translations here](https://suttacentral.net/mn22/en/sujato) > The Blessed One said: “Suppose a man were traveling along a path. He would see a great expanse of water, with the near shore dubious & risky, the further shore secure & free from risk, but with neither a ferryboat nor a bridge going from this shore to the other. The thought would occur to him, ‘Here is this great expanse of water, with the near shore dubious & risky, the further shore secure & free from risk, but with neither a ferryboat nor a bridge going from this shore to the other. What if I were to gather grass, twigs, branches, & leaves and, having bound them together to make a raft, were to cross over to safety on the other shore in dependence on the raft, making an effort with my hands & feet?’ Then the man, having gathered grass, twigs, branches, & leaves, having bound them together to make a raft, would cross over to safety on the other shore in dependence on the raft, making an effort with his hands & feet. Having crossed over to the further shore, he might think, ‘How useful this raft has been to me! For it was in dependence on this raft that, making an effort with my hands & feet, I have crossed over to safety on the further shore. Why don’t I, having hoisted it on my head or carrying it on my back, go wherever I like?’ What do you think, monks? Would the man, in doing that, be doing what should be done with the raft?”—(“No, lord.”)—“And what should the man do in order to be doing what should be done with the raft? There is the case where the man, having crossed over, would think, ‘How useful this raft has been to me! For it was in dependence on this raft that, making an effort with my hands & feet, I have crossed over to safety on the further shore. Why don’t I, having dragged it on dry land or sinking it in the water, go wherever I like?’ In doing this, he would be doing what should be done with the raft. In the same way, monks, I have taught the Dhamma compared to a raft, for the purpose of crossing over, not for the purpose of holding onto. Understanding the Dhamma as taught compared to a raft, you should let go even of Dhammas, to say nothing of non-Dhammas.” 📖 Stephen Mitchell, **The Gospel According to Jesus,* 1991, pages 135-136 > A man walking along a highroad sees a great river, its near bank dangerous and frightening, its far bank safe. He collects sticks and foliage, makes a raft, paddles across the river, and reaches the other shore. Now suppose that, after he reaches the other shore, he takes the raft and puts it on his head and walks with it on his head wherever he goes. Would he be using the raft in an appropriate way? No; a reasonable man will realize that the raft has been very useful to him in crossing the river and arriving safely on the other shore, but that once he has arrived, it is proper to leave the raft behind and walk on without it. This is using the raft appropriately. In the same way, all truths should be used to cross over; they should not be held on to once you have arrived. You should let go of even the most profound insight or the most wholesome teaching; all the more so, unwholesome teachings. 📖 Buckminster Fuller, **Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth*, 1966 > If you are in a shipwreck and all the boats are gone, a piano top buoyant enough to keep you afloat that comes along makes a fortuitous life preserver. But this is not to say that the best way to design a life preserver is in the form of a piano top. I think that we are clinging to a great many piano tops in accepting yesterday’s fortuitous contrivings as constituting the only means for solving a given problem. Our brains deal exclusively with special-case experiences. Only our minds are able to discover the generalized principles operating without exception in each and every special-experience case which if detected and mastered will give knowledgeable advantage in all instances. ## The silent world 📖 [Popol Vuh](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popol%5FVuh), this from Christensen’s English translation, lines 97-154 > This is the account of when all is still silent and placid. All is silent and calm. Hushed and empty is the womb of the sky. These, then, are the first words, the first speech. There is not yet one person, one animal, bird, fish, crab, tree, rock, hollow, canyon, meadow, or forest. All alone the sky exists. The face of the earth has not yet appeared. All alone lies the expanse of the sea, along with the womb of all the sky. There is not yet anything gathered together. All is at rest. Nothing stirs. All is languid, at rest in the sky. There is not yet anything standing erect. Only the expanse of the water, only the tranquil sea lies alone. There is not yet anything that might exist. All lies placid and silent in the darkness, in the night. 📖 Albert Camus, **The Myth of Sisyphus*, 1942 > At this point of his effort man stands face to face with the irrational. He feels within him his longing for happiness and for reason. The absurd is born of this confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world. This must not be forgotten. This must be clung to because the whole consequence of a life can depend on it. 📖 Richard Rorty, **Contigency, Irony, and Solidarity*, 1989 > The world does not speak. Only we do. The world can, once we have programmed ourselves with a language, cause us to hold beliefs. But it cannot propose a language for us to speak. Only other human beings can do that. The realization that the world does not tell us what language games to play should not, however, lead us to say that a decision about which to play is arbitrary, nor to say that it is the expression of something deep within us. ## Wooden chair as exemplar of emptiness 📖 Thich Nhat Hanh, **The Other Shore*, 2017 > I was teaching about emptiness and I did not have a sheet of paper with me to illustrate the point, so I used an empty wooden chair. I invited everyone to look carefully into the chair to see the presence of the forest, the sunshine, the rain, and the clouds. I explained that the chair was not subject to birth and death, nor could it be described in terms of being or nonbeing. I asked them whether there was a word in French or English that could describe how the chair existed along with all the other non-chair elements. I asked if the word ‘togetherness’ would do. Somebody said that it sounded strange, so I suggested the word ‘interbeing.’ 📖 Rob Burbea, **Seeing That Frees*, 2014 > A thing is ‘empty’ of its seemingly real, independent existence. And all things are this way, are empty. This voidness is what is also sometimes termed the ultimate truth or reality of things. To illustrate this and begin to get a hint of what it means we could consider a wooden chair thrown onto a big fire. The chair begins to burn, then gradually deform and fall apart, slowly turning to ashes. At what point exactly is it no longer a chair? Is it not the mind perceiving and conceiving of it one way or another that determines whether it is ‘a chair’ at a certain moment in time after catching fire? Its chair-ness is given by the mind, and does not reside in it independently of the mind. The lack of an inherently existing ‘official’ time when it stops ‘being a chair’ points to a certain emptiness, its lack of inherent chair-ness. ### Welcome to Improve Something Today URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/newsletter-welcome/ Last updated: 2026-07-13T08:07:30.000Z Thanks for signing up. I’m grateful we’ll have this chance to keep in contact, separate from the chaos of the world and the clutter of corporate social media. Starting now, you’ll get e-mail newsletters from me on the first and third Tuesdays of each month, with a few breaks throughout the year. ([Full schedule](https://www.improvesomething.today/web-publishing/).) ## While you wait for your first newsletter Here’s something you can use right away: [Premortem: before starting a new project, learn why it will end in failureA simple method for uncovering big, ‘undiscussable’ risks to a project.![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/icon/Improve-Something-Today-sq-8.png)Improve Something TodayBrian Kerr![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/thumbnail/IMG_3978-1-2.jpeg)](https://www.improvesomething.today/premortem-learn-how-a-project-failed-before-it-starts/) ## Make sure you actually get the e-mails - **If you use Gmail:** Check your ‘Promotions’ tab—that’s probably where my welcome e-mail landed. Drag it to Primary and say ‘yes’ when prompted if you want to see future messages there too. - **For other e-mail:** Look for the welcome e-mail (subject line “Welcome to Improve Something Today”) and move it to your primary inbox, or add the address to your contacts. ## Explore the site Three things worth checking out: - [Quote barn](https://www.improvesomething.today/quote-barn/)—collected passages and quotations I keep returning to. - [Vanishing fish, boiling frogs & the dry bed of the sea](https://www.improvesomething.today/vanishing-fish-boiling-frogs-the-dry-bed-of-the-sea/)— ‘shifting baseline syndrome’ in the world and in the workplace. *“We have to remember this, so we can give an account of what happened.”* - [Downloads](https://www.improvesomething.today/goodies/)—free templates and goodies for doing a waste walk, designing training, etc. Want more? Check out my [recommendations](https://www.improvesomething.today/recommended/) for other blogs and newsletters and books, or listen to the [weekly podcast](https://www.improvesomething.today/podcast/). ## I’d love to know What made you decide to sign up for the newsletter? You can reach me anytime at [brian@joechip.net](mailto:brian@joechip.net?subject=Why%20I%20signed%20up) or by replying to the newsletters I send. See you again a little further down the road. ### Group Facilitation Method Swap URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/group-facilitation-method-swap/ Last updated: 2026-09-02T04:32:58.000Z A cool free event coming soon! Sign up with the form below or [at this link](https://chrkrhc.url.lol/facilitation-method-swap). --- --- ### Contact URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/contact/ Last updated: 2026-09-03T07:17:06.000Z _No content available._ ## Posts ### Everybody’s a facilitator, whether you know it or not. Three ways to learn the most human skill going URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/3-ways-to-learn-facilitation/ Last updated: 2026-08-27T00:35:43.000Z ![audio-thumbnail](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/media/2026/08/47_thumb.png) Podcast episode 0047: Everybody’s a facilitator 0:00 /823.4866666666667 1× *More podcast episodes* [*online*](https://www.improvesomething.today/tag/podcast/) *or in* [](https://www.improvesomething.today/podcast/)[*your favorite app*](https://pod.link/1413904169)*.* Have you ever met someone who calls themselves a facilitator? It’s not the most common job, but they’re out there. For every facilitator you meet, you’ll meet a dozen people who don’t use the title but treat it a skill they pay attention to and develop over time. And for every one of these, you’ll find a hundred people who have no real idea of what facilitation is. When they have to run a meeting they fall back on boring, stultifying time-wasters like presentations, open discussions, and brainstorms. Any gathering of 3 or more people is being actively facilitated, whether the hosts realize it or not. Whenever you’ve felt bored or disengaged in a meeting and had to sit there, that meeting was poorly facilitated. For a lot of us, ‘work is just meetings,’ so this adds up to a huge, frustrating waste of time. Poor facilitation is everywhere and it’s terrible. No amount of happy crappy from an LLM chatbot or beautiful slides from a consultant can deal with this. It is a separate, deeply human thing that has to get sorted out if we want to solve problems and act skillfully as groups in the workplace. The [meeting cost calculator](https://meetcalc.com) is running. And for the most part, meeting or workshop facilitation is not the main thing people want to deal with. They’re focused on the people, problems and decisions at hand. So my question is—where do people learn this stuff? I’ve noticed three ways. People learn facilitation: 1. informally, 2. formally, and 3. by practicing. Let’s look at each. I’ll share my experience, some findings from an industry survey, and a few starting points or offerings. ## How I got my facilitation chops I got interested in facilitation as a grad student back in 2006, when I went to a niche web collaboration conference down in Portland. I thought I was going to hang out with pals and compare notes on nerdile web stuff on my department’s dime. But this conference was structured using [open space technology](https://www.improvesomething.today/open-space-technology-principle-2-whatever-happens-is-the-only-thing-that-could-have/) and hosted by [Michael Herman](https://michaelherman.com/ia/). After seeing how he worked, I wanted to do it myself. This is like saying you got interested in guitar after seeing Roger Waters play in a coffee shop. I stuck with that interest. First, as a way to scoot through grad school—an environment where I saw a lot of very effective and very lousy facilitation in the classroom (teaching is a kind of facilitation). I survived many boring lectures by paying attention to what people were doing poorly, and wondering what they might do otherwise. Later, it gave me an edge in my technical consulting work. I could get people to a decision or a working consensus on what to do next. I put together an invisible curriculum for myself, in three ways: 1. **Informally**, by going to local conferences with demos and workshops on facilitation methods to see a variety of approaches as used by different people. This was during the initial heyday of [Liberating Structures](https://www.improvesomething.today/liberating-structures-facilitation-continuous-improvement/) and Lean Coffee in the Seattle area, so these were easy to access. 2. **Formally**, by getting training and certifications. In my experience, the best of these are the Technology of Participation series from the Institute of Cultural Affairs (more on this later). 3. And most importantly, by **practicing**. The school of hard knocks. My consulting work by this time involved planning and hosting a lot of meetings—continuous improvement workshops, human-centered design activities, public engagement sessions for government agencies, and the like. So I had opportunities to practice, and get feedback. It’s one thing to get trained in a method. Another thing to try it out during training. Still another to run it over and over in different groups solving different problems until you know what’s what. What I notice today is this. While clients don’t tend to hire me for facilitation, that’s a big part of how we end up getting the work done. I say ‘we’ pointedly here, because spreading facilitation practices, or leaving them behind after a project is done, is one of the most durable things I do for clients. It’s something people don’t know to ask for, but they sure appreciate when they see it, and they keep using it afterwards. ## How most facilitators learn Let’s turn to [SessionLab’s “State of Facilitation” report](https://www.sessionlab.com/state-of-facilitation/2026-report/). This is a vendor of meeting planning software I’ve never used; but they commission this free annual report which is super valuable. From this year’s report, note that only half of the respondents have a formal accreditation or training certificate related to facilitation. And of those that do, there’s a pretty wide spread: ![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/2026/08/image-1.png) [From SessionLab’s State of Facilitation Report for 2026](https://www.sessionlab.com/state-of-facilitation/2026-report/). I don’t see this as a bad thing at all. Of our three ways (informal, formal, and practice), only the second is produced by training. More practice needs to be available, in addition to more training, because learning happens in the doing and teaching: [3-step method for learning anythingSee one, do one, teach one ← That’s the method.![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/icon/Improve-Something-Today-sq-8cff81df-3f5e-4e24-a8ba-f78d16f0c810.png)Improve Something TodayBrian Kerr![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/thumbnail/IMG_4361-97ded36f-382b-4718-9da5-4dedf1fd671a.jpeg)](https://www.improvesomething.today/three-step-method-for-learning-anything/) Another big opportunity people use to learn facilitation is feedback and evaluation. For the first time, this year’s “State of Facilitation” survey asked questions about evaluation. Here’s how facilitators say they’re measuring success: ![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/2026/08/image-2.png) [From SessionLab’s State of Facilitation Report for 2026](https://www.sessionlab.com/state-of-facilitation/2026-report/). Notice the weighting toward activity measures, which you could think of as ways to prove that the work got done. These are also the kinds of measures that provide quick feedback items for the facilitator to build into their future sessions. So they help with everybody getting paid, feeling good, and making improvements next time. These are all good things. You have to get down to the 7th or 8th most common responses to get to anything related to measuring results or lasting impact for the organization. General advice for performance measurement: you want a mix of both activity and results measures. I bet most of the evaluation shown in the chart above happens too quickly after a session to speak to impacts. And that is related to the “drive-by consulting” nature of much paid facilitation work. Personally, I’ve only been able to tease out the impact of my facilitation work by going back to clients years or even a decade after the fact *(hi Susan!)* to learn what really took hold after my consulting team moved on. In some cases it was a specific habit for closing a meeting that they kept doing. In others, a way of documenting/arguing about a problem that stuck. Or in one case, a method for deciding how to schedule projects that our client’s boss liked and ended up using across her whole division. Facilitation is happening everywhere. ## Three ways you can learn facilitation, starting today ### (1) Informal ways Seek out meetings, workshops, events, community gatherings, and the like. Pay attention to the facilitation as well as the content. Spend half your time looking at whoever is running the event, and half your time looking at everybody else. When are people bored? When does someone perk up? Who’s disengaged, and why? Who gets shut down early and doesn’t participate again? ### (2) Formal ways I whole-heartedly recommend the Institute of Cultural Affairs’ [Technology of Participation (ToP) Facilitation Methods](https://www.top-training.net/w/) course as a starting point. You can take it in person around the world, or online. It is the **only** facilitation training I’ve taken that has not been a waste of time. And I use elements from it weekly. ### (3) Ways to practice And for practice, well, ya gotta practice. That’s not to say I can’t help you, though. Over in the [Continuous Improvement Studio](https://payhip.com/BrianKerr), I have two items of interest: 1. A [free set of facilitation zines](https://payhip.com/b/u5rJ6). You can print these and bring ’em into your next meeting to run a group check-in or a project launch. 2. A [fixed-price service that will make your next high-stakes meeting a delight](https://payhip.com/b/yfrIO). I love facilitating meetings, and this is where I get to spread the love by sharing the structure and confidence that helps people enjoy it as much as I do. And here on the site, there’s plenty to browse through: [Facilitation - Improve Something Today“Enough of Science and of Art; / Close up those barren leaves; / Come forth, and bring with you a heart / That watches and receives.” (Wordsworth)![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/icon/Improve-Something-Today-sq-fd0063c2-7072-4b5b-b52c-fa821279d3f6.png)Improve Something TodayBrian Kerr![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/thumbnail/robert-horvick-1R4uPYipCFM-unsplash-2-ffe69dbe-0ab9-44d2-b945-853fe4aa05a4.jpg)](https://www.improvesomething.today/tag/facilitation/) So my invitation is this. Find one activity in one of these three ways of learning and give it a shot. I’d be delighted to hear what you picked and how it went. ### Podcast episode No. 0046: What the heck is Brian up to? URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/podcast-episode-no-0046/ Last updated: 2026-07-30T19:46:21.000Z ![audio-thumbnail](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/media/2026/07/46_thumb.png) 0046: What the heck is Brian up to? 0:00 /746.7093333333333 1× #### Episode details A professional update, a (re)introduction to three main things I’m working on, and a reading from Christopher Alexander et al’s “A Pattern Language.” 1. [Improve Something Today](https://www.improvesomething.today/) (this site!) 2. [Continuous Improvement Studio](https://payhip.com/BrianKerr): field guides, templates, etc. 3. [Different Chairs](https://differentchairs.joechip.net): consulting services *More podcast episodes* [*online*](https://www.improvesomething.today/tag/podcast/) *or in* [](https://www.improvesomething.today/podcast/)[*your favorite app*](https://pod.link/1413904169)*.* ### A summertime check-in: Comfort-Stretch-Panic & Disability Pride Month URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/a-summertime-check-in/ Last updated: 2026-08-04T00:26:09.000Z ## Checking in with Comfort-Stretch-Panic When something big is going on—when bad news arrives, as they say, on horseback—it can useful to check in. One of my favorite ways to do this can be accomplished in only a few minutes, either with a group or by yourself. Here it is. First, take a look at this diagram: ![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/2026/07/Screenshot-2025-08-14-at-10.27.42---PM-1.png) Then, consider the question: > Where are you right now? Really, pause for a moment. Point to the screen. Find your spot. Then take a deep breath. --- - You might think ***Comfort*** is the ideal place, but in fact it’s not, at least for long. We can and should rest in comfort, but not abide there. The familiar becomes repetitive, then eventually monotonous and boring. - On the other end, ***Panic*** seems like a bad deal, and it is. - In general, a good spot to be is with one foot in ***Comfort*** and the other in ***Stretch***. Shift back and forth as needed. In other words, ***Stretch***, but when it’s too much, hopefully you can lean back into ***Comfort*** rather than tip forward into ***Panic***. The diagram is one expression of Tom Senninger’s ‘learning zone’ model. See [additional notes on learning zones](https://www.thempra.org.uk/social-pedagogy/key-concepts-in-social-pedagogy/the-learning-zone-model/) from a social learning perspective. In any group of people, individuals will find themselves in different places on the diagram at different times. It’s more of a herd than a formation. This is OK. When facilitating a meeting or other group session, you might practice guessing where individual people are on the diagram. That can influence whether you need to slow down, mix things up, take a break, or intervene in some other way. Better than guessing: ask. Run the check-in. And when looking at the broader context of an organization or team, you can identify forces or vectors that push people toward one side or the other of the diagram. Contemporary Amazon-style management practice is to push people to the very cusp of ***Panic*** and then to keep up the pressure. On the one hand, people can produce a lot of work in that ***Stretch*** zone, which is a way to make numbers in the short term. But on the other hand, when the pressure stays on for too long people get tilted all the way into ***Panic***. This is much worse in the long run, both in terms of (a) how people show up and (b) the damage it does to them personally as human beings over time. Personally, I am emerging from a little period in the ***Panic*** zone, which I barely was aware of while in there. It’s like the feeling after a summer storm. A fresh, crisp breeze and air pressure ticking back up. Time to assess the damage and figure out what’s next. ## Celebrating Disability Pride Month July is [Disability Pride Month](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disability%5FPride%5FMonth). Two offerings. First, I revisited this writing from 2023 and I invite you to as well. “They say the body is a city with nine gates. Two of mine happen to be a little finicky.” [The world of silence: marking Disability Pride MonthBeing a hearing-impaired person whose job is to listen. Quiet, noise & rest.![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/icon/Improve-Something-Today-sq-13bff7a1-b852-4d76-9d90-82996689d6c4.png)Improve Something TodayBrian Kerr![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/thumbnail/a4dca865ba236411-fd67ecd6-dacc-437d-a5b5-5e26c7716179.png)](https://www.improvesomething.today/the-world-of-silence/) And second, Lissy of [Play at the Office](https://patospace.com) shares [Find Your Words, a computer game you can play with your team](https://preview.mailerlite.io/emails/webview/1201138/193622428975367931). ## On the site this month I’ve been keeping up the podcast, with short episodes releasing weekly. [Listen along or follow the show](https://www.improvesomething.today/podcast/). And finally, a recent blog post you might have missed: [What kind of water is this like? A simple practice for noticing awarenessA momentary observation for seeing the quality of your experience without, hopefully, worrying too much about how or why.![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/icon/Improve-Something-Today-sq-1dfbfe37-bbb6-474d-925e-7e3aa933ce80.png)Improve Something TodayBrian Kerr![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/thumbnail/IMG_7912-full-top-313ce7dc-ff22-48a5-8388-a48fa04eec20.jpeg)](https://www.improvesomething.today/qualities-of-water/) ### Podcast episode No. 0043: The stone boat URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/podcast-episode-no-0043/ Last updated: 2026-07-30T19:49:13.000Z ![audio-thumbnail](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/media/2026/07/43_thumb.png) 0043: The stone boat 0:00 /160.74666666666667 1× #### Episode details A reading of a short poem by W.S. Merwin: [The Estuary](https://merwinconservancy.org/poems/the-estuary-by-w-s-merwin/). I share a few words about what might have influenced Merwin at the time of the poem’s composition. *More podcast episodes* [*online*](https://www.improvesomething.today/tag/podcast/) *or in* [](https://www.improvesomething.today/podcast/)[*your favorite app*](https://pod.link/1413904169)*.* ### What kind of water is this like? A simple practice for noticing awareness URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/qualities-of-water/ Last updated: 2026-09-04T07:05:01.000Z ![audio-thumbnail](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/media/2026/06/0042-1_thumb.png) Podcast episode 0042: What kind of water is this like? 0:00 /147.11466666666666 1× *More podcast episodes* [*online*](https://www.improvesomething.today/tag/podcast/) *or in* [](https://www.improvesomething.today/podcast/)[*your favorite app*](https://pod.link/1413904169)*.* You know I love simple practices. This is one of the simplest, coursing down the centuries since, at least, these discourses in the Pāli Canon where the Buddha is in conversation with a guy called Saṅgārava. Now Saṅgārava seems to have been a stand-in or container for various [questions](https://suttacentral.net/an10.169/en/sujato) and [metaphors](https://suttacentral.net/an5.193/en/sujato) about water. ![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/2026/01/IMG_7912-full-lower-1.jpeg) You might be thinking of that cliche about ‘mind like water’. Sure, but let’s ask: what kind of water, and in what way? Water as it changes in time and place and circumstance is an example of something that is always becoming otherwise. It has this in common with you, and me, and everything around us, and in us. ![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/2026/01/IMG_7912-full-lower-2.jpeg) So the practice, as I’ve learned it from two different teachers at two different times, is this. Take a moment and notice your own awareness. What kind of water is this like? Perhaps still, or flowing, or murky, or raging, or a turbid estuary, a snowflake or an ice sheet, or overgrown with algae, or a trickle in a dried-up stream. ![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/2026/01/IMG_7912-full-lower-3.jpeg) As you do this, there is no need to adjust, to evaluate, to search for reasons or explanations or blame. It is a practice of noticing, and noticing only—a chance to recall or identify one sensation that is most similar to another. Some qualities are more pleasant or useful than others. And whatever it is now, it will soon be otherwise. ### Wrapping up the first 10 years of Improve Something Today URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/wrapping-up-10-years/ Last updated: 2026-06-05T19:02:05.000Z Over the past two weeks I’ve been celebrating the first (?) decade of Improve Something Today by putting together 10 posts. I wanted to share them with you as a bit of a wrap-up, and express again my gratitude for your being a part of this, for reading what I have going on, and for replying or getting in touch with your thoughts in various ways. So: thanks again. And here are 10 things to read, if you like. Have a great time—I know I did! I started the series with 10 things I’ve learned during this writing: [10 things I’ve learned in 10 years of writing Improve Something TodayThis site is about learning in public. As it turns a decade old, I scrounge around for 10 things I’ve learned while writing it. Also: my gratitude.![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/icon/Improve-Something-Today-sq-36c7e18e-2dbb-4809-8c40-2a966d1b60c2.png)Improve Something TodayBrian Kerr![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/thumbnail/IMG_0544-f83cd208-878b-499c-af0a-0989d7c30d13.jpeg)](https://www.improvesomething.today/10-things-for-10-years/) These next two posts were drafts I’d had sitting around and welcomed the excuse to dust off and share: [Two facilitation methods starting with a single line: Actions|Results & +|ΔTwo simple facilitation methods you can start anytime by drawing a single line on a sheet of paper. What these are and when to use them.![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/icon/Improve-Something-Today-sq-e94b20a5-d0b4-4a37-b847-8253fd50db74.png)Improve Something TodayBrian Kerr![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/thumbnail/IMG_0577-9c71549e-c8eb-449d-972c-e791e6cbbe29.jpeg)](https://www.improvesomething.today/single-line-facilitation/) [Three ways people respond to a problem (other than solving it)Noticing responses to problems; there’s a whole set. The consultant’s reaction to each of these as they arise.![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/icon/Improve-Something-Today-sq-b7a31828-96a0-494b-a7e0-8817799d7018.png)Improve Something TodayBrian Kerr![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/thumbnail/IMG_0482-b6ec7bb0-3d6a-4f4e-b957-318deb959661.jpeg)](https://www.improvesomething.today/responses-to-problems/) This one completes a four-part series I started in 2022: [Open space technology, principle 4: “When it is over, it is over”Appreciating circles that have been opened but not closed.![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/icon/Improve-Something-Today-sq-2b1a353e-f33f-4b59-b3ad-e2ee4e0aec2d.png)Improve Something TodayBrian Kerr![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/thumbnail/IMG_0489-c26b0df0-229b-4941-acc9-19e25172b1fa.jpeg)](https://www.improvesomething.today/open-space-technology-principle-4/) Two topics I wanted to write about, but didn’t have as much to say on. Shorter posts work well on this site—I’ll consider more of those in the future: [Five contributions to a project: money, effort, attention, memory & wisdomFollowing on Jerry Weinberg’s point that ‘the money is usually the smallest part of the price,’ what other prices are to be paid, and how should a consultant approach these contributions?![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/icon/Improve-Something-Today-sq-c703ff47-05ee-4bc5-aeb6-32810a4c2a5f.png)Improve Something TodayBrian Kerr![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/thumbnail/IMG_0230-f47963e5-463b-4695-814c-668d096ae7bb.jpeg)](https://www.improvesomething.today/five-contributions-to-a-project/) [Tilopa’s six words of adviceA six-word poem to be appreciated, for today, as a poem.![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/icon/Improve-Something-Today-sq-b7781dba-9bef-484f-b36d-2c75e84ef93c.png)Improve Something TodayBrian Kerr![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/thumbnail/IMG_0373-2-be4ff757-8c3e-448f-a37c-f139467f75b4.jpeg)](https://www.improvesomething.today/tilopas-six-words-of-advice/) And wrapping up with some favorite topics from the site, a favorite continuous improvement method, and some favorite books: [Our favorites, so farNow that Improve Something Today is a decade old, here are some of your favorite—and my favorite—of the things I’ve offered to date.![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/icon/Improve-Something-Today-sq-5a8de451-77a6-4e34-a928-f6a8bc6b79f4.png)Improve Something TodayBrian Kerr![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/thumbnail/IMG_0635-c4c67d91-e034-4858-80d3-0dc1aa5c0eb3.jpeg)](https://www.improvesomething.today/our-favorites/) [Describing highly variable processes with Work Unit Routing Analysis (WURA)A method for documenting & understanding processes when people say there isn’t a process.![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/icon/Improve-Something-Today-sq-37be62b0-b213-4b1a-a471-338184f829b1.png)Improve Something TodayBrian Kerr![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/thumbnail/IMG_0484-5c68c7ac-0cd1-41c2-aab9-51dfc398d9ba.jpeg)](https://www.improvesomething.today/wura-pqr-process-analysis/) [A decade in booksNine books I’m always reading.![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/icon/Improve-Something-Today-sq-d9214f10-98cd-4601-ab06-bbd710486246.png)Improve Something TodayBrian Kerr![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/thumbnail/IMG_0473-81371855-fbfd-4d3f-9b67-40e4f159fc62.jpeg)](https://www.improvesomething.today/a-decade-in-books/) ### A decade in books URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/a-decade-in-books/ Last updated: 2026-06-02T07:44:00.000Z Part of looking back over the decade I’ve been working on Improve Something Today involved thinking about books. A lot of what I’ve written here is about books ([e.g.](https://www.improvesomething.today/vanishing-fish-boiling-frogs-the-dry-bed-of-the-sea/)). But here are nine books I feel like I’m always reading even after I put them down: three about work, three about the world, and three about Buddhism. They’re books I love! For each I offer a small invitation or comment. Take these as hints as to why these books in particular have made themselves comfortable in my brain. 📖 Links go to bookshop.org. Here you can order books, support local booksellers of your choosing, and allow some pennies to fall off as a commission for me. I keep a [little storefront with all these books and more](https://bookshop.org/shop/improve-something-today). ## Three books about work ### Theory of the Gimmick: Aesthetic Judgment and Capitalist Form, by Sianne Ngai (2022) Ngai opens her book with this set of questions: > What are those of us living in capitalist societies saying when we call something a gimmick, regardless of the varying objects to which the evaluation is applied and varying identities of those applying it? What is being accurately registered about our world, and also our sociality or way of sharing this world, in this ambivalent, if mostly negative aesthetic judgment? And without the speakers necessarily or explicitly knowing it? We can work our way in with a more indirect question: Why are gimmicks often comically irritating? We’re in a ‘comically irritating’ moment, here at the tail end, hopefully, of the interval where capital wants to inject LLMs into everything in ways that are ugly, ineffective, and gimmicky. There are so many reasons to be skeptical of this whole project, but the surface-level, knee-jerk reaction to the call-and-response chatbot as gimmicky is a good enough stopping point for me. Last week I had as much fun as everyone else kicking the tires on Google after it turned its search bar into whatever this is: ![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/2026/06/Screenshot-2026-05-30-at-4.21.05---PM.png) Brian’s Google experience from May 30, 2026. It is this objection to asinine gimmickry that anybody peddling LLM integrations would need to overcome in order to get people to engage with the things. So far, the track record has not been great. I’m grateful to Ngai’s book for giving me some ways to think about this, since it has become a great concern of our moment. ### Addiction By Design: Machine Gambling in Las Vegas, by Natasha Dow Schüll (2012/2025) This 2012 book is based on the years of fieldwork that Schüll, a cultural anthropologist, did in and around Vegas. She noticed the integration of software design and user experience into the business of casino gambling in order to make devices and spaces into ‘machine zones’ which keep customers dialed in to a carefully designed plateau of unhappiness. The machines benefited from now-commonplace technological innovations like mobile payments and touchscreen UIs, evaluated using familiar-sounding measures like ‘time on device.’ Beyond Las Vegas, this book also stands as a remarkable prefiguration of what the dissolving of software design and user experience into capital has done to the rest of—by the time of this writing—the entire goddamn world. One outcome of reading this book might be to radicalize someone against gambling, if they weren’t already there. The effect it had on me was to radicalize me against corporate social media, because I noticed how these companies set their phalanxes of PhDs to similar projects of designing the various blue/bad websites and apps into these deeply harmful, riotously lucrative ‘machine zones.’ ### The Real World of Technology, by Ursula Franklin (1990/1999) Such an incredible collection of talks. The passage people who’ve worked with me have likely seen is this, or something based on it: > Should one not ask of any public project or loan whether it: (1) promotes justice; (2) restores reciprocity; (3) confers divisible or indivisible benefits; (4) favours people over machines; (5) whether its strategy maximizes gain or minimizes disaster; (6) whether conservation is favoured over waste; and (7), whether the reversible is favoured over the irreversible? The last item is obviously important. Considering that most projects do not work out as planned, it would be helpful if they proceeded in a way that allowed revision and learning, that is, in small reversible steps. The idea of ‘small, reversible steps’ originates here, with Franklin. And this short paragraph gives a framework for a multi-objective consideration that is totally possible and far beyond what organizations are doing decades later. The whole book is like this. --- ## Three books about the world ### Necropolitics, by Achille Mbembe (2019) Put simply, this is a way of looking at political power in terms of who lives and who dies—going far beyond the ‘biopower’ sense of the state’s right to control the lives of people to a ‘necropolitical’ sense of permanent, deliberate positioning of people between life and death. Although there’s a lot more to it than that. This book has helped me discern the connections between many specific horrors of our christian fascist era here in America, from the failures of COVID to ongoing support for genocides to the denial of access to healthcare. ### The Art of Loading Brush: New Agrarian Writings, by Wendell Berry (2019) A passage: > Provision, I think, is never more than caring properly for the good that you have, including your own life. As it relates to the future, provision does only what our oldest, longest experience tells us to do. We must continuously attend to our need for food, clothing, and shelter. We must care for the land, care for the forest, plant trees, plant gardens and crops, see that the brood animals are bred, keep the house and the household intact. We must teach the children. But provision does not foresee, predict, project, or theorize the future. Provision instructs us to renew the roof of our house, not to shelter us when we are old—we may die or the world may end before we are old—but so we may live under a sound roof now. Provision merely accepts the chances we must take with the weather, mortality, fallibility. Perhaps the wisest of the old sayings is “Don’t count your chickens before they hatch.” Provision accepts, next, the importance of diversity. Perhaps the next-wisest old saying is “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.” When the bad, worse, or worst possibility presents itself, provision only continues to take best possible care of what we have, or of what we have left. ### Laozi’s Dao De Jing: A New Interpretation for a Transformative Time, by Ken Liu (2025) I love that this is called an interpretation because, in addition to his own translation, interposed throughout the text Liu offers historical commentaries, his own commentary, and little bits of context and memoir. The effect is to get a reader to slow the hell down a bit and engage with the text. The Dao De Jing is compact and unadorned, which means it’s easy to whirl through it and slot oneself in the category of having read it. This interpretation gives the opportunity to slow down a bit, to linger, to think. --- ## Three books about Buddhism ### A Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life, by Śantideva, translated by Wallace & Wallace (1997) It’s true that Śantideva lit a fire under me: > Upon finding the boat of human birth now, cross the great river of suffering. O fool, there is no time for sleep, for this boat is hard to catch again. My guy knew a few things. First, he knew that *“just as lightning illuminates the darkness of a cloudy night for an instant ... occasionally people’s minds are momentarily inclined toward merit.”* And second, he knew the spirit of awakening—what it means to aspire for it, and means for venturing towards it. My meanderings have involved study and reading and practicing in various contexts and communities; all along the way Śantideva is there for me to return to. His energy and inspiration crackles across the centuries. I see him as the Victor Frankenstein of awakening, laboring away at the expense of sleep and sunlight until something astonishing arises. ### Seeing That Frees: Meditations on Emptiness and Dependent Arising, by Rob Burbea (2014/2025) This is a fairly dry primer on, manual about, consideration of emptiness. I never met Burbea. He passed away a few years ago, but a friend of mine studied with him and she says he was the real deal. On the basis of this book, I believe it. Emptiness (*suññatā*) is one of those concepts that takes some effort to make friends with, and Burbea’s work here has been really beneficial for me in this regard. [The companion website for this book](https://hermesamara.org/seeing-that-frees) is a good starting point. ### The Other Shore: A New Translation of the Heart Sutra with Commentaries, by Thich Nhat Hanh (2017) People sometimes ask me what book they should read about Buddhism. In one regard, this like asking someone what book they should read about bicycling. It’d probably be better to just get on a damn bike, ideally with friends, and figure out how to go. That being said, people write books about all kinds of things, and this small book is a beautifully written discussion of the Heart Sutra alongside Nhat Hanh’s last translation of the same (it’s a text he fiddled with over the course of a long life). ### Describing highly variable processes with Work Unit Routing Analysis (WURA) URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/wura-pqr-process-analysis/ Last updated: 2026-06-01T05:06:10.000Z ## WURA WTF An easy way to understand Work Unit Routing Analysis (WURA) is to start with its predecessor, Product-Quantity-Routing (PQR) analysis. You’ll find PQR analysis used in settings where there are a lot of small-batch custom orders. Take a print shop, paint shop, or light manufacturer that has to set up and configure workspaces and equipment for a specific run of work, ship those off, and then re-set and re-configure things for the next, different, run. This is an environment where some things are always different, and other things are always the same. Knowing which materials—supplies, stable intermediate forms, scrap/junk, and final products (P)—are being produced and in what quantities (Q) as they’re routed (R) across the shop becomes the basis for various insights. WURA was the extension of this analytical approach to clinical settings, and from there into other types of work—including the hopelessly computer-addled work I get involved in. To call the products of labor ‘work units’ (WU) upon which one could perform a similar routing analysis (RA) is a meandering walk but it eventually gets us to the WURA acronym. My experience has been that some people have heard of PQR and others WURA. The happiest people have heard of neither. ## When you might use WURA WURA is a great fit for low-volume, moderate complexity, highly variable work. When I hear something like *“we don’t have a process”* or *“every is different”* I consider whether WURA might be an appropriate format to use. I’ve personally used WURA: - To document various ways projects got approved inside a corporation while bypassing the official, mandatory approvals mechanism. - To discern how a real estate company prepares distressed properties for sale at auction across various geographies, property conditions, and the like. - To understand billing procedures for a professional services firm across its various lines of business and combinations of customers, industries, and project types. ## How to run WURA Note: click or tap an image to see it full-width. ### Describe a single scenario First, document a single scenario in a single row in a data table. In this example, there are six major process steps, numbered 1-6 and each given a short but descriptive name. The easiest way to get this down is to follow a single ‘work unit’ around and see what people do. This initial scenario doesn’t have to be a typical or even common case; it’s merely the first one you’re writing down. Don’t worry about exceptions handling or alternate scenarios yet. These will get their own rows later. Any methods you’ve used elsewhere for identifying and distinguishing process steps will work here. (For example: look for transitions, hand-offs, or notifications.) ![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/2025/08/1---scenario-build.png) A single scenario is documented. It has six process steps. ### Document additional scenarios Next, document as many additional scenarios as you encounter, using the same format. Number process steps in sequence. Add new process steps as you see them. This list is totally unordered at this point. Keep adding exhaustively. Exceptions, special cases, rush jobs, [undisussables](https://www.improvesomething.today/undiscussables-2025/)—each get their own row. Seek to keep process steps at approximately the same level of detail. Split, combine, and rearrange in order to match what is actually happening. ![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/2025/08/2---scenario-view.png) Various scenarios are documented. The initial scenario is now about halfway down the list. ### Annotate with frequency & quality data At some point you will exhaust scenarios people can show you or that you can observe. Someone might say that *“every is different”* but the finite length of this scenarios list indicates otherwise—at least when viewed from a this level of abstraction. Once you’ve gotten here, annotate the list with a few data points for each scenario. What’s important to measure? Use your best judgement, tempered by availability of data. Two good starting points are those shown in our example: 1. **Frequency**: # of ‘work units’ produced via this scenario over a certain time (a month, a quarter, a year). 2. **%C/A**: percent complete & accurate; this is a percentage of work items that are both complete (nothing missing or broken) and accurate (correct) as they exit each scenario. - Not shown here, but much more powerful, is to also measure %C/A for each process step. In this case, you’d want to measure how often work items *enter* the given process step without quality issues. - This can also be a good moment for a conversation about accuracy and how it is or should be determined. ![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/2025/08/3---scenario-view-2.png) Frequency & quality data for scenarios (right columns); scenarios count for process steps (bottom row). ### Initial analysis—what do scenarios have in common? Sort and slice. In this example, about half of the scenarios, and a majority of the overall volume, begin with the same process step (‘Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet’, seen in the second column of the table). Ask yourself what these have in common. What about scenarios that start with some other process step? Extend this initial analysis to also include the ‘Sed vehicula audio sed rutrum imperdiet’ process step and you’ve identified where most work starts, even though *“we don’t have a process.”* ![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/2025/08/4---routing-view.png) Scenarios arranged by process steps. You might also notice a little set of three process steps, highlighted below, that are a feature of several scenarios. What might these have in common? What’s the case for scenarios relying on one or two, but not all three, of these process steps? Lines of questioning like this can help you notice possibilities for simplifying or standardizing work in beneficial ways. ![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/2025/08/5---routing-view-2.png) Highlighting the initial process step for most scenario and an interesting cluster of three. ### Initial analysis—clean up outliers Another very quick analysis is to look for the true outliers. The highlighted process steps below appear only in a handful of scenarios, and only one of those scenarios (‘Sed non erat gravida/tellus’) arises at a decent frequency. These process steps might be eliminated entirely, possibly even by adjusting or removing the scenarios they are a part of. Anything that can be removed entirely is a treasure. ![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/2025/08/6---routing-view-3.png) Highlighting the bigger ticket scenarios. ### Possibilities for further analysis - Determine which process steps contribute most to overall volume. This is an area where WURA can get you in trouble, because the most visually busy process steps might not be the ones you’re looking for. - Isolate process steps where errors are produced and build in quality along the way. - Measure worker sentiment/happiness with each scenario. - Group scenarios into scenario families based on their similarities. Organize continuous improvement at this scenario family level if working on individual scenarios one at a time doesn’t seem like it’s enough. ### Our favorites, so far URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/our-favorites/ Last updated: 2026-06-05T19:01:49.000Z ## Reader favorites Based on the extremely limited data I get and the emails I receive, the most enduringly popular posts here are the procedural items or how-tos. For me, these are marked by the [curse of knowledge](https://www.improvesomething.today/10-things-for-10-years/#thing-no-0002-learning-in-public-%C2%A7-sharing-what-i%E2%80%99m-bored-of): I forget that they’re useful to people, even as I refer to them or use them myself. [Premortem: before starting a new project, learn why it will end in failureA simple method for uncovering big, ‘undiscussable’ risks to a project.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Improve Something TodayBrian Kerr![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/thumbnail/IMG_3978-1-beac8f940f2cddc79c9b3e3eca7b4142de9b48cb81124d0338f982208f77c32e.jpeg)](https://www.improvesomething.today/premortem-learn-how-a-project-failed-before-it-starts/) [3-step method for learning anythingSee one, do one, teach one ← That’s the method.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Improve Something TodayBrian Kerr![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/size/w1200/2026/01/IMG_4361.jpeg)](https://www.improvesomething.today/three-step-method-for-learning-anything/) [4 favorite Liberating Structures for continuous improvementGetting specific about facilitation methods & how to incorporate them into the work.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Improve Something TodayBrian Kerr![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/thumbnail/IMG_0919-867753d8c90187ba36cd61111609b97bb9c555b0fae230c8fd04fe1ca4c4b329.jpeg)](https://www.improvesomething.today/four-liberating-structures-continuous-improvement-lean/) ## My favorite posts I can tell you my favorite things to share are those where I’ve gone into some asinine rabbit hole. [Vanishing fish, boiling frogs & the dry bed of the seaMaking sense of ‘shifting baseline syndrome’ in the world & in the workplace.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Improve Something TodayBrian Kerr![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/thumbnail/IMG_4289-a7d365ab6dfc5875acf27d5344d095f4f165a95d79211f0d8738e859ffdf150f.jpeg)](https://www.improvesomething.today/vanishing-fish-boiling-frogs-the-dry-bed-of-the-sea/) [On doing more with lessMore what? Less what? 90 years ago, Bucky Fuller gave his answer. There is a different one now.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Improve Something TodayBrian Kerr![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/thumbnail/IMG_0863-2b23715aace71c0f547f261da1f2c6e7b6db7da417b9ecef302ea3864e796571.JPG)](https://www.improvesomething.today/on-doing-more-with-less/) [On ‘undiscussables’ 45 years later: still here, still bad & somehow even worseRevisiting Argyris’ ‘undiscussables’ as emergent, unwanted behaviors & as features of organizational control. Keeping courage, showing kindness.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Improve Something TodayBrian Kerr![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/size/w1200/2025/10/IMG_4118.jpeg)](https://www.improvesomething.today/undiscussables-2025/) (I guess I also denote these with a photo of a sunset over the sound. My favorite view for my favorite topics?) ## My favorite page [Quote barnRemember when we could make web pages about topics we liked or collecting material we found interesting? Welcome to the quote barn: a tossed-off joke realized. It is a web page with a barn full of quotations.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Improve Something TodayBrian Kerr![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/thumbnail/IMG_1907-1-3b103fb3c457d4796fa18128113cd26f9f7b95f6420533a59c6133b28f2e46b6.jpeg)](https://www.improvesomething.today/quote-barn/) ## My favorite reader is you. ### Tilopa’s six words of advice URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/tilopas-six-words-of-advice/ Last updated: 2026-05-28T07:24:59.000Z These are Tilopa’s ‘six words of advice’ in their entirety. A thousand years old, jostled about in layers of translation and interpretation. Would’ve originally been six words, but it’s hard to pull that off in English. They are: > Don’t recall. > Don’t imagine. > Don’t think. > Don’t examine. > Don’t control. > Rest. This [translation by Ken McLeod](https://unfetteredmind.org/practice/tilopas-advice/). Although these words are the basis for various practices, you might want to [further explore them as a poem in translation](https://unfetteredmind.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/sixwords.pdf), a beautiful and simple thing. The linked document gives the Tibetan source (itself a translation from the original, now lost), a transliteration, and both of McLeod’s English translations. ### Five contributions to a project: money, effort, attention, memory & wisdom URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/five-contributions-to-a-project/ Last updated: 2026-07-07T00:13:29.000Z ![audio-thumbnail](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/media/2026/07/45_thumb.png) 0045: Five contributions to a project 0:00 /191.40266666666668 1× *More podcast episodes* [*online*](https://www.improvesomething.today/tag/podcast/) *or in* [](https://www.improvesomething.today/podcast/)[*your favorite app*](https://pod.link/1413904169)*.* In a [recent discussion amongst independents and consultants on pricing](https://www.revenuerulebreaker.com/how-do-you-think-about-pricing-your-work/), I was reminded of this quote from [Jerry Weinberg](https://www.improvesomething.today/merely-being-the-person-you-are/), one of his ‘laws of pricing’ for consultants: > The money is usually the smallest part of the price. I see five contributions to successful consulting projects: money, effort, attention, memory, and wisdom. You’re going to need each of these to pull any nontrivial project off. Knowing this, you are equipped to notice that a broad set of people might end up making these contributions. Not all of them will know or care about your work in advance. They may not even be associated with the organization that is hiring you. Your direct client will put in a lot of effort and attention. But they may have a boss or sponsor who directly or indirectly approves the budget, and someone else might actually pay the money. Effort will come from many other people too: everybody you bring into a meeting or workshop, for starters. *Spending time, paying attention.* See these words we use? Memory and wisdom are squishier. Some people know what’s what, what has happened, and how things got into the mess they’re in today. If you can find these people and learn from them, that is their contribution. Wisdom is sometimes embodied in memory, sometimes not. However you find it (hint: listen for the [undiscussables](https://www.improvesomething.today/undiscussables-2025/)), wisdom is the greatest gift of all. My suggestion is this: consultants should attend to each of these contributions with the same level of care as they would pricing. I think a lot of us do this instinctively. But it’s good to do it deliberately, and to draw a picture as we go. In the same way we’d justify a monetary price by showing what we’ll give in return and why that’s important, we can justify each of these other contributions to the individuals and groups making them, and receive them with gratitude. ### Open space technology, principle 4: “When it is over, it is over” URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/open-space-technology-principle-4/ Last updated: 2026-05-22T21:37:31.000Z My favorite gatherings are all alike in a certain way: when they’re over, they’re over. Open space technology makes this an explicit part of the format, which I’ve experienced as permission to linger or leave early, to stick around or wander off, individually or in a group, as needed. Or to realize that even if an event has ended, it’s not *over*. I was at a 4-day retreat last month with about 55 people, 10 of which I knew previously, and the rest I was meeting for the first time. On the last morning, I felt a familiar impulse: to rush around, collect contact information, get people signed in and signed up in various ways so that we could keep in touch. The twice-monthly beat of an e-mail newsletter. But for this particular gathering, of local and regional sanghas, that wasn’t the move. Instead, we were all part of a larger, looser network within which I might expect to encounter certain people again, down the road, for our next communication. Let the timing and context and contents be a surprise. Do you ever feel that? I certainly do with dharma friends. Something about sitting with people over any span of time makes for a durable connection, and I am always happy to re-encounter such people months or years down the road, in a different setting, perhaps at the farmers’ market or library, out and about, saying sometimes nothing more profound than ‘hello.’ And if our paths don’t cross, and that next conversation is not forthcoming, we are still contained within the same circle of having been there, being there, enacting the same projects and intentions. Some circles open at a certain time, and only close when we are done. Which is to say: when it’s over, it’s over. --- This concludes the open space technology series, started in 2022: - [Whoever comes is the right people](https://www.improvesomething.today/open-space-technology-principle-1-whoever-comes-is-the-right-people/). - [Whatever happens is the only thing that could have](https://www.improvesomething.today/open-space-technology-principle-2-whatever-happens-is-the-only-thing-that-could-have/). - [Whenever it starts is the right time](https://www.improvesomething.today/open-space-technology-principle-3-whenever-it-starts-is-the-right-time/). - When it is over, it is over. → now reading ### Three ways people respond to a problem (other than solving it) URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/responses-to-problems/ Last updated: 2026-05-21T18:18:40.000Z When people learn I’m a consultant, conversation often proceeds to problems and problem-solving. It’s true that I only get hired well after there is a problem. Typically a problem that has gotten so lousy that nobody wants to deal with it and it has therefore become worth the trouble—of spending time, money, effort, and reputation—to bring in somebody to sort it out. That said, I like completeness. What other responses do I notice to problems? (Other than solving them.) I don’t know that any of these are universally good or bad. But I do see people having three additional responses, and acting based on them. These are: - **Solving problems** (the first response we think of) - **Pushing problems around** - **Preserving problems** - **Promoting new problems** Let’s look at each of these three ‘P’s in turn. ## No. 0001\. Pushing problems around When I was facilitating staff-led continuous improvement projects, this was the common outcome. Making things better *here* by making them worse *there*. This is what most problem-solving in medium and large organizations look like, because this is what local optimization looks like. This is fine, in a certain sense, and a huge waste of time, in another. A key point is to not blame people for pushing problems around. They’re playing the game in front of them, and playing to win. Instead, when you see this happening, look for their boss’s boss and fix the incentives and system view there. ## No. 0002\. Preserving problems Clay Shirky wrote, in part of a 2010 blog post that is no longer online: > Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution. Kevin Kelly named it ‘The Shirky Principle’ and [wrote](https://kk.org/thetechnium/the-shirky-prin/), also in 2010: > The Shirky Principle declares that complex solutions (like a company, or an industry) can become so dedicated to the problem they are the solution to, that often they inadvertently perpetuate the problem. … Because of the Shirky Principle, \[…\] progress sometimes demands that we let go of problems. A very easy thing to look for when there’s a problem are the people who depend on it. Who’d lose out if the problem were solved? You don’t have to agree with these people—the ones who preserve the very problems you’re working to eliminate. But you had better know who they are and include them in your plan. ## No. 0003\. Promoting new problems Always ask this. It’s one of Neil Postman’s six questions about technology ([from a 1998 lecture](https://youtu.be/dBlfPhsrvtw)): > What problems do we create by solving this problem? Jerry Weinberg wrote [in one of his books](http://geraldmweinberg.com/Site/Consulting%5FSecrets.html): > Once you eliminate your number one problem, you promote number two. > > The ability to find the problem in any situation is the consultant’s best asset. It’s also the consultant’s occupational disease. To be a consultant, you must detest problems, but if you can’t live with problems, consulting will kill you. > > Does this mean you must give up trying to solve problems? Not at all. It means that you must give up the illusion that you’ll ever finish solving problems. Once you give up that illusion, you’ll be able to relax now and then and let the problems take care of themselves. > > People who can solve problems do lead better lives. But people who can ignore problems, when they choose to, live the best lives. If you can’t do both, stay out of consulting. In my own practice, the primary way of dispelling this illusion is to get a good diagram going so that everybody can see their problems, agree on what they are, and pick a few that are actually worth fixing. More on that soon. ### Two facilitation methods starting with a single line: Actions|Results & +|Δ URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/single-line-facilitation/ Last updated: 2026-05-20T22:12:33.000Z These two methods require you to draw a single line to start, which makes them very easy and portable. You don’t need to think of yourself as a facilitator. Just draw a line and move the conversation along. ## Actions|Results Bring Actions|Results out when people are talking about what to do next in a situation and things get muddled. 1. First, draw a single line somewhere everybody can see it. Write ‘Actions’ as a heading to the left side, and ‘Results’ to the right. 2. Then, as you hear specific proposals or ideas, start placing actions to the left side of the line and results to the right. 3. Leave plenty of space. 4. At some point, you may choose to explain yourself. The relationship between these two is like this: 1. We’ll take some **action** → to get to this **result**. 2. We want this **result** → so let’s try this **action**. 5. In most groups, you’ll hear some proposed actions *(‘let’s train everyone on the new process’)* as well as results *(‘everyone needs to use the new process by XY date’)*. Keeping these two separated allows for structured thinking to arise. Encourage new connections or filling in of blanks on this basis. At the end, a picture emerges that you can ask questions about. For any proposed result, there are probably several actions that could lead to the result—which ones are easiest, quickest, easily reversible, etc.? And for any proposed action, there’s an end result in mind—does everyone agree with the result, and how useful do we think the action will be in getting us there? Use this picture to start choosing feasible or necessary next steps. And the picture is helpful when looking for performance measures. Computers are usually better at counting actions than they are results. But the relationships you’ve identified between actions and results can hint toward a larger theory of change. I’ve noticed this is typically the most durable outcome of what can seem like a simple, improvised method. ## +|Δ (Plus|Delta) The second method, +|Δ, is a great way to wrap up or check out of a gathering. It’s a very popular method—you may have used it or experienced it yourself. 1. First, draw a single line somewhere everybody can see it. Write ‘+’ as a heading to the left side, and ‘Δ’ to the right. Maybe write out ‘delta’ or ‘change’ as a caption next to the latter. 2. Then, ask people for their feedback and write down what you hear. 1. Pluses: what’d they like? what should we keep doing? 2. Deltas: what should we change next time? For this, I encourage a ‘complaints with recommendation’ format, where any complaints are welcome, but a positive recommendation should come with ’em. 3. Now the important part: act on what’s there. For recurring meetings, I like to briefly bring up previous +|Δ board(s) while announcing any agenda, format, or logistical changes happening as a result. ## An encouragement I hope you try one of these, especially if it seems a bit out of character for you. Facilitation might seem arcane, but it can be very simple. What’s fun about these methods is that they are easy enough to do with no setup and no ceremony. And you get much of the benefit of more complex methods: the chance to slow down, think in a more structured, communal way, and organize ideas spatially. ### 10 things I’ve learned in 10 years of writing Improve Something Today URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/10-things-for-10-years/ Last updated: 2026-05-27T01:13:26.000Z ![audio-thumbnail](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/media/2026/05/41_thumb.png) Podcast episode 0041: 10 things I’ve learned in 10 years 0:00 /659.8933333333333 1× *More podcast episodes* [*online*](https://www.improvesomething.today/tag/podcast/) *or in* [](https://www.improvesomething.today/podcast/)[*your favorite app*](https://pod.link/1413904169)*.* 10 years ago today, I started Improve Something Today. I don’t intend to make a huge ceremony of it, but I would like to mark the occasion in two ways. 1. First, in the spirit of learning in public, I’d like to share 10 things I’ve learned while writing this site. I’ve been writing online a hell of a lot longer than that, but here—this site, this decade—is where some growth has occurred. 2. And second, I’m starting a series of 10 daily posts on the site—a series of topics I’ve wanted to deal with for a bit but haven’t been able to give their due. E-mail newsletter readers can expect a wrap-up of all these in the next newsletter, planned for June 2\. In the meantime, check back to see what’s going on. Some of the most energetic periods of time for me were when I was posting daily, and I’d like to revisit that temporarily to mark the anniversary. I am grateful for everyone who reads along, or listens to the podcast, or follows up with additional commentary or ideas. It’s my good fortune to know many of you directly because of our friendship or past and future connections, and it’s been a delight to have gotten to meet and get to know more of you along the way. Spending a few minutes together in these words and pages is the biggest support a person could ask for. Thank you for that. As always, there are additional ways to [support the site](https://www.improvesomething.today/support/) if you’d like—all voluntary, and most of them non-monetary. With that said: ## 10 things I’ve learned in 10 years of writing (No pressure.) ### Thing No. 0001\. Learning in public § sharing what I’m learning I’m a perfectionist. I want to have everything dialed in before ‘going public’. But the outset is a great time to write about something, especially in a format as mutable as a blog. When I change my mind, I can write about that too. I can fix mistakes. I can remove the oldest, lousiest stuff entirely. And when I share what I’m only beginning to learn, others will share what they already know. What a treasure. ### Thing No. 0002\. Learning in public § sharing what I’m bored of This is the curse of knowledge: the things we’re bored of are the things most valuable to others. Once I figure out how to do something, I’m onto the next one. That’s a big part of the forever appeal of consulting for me. People around me know how to do things that are amazing to see. The curse of knowledge is what keeps me from realizing that the same thing holds the other way around. So: when I’ve figured something out and worked out all the gimmicks, I gotta give it away. (Then I have a URL to refer back to or pass along to the next person who asks.) ### Thing No. 0003\. Learning in public § holding back on the middle In between the previous two things: a big messy middle of learning, road-testing across client engagements, trial and error. This is my ‘apprenticeship to the truth’, where I take what I’m working on, perhaps somewhat Gollum-like, and hide it in some gross cavern for a while until it is ready to move along. I’m OK with that, at least for a while. You might have to come and lure me back out with some neat riddles. Feel free to do that as needed. ### Thing No. 0004\. A time-machine readership It’s good to write the thing I, personally, would have benefited most from having read one, five, or 10 years ago. Also good to write the exact thing I’ll wish I’d written down in five years’ time. While I’d need a time machine to accrue these benefits directly, other people with the same curiosities and questions are out there today, right now. So I write for them, for you, and for me. ### Thing No. 0005\. Ignoring the numbers Metrics, analytics, open rates, time-on-whatever. Turn these right off. Following the numbers has had a ruinous effect on the web. When I redesigned the site last year, I switched to this old-school mode where you go to the home page and read everything. Just scroll down. When you get to the bottom, it loads older stuff in. The reason this went away was to increase the fidelity of analytics (so that every little click, tap, and interaction could be measured) and to create more turf for advertisements. I don’t need those things. So if you’re on the home page you can… scroll on down. Start where you like, stop when you like. No ‘read more’ links, no pop-ups. It’s chill. ### Thing No. 0006\. Using media formats all y’all enjoy I offer an e-mail newsletter because some people want to read it. I offer a podcast because other people want to listen to it. My preference would be to publish solely on the site and via RSS, and then, as the poem goes, to be ‘forgotten even by God.’ But giving you, my readers, what you want has only been beneficial. I’ve noticed that different people seem to follow along in different ways, which is such a delight. ### Thing No. 0007\. Avoiding social media or proprietary networks I remember fondly the period of time when I’d cross-post things from this site as Twitter threads. What was wonderful about that is that people would reply to or favorite individual sentences. It was the most fine-grained writing feedback I ever got, and I liked it. It was super helpful in discerning what was useful and for whom and how so. My sweetheart [Liana](https://lianareads.substack.com/) is a writer, and I notice that her ideal reader would be one who pauses after each sentence to recite detailed, specific adulation about the glories of those words before proceeding on to the next. (I think Liana’s writing is great, but even I tend to round up feedback to the paragraph or even scene level. Sorry, sweetheart.) We find ourselves in a strongly non-ideal world. Twitter is gone, the horrible blue web sites remain horrible. So I make the web site home. I can cross-post and promo elsewhere as much as I like (which is very little, and only in a few places). ### Thing No. 0008\. Making it easy to sign up for the e-mail newsletter I’ve learned that if you have an e-mail newsletter, you have to actually make it easy for people to sign up for it. I’m not an expert in this area, but I know the person who is, and [here is their detailed advice](https://www.revenuerulebreaker.com/you-need-a-newsletter-landing-page/). I wish I’d done this years earlier. ### Thing No. 0009\. Finding you & not losing touch over the years There are people I’ve met or gotten to know even a little bit as a byproduct of writing this site. And then there are people I’ve managed to keep at least somewhat in touch with over the years via this site. That means so much to me, and the secret is that I’m pretty sure I benefit from it more than anybody else. ### Thing No. 0010\. Residing in gratitude I’m grateful for the moments we’ve shared together, for the links and corrections and ideas and jokes and whatever else. I’m grateful that even in the degraded state of the internet and the awful state of the world in 2026, there are fussy, calm, weird places like this where we can be in communication. I’m grateful for your attention, even if you’re just flitting past. And I’d be most grateful if you could take an idea or method you find here and use it to improve something today. ### Timely plugs: Mandy Brown’s workshop, Abby Covert’s next sensemaking book, & new music URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/timely-plugs-mandy-brown-abby-covert-80s-kids/ Last updated: 2026-04-15T23:57:47.000Z ## Mandy Brown’s speculative fiction workshop [Mandy Brown](https://everythingchanges.us) is accepting applications now through April 22 for the next cohort of her speculative fiction workshop, which will meet weekly from late May to early July. I participated last year and hugely benefited from the experience. Mandy’s pitch: > Join a small group of people to practice new ways of thinking, being, and acting through your work, using the power of speculative fiction. Each week, you’ll write and play with stories, scenes, and notions about what work could become—unburdened by the practical realities of your day-to-day—and then reflect with fellow workers about what that writing tells you about your environment, standpoint, needs, and dreams of the future. One idea I took from Mandy’s workshop is far-fetching. As I received it, far-fetching is the practice of reaching far out into a desired or necessary future and finding some piece of it—however far-fetched—to bring (‘fetch’) back into the current moment. Something practical to do with hope, in hope. There are, and have been, many small things I’ve far-fetched in this way in the year since. All this to say that I’m grateful for Mandy’s hosting of the workshop previously. And you have my strongest encouragement to read through the invitation and consider applying. [Summer sf work/shop | everything changesApplications are open now.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)everything changes![](https://everythingchanges.us/assets/img/social.png)](https://everythingchanges.us/blog/summer-2026-sf-workshop/) ## Abby Covert’s “Timeless Sensemaking” I’m now going to do something very rarely do, which is to recommend a book I haven’t read yet, because it comes out April 16—tomorrow, as of this writing. The book is information architect & community convener Abby Covert’s third: > ‘Timeless Sensemaking for Modern Sensemakers’ is a book for people doing real work with real people, where making sense actually matters. It borrows quietly from the idea of a spell book. Not in the sense of fantasy or mysticism, but in the older sense of a grimoire: a working collection of practices, observations, cautions, and tools, refined through use. It is written by a practitioner who has also walked alongside and taught thousands of people to make sense. The basis on which I recommend even before reading is that Abby’s work is both remarkable and durable. And I want her to have a big first day of sales. Abby’s first book is one I refer to weekly. It’s available in full online at [howtomakesenseofanymess.com](https://www.howtomakesenseofanymess.com/), which means I can point you directly to [page 57](https://www.howtomakesenseofanymess.com/chapter3/57/objects-let-us-have-deeper-conversations-about-rea/). Her second book was also great. And I have high hopes for the third, which I’ll order as soon as it’s available tomorrow. Get your copy here: [Timeless Sensemaking for Modern Sensemakers - Abby Covert, Information ArchitectA Spell Book for Sensemakers Sensemaking is the deeply personal process we use to understand complex, messy, and/or ambiguous situations so we can make![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/icon/cropped-favicon-270x270.gif)Abby Covert, Information Architect![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/thumbnail/Available-April-16th-768x768.png)](https://abbycovert.com/sensemaking/) ## 80s kids 2 Finally, my friends and neighbors Shannon & Jamie, the ‘synthpop spouses,’ are releasing their second album of 80s cover songs this Friday, April 17\. They’re also on tour—Liana and I caught their hometown show last year, and had a blast. My favorite track is their cover of The Human League’s [Don’t You Want Me](https://song.link/i/1850599959), a lovely-but-weird song that is totally rehabilitated by their performance. Now, you might ask: *why music, I thought we were being all gloomy and serious and knees deep in the work until we’re done*. Art, culture, goofy-ass fun: we have to hang on to these as the structures by which we far-fetch—bringing from *there* back to *here*—the stubbornness and other energies needed in our shared project of universal liberation. So get listening. Can’t wait until Friday? Start with [Dancing in the Dark](https://song.link/i/1797032541) from the first 80s kids album. [80s kidsa 1980s synthpop joyride![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)⚡️ 80s kids 🕺![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/thumbnail/80s-kids-FEATURED-IMAGE-main-page-1200px.jpg)](https://80skids.live/#album) ### Questions along the way URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/questions-along-the-way/ Last updated: 2026-04-09T19:18:41.000Z Dan Klyn offers this [Periodic Table of Questions](https://danklyn.com/questions.html). 20 genres of questions, arranged spatially from left to right as hooks (questions with bounded answers) and nets (questions with open answers), and from top to bottom on an index I sense intuitively but still can’t describe as concisely as he does: [![Image of a Periodic Table of Questions, available online at https://danklyn.com/questions.html](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-09-at-11.19.31---AM.png)](https://danklyn.com/questions.html) This is immediately interesting to click around. Click on each for an example question. Dan has a talk and draft book chapter available. Also, it’s immediately useful. You can provide a question and the thing will guess what kind of question it is. You can ‘iterate’ a question and it’ll give you restated versions of your question across all 20 genres. (Must be some ill-begotten LLM device behind the scenes; re-roll if you don’t like what you see; use the cut-up method to swipe only the results that are meaningful to you. Meaning comes from you, not the randomization device.) I told Dan it reminded me of ORID from the Institute for Cultural Affairs: [ORID as an Underlying Structure for Effective Meeting DesignWe teach ORID as the structure of a Focused Conversation. However, it is much more than that. Since it reflects the natural steps in how human beings process information, it is also useful as an underlying “meta” structural design for a facilitated event. Any appropriate facilitation tools can be used at any of the four \[…\]![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)ICA AssociatesJo Nelson![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/thumbnail/Slide003orid.png)](https://ica-associates.ca/news/orid-as-an-underlying-structure-for-effective-meeting-design/) This is how ICA teachers advise a facilitator to arrange a ‘focused conversation’—one of several basic extremely valuable facilitation methods they teach. To design a focused conversation, you write up a sequence of questions in deliberate sequence across 4 levels: objective, reflective, interpretive, and (the most unlovely word of all) decisional. The Periodic Table of Questions has helped me arrange questions for one focused conversation so far, and I look forward to more. I do a good job of figuring out what the questions should be, but never want to slow down and get the wording just right. And one feature of the focused conversation is that if you have great questions in the right order, there is very little else to do. A group then brings itself to the appropriate ending point for a meeting or activity. A simpler version of this approach, one which trades away a lot of nuance for being easier to do, is the ‘What, So What, Now What?’ (W3) liberating structure: [Liberating Structures - 9\. What, So What, Now What? W³liberating structures, social invention.net, microstructures, disruptive innovation, behavior change, collaboration, social invention, diffusion of innovation, strategy, transformation, heuristics, complexity science, emergence![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)9\. What, So What, Now What? W³Keith McCandless, Henri Lipmanowicz![](https://www.liberatingstructures.com/storage/icons/09_What3.png?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1337874429198)](https://www.liberatingstructures.com/9-what-so-what-now-what-w/) W3 is based in part on the work of Chris Argyris (who I’ve written about before— [‘Undiscussables’ 45 years later: still here, still bad & somehow even worseRevisiting Argyris’ ‘undiscussables’ as emergent, unwanted behaviors & as features of organizational control. Keeping courage, showing kindness.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Improve Something TodayBrian Kerr![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/size/w1200/2025/10/IMG_4118.jpeg)](https://www.improvesomething.today/undiscussables-2025/) —and whose writing and ideas I rely on in my consulting practice). The ladder of inference shared in the W3 method feels like a fast-and-loose alternative to ORID. Simpler still is to ask a single question, my own shortcut method: [“What did you notice?” → End your meetings with this short, powerful questionThe simplest technique I know.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Improve Something TodayBrian Kerr![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/thumbnail/IMG_3703-1.JPG)](https://www.improvesomething.today/end-your-meetings-with-this-short-powerful-question/) When this works, it is because starting with something at the “data” level (as per the ladder of inference), or the “objective” level (per ICA’s ORID/focused conversation), or the lighter/topmost “net” questions (per the Periodic Table of Questions) is always enough to get a conversation started, and often enough to keep a conversation moving along, of its own accord, to its conclusion. --- One last point. Jerry Weinberg had remarkable advice about not inflicting help—by which he meant offering known, or supposed, answers before someone is ready to ask for help. Over the last 20 years, this idea has made all the difference for me. The distinction between being (a) this dreary little (presumed) know-it-all and (b) a helpful colleague. Which is to say: people might not want the answer to the question you wish they would ask, but they might listen to *your* question if you ask it with kind curiosity, in the right way, and at the right time. ### Remembering Christopher Alexander: love even for the smallest pebble URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/remembering-christopher-alexander/ Last updated: 2026-03-23T16:43:44.000Z ![audio-thumbnail](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/media/2026/03/39_thumb.png) Podcast episode 0039: Remembering Christopher Alexander 0:00 /306.21866666666665 1× *More podcast episodes* [*online*](https://www.improvesomething.today/tag/podcast/) *or in* [](https://www.improvesomething.today/podcast/)[*your favorite app*](https://pod.link/1413904169)*.* [Christopher Alexander](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher%5FAlexander), architect, passed away four years ago today. He was a direct influence on several of my teachers, mentors, and friends, although I knew him mostly as a warm writer of challenging ideas. The independent consulting company I ran for a decade was called ‘Different Chairs’ after a passage he cowrote. First, let’s enjoy the crispness of Alexander’s writing. Here’s a passage from his first book, [Community and Privacy](https://christopher-alexander-ces-archive.org/book-overview/community-and-privacy-toward-a-new-architecture-of-humanism/), coauthored with Serge Chermayeff, published 1963: > People want to be everywhere. The reason they moved out was to find the country and escape the disadvantages of the city. The reason they are moving back is that the country is no longer there and they would like to regain the advantages of the city. But when everything is everywhere, wherever you go there is nothing tangible to find. Second, we dwell in the inviting and clarifying nature of his work. This passage is from the concluding pages of his last book, [The Battle for the Life and Beauty of the Earth](https://christopher-alexander-ces-archive.org/book-overview/the-battle-for-the-life-and-beauty-of-the-earth-a-struggle-between-two-world-systems/), with Hans Joachim Neis and Maggie Moore Alexander, published 2012: > Again and again we are confronted daily by decisions, by the question, “What should I do, what path should I take, how should I approach this problem?” > > There is no human being who does not, in some form, encounter this kind of self-doubt. Every one of us needs help or guidance in doing the best possible thing, in so far as what is available and practical, on the day when you encounter this question, in yourself. > > Gandhi-ji, Christ, the Buddha, Aung San Suu Kyi in Burma, and the man down the street at the gas station. They did it for love. I can do it for love. Any one of us can do it because of love, and because love is simple and so powerful. > > Love itself! Not love for this person or that person—but love for a small spider who has fallen into a tin can, love for the field which nourishes, and the individual grasses that sway as the breeze comes gently across. > > The ecology of humankind is created by the fabric of buildings, by the human fabric of affection, and by the powerful force of our love for our Earth—love, even for the smallest pebble. > > Try to be aware, every waking day and every minute, of the love that lies in your heart. The most tender wakefulness lies in your heart, and gives you the only realistic picture of the world. It can give you access to the ultimate reality. At every moment, remain wakeful and aware of your love for the Earth and for the Universe around you. I showed up to some consulting work this morning befuddled, tired, and uncertain of which of several alternatives—all equally irritating—to pursue next. This inside the universal local/global backdrop of loss, confusion, and cruelty. Remembering Christopher Alexander’s answer to ‘what should I do?’ has helped me a hundred times over across the years, including today, right now. Maybe it will help you, too. Thanks, Christopher. ### Podcast episode No. 0037: The wooden chair URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/podcast-episode-no-0037/ Last updated: 2026-03-23T16:57:33.000Z ![audio-thumbnail](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/media/2026/02/37_thumb.png) 0037: The wooden chair 0:00 /387.9893333333333 1× #### Episode details Readings of two passages on the subject of wooden chairs, as seen in the [Wooden chair as exemplar of emptiness](https://www.improvesomething.today/quote-barn/#wooden-chair-as-exemplar-of-emptiness) section of the [Quote barn](https://www.improvesomething.today/quote-barn/). *More podcast episodes* [*online*](https://www.improvesomething.today/tag/podcast/) *or in* [](https://www.improvesomething.today/podcast/)[*your favorite app*](https://pod.link/1413904169)*.* ### Podcast episode No. 0036: Anecdote of Carlina URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/podcast-episode-no-0036-anecdote-of-carlina/ Last updated: 2026-03-23T16:58:18.000Z ![audio-thumbnail](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/media/2026/02/36-1_thumb.png) 0036: Anecdote of Carlina 0:00 /265.81333333333333 1× #### Episode details A reading of two short passages, one from The Art of Public Speaking, by John Rippingham (1814), and the other from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s ‘The Comic’ (1875). By way of [Wikipedia on the ‘sad clown paradox’](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sad%5Fclown%5Fparadox#Pagliacci%5Fjoke) as shared [on Mastodon by John Overholt](https://glammr.us/@overholt/116002265582150373). *More podcast episodes* [*online*](https://www.improvesomething.today/tag/podcast/) *or in* [](https://www.improvesomething.today/podcast/)[*your favorite app*](https://pod.link/1413904169)*.* ### My beefs: notes for February 2026 URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/beefs-february-2026/ Last updated: 2026-05-09T16:04:03.000Z A pattern: it’s the first Tuesday of a month, and I have a tidy newsletter drafted with a few useful links and passages, perhaps an upcoming event. This is the newsletter from the mirror world, the one I wish we were in. Twelve hours or so before sending, I delete the draft. It is not suitable to the moment we occupy. This month, as in the months and years and decades preceding, there is much to be angry about. The future is here, super poorly distributed. There is enough of everything, far too much of it accumulated into the grubbies of the least impressive people on the planet. The Trumpy secret police runs rampant. The rest of the administration is busy too. They know they don’t have much time and they’re not wasting it. What they’ve knocked down in years will take decades to rebuild, if we’re lucky enough and obstinate enough to have that chance. I believe things will get better, and soon, but that they’ll get worse before they get better. ## A newsletter from the mirror world It is with this in mind that I chucked my plans to share the following with you—the beautifully laid-out indieweb invective [A Website To End All Websites](https://henry.codes/writing/a-website-to-destroy-all-websites/); then [National Design Studio offers a rebrand of government services](https://www.archpaper.com/2025/12/national-design-studio-rebrand/), a riveting discussion of the aesthetic overlap between the Apple retail experience and the administration’s impetus to ‘simplify’ public sector services (read: to obscure, remove, make scarce); and finally the essay [Science at the Edge of the World](https://www.fightforthehuman.com/science-at-the-edge-of-the-world/) by Cat Hicks, which had me pondering my own childhood trips to the Museum of Natural History in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I might mention that I’ve [resumed the podcast](https://www.improvesomething.today/podcast/), with short episodes publishing each Wednesday. I could write that newsletter, and I in fact did, and then I scrapped it, in favor of this one: ## Beefs with recommendations Given so many huge things to be angry about, I want to wallow in some small things to be angry about. Inconsequential irritants rather than existential threats. Let’s indulge, together. [Virginia Satir](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia%5FSatir)’s ‘temperature reading’ is a useful method I’ll describe in more detail down the road. A key step is ‘complaints with recommendations’, and it is in this spirit that I offer the following, my beefs, with recommendations. ### Beef No. 0001\. Public readings of that one Mary Oliver poem You know the one. ‘The Summer Day’. This: > Tell me, what is it you plan to do > with your one wild and precious life? It’s a truly great poem. But it is totally overdone as the poem to read aloud at your gathering. We’re a month into 2026 and I’ve heard this thing twice already. **Recommendation:** Other poems are available. Many of them very good, many of those also written by Mary Oliver. Pick up a book of poetry and find any other poem to read. ### Beef No. 0002\. Fake Viktor Frankl quote > Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our happiness. There are several things I could say about this quote. A basic problem is that is a fabrication, invented in whole cloth—and pretty clumsily at that—by noted self-help clown Stephen Covey, instead of being written or spoken by Viktor Frankl. A board member at the Viktor Frankl Institute offers [this excessively polite explanation](https://www.viktorfrankl.org/quote%5Fstimulus.html): > The true origin of the quotation is somewhat involved. To put it shortly, the author Stephen R. Covey used to recount that he found the quote in a library book and thought it fitting to describe Frankl’s views—but he did not note down the book’s author and title. **Recommendation:** when recording inspiring or useful quotations, (1) don’t make them up, and (2) find an original source, or as close to it as you can. For example, see my own little [quote barn](https://www.improvesomething.today/quote-barn/). ### Beef No. 0003\. Ghost CMS, where is your automated welcome e-mail? [Ghost](https://ghost.org/) is the best content management system I’ve used in 30 years of publishing on the web. But it’s missing one thing: simple, automated welcome e-mail(s) when someone joins the e-mail list. Instead, there is a clumsy thing where it can try to send someone to a page on your site where you can put a welcome note. Guess what? I want the welcome e-mail! When someone signs up for the free e-mail newsletter (as you may now be regretting three beefs deep), I’d love to be able to send them a little e-mail saying: thanks, welcome, here’s a thing or to two to do to ensure future mails get delivered as you like. This is such an absurd missing feature that Lex Roman brought it up as the [very first drawback of Ghost](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=%5FtMKfL52NPE) in their recent content management system knife fight/comparison video. **Recommendation:** Ghost should add this feature. That’s it. ### Beef No. 0004\. ‘Tells’ for LLM-generated texts This whole thing. Lord above, I’m tired of it. For example, one is supposed to avoid em-dashes because they’re a tell for LLM-generated text. Then people bravely continue to use em-dashes for the same reasons they were useful in the initial, actual texts that tech companies stole and used to ‘train’ their things that generate randomized texts. Ditto other alleged tells—title case at hazard, now? Semicolons? Lists, especially those of three items? Here’s how you can tell a piece of text was extruded from an LLM instead of written by a human being: it’s boring as shit. It is about nothing. I don’t mean in the relatable, directly observational way that ‘Seinfeld’ was (at risk of dating myself here; remember that thing about decades-old web pages above). It is about nothing in the sense of referring to nothing, being based on nothing, an expression of nothing. No sensation, no memory, no specificity, no intelligence, no personality, no person. Nothing shall come of nothing. **Recommendation:** Don’t read things that are boring. Stop reading the instant you are bored. That will help you dodge a lot of LLM-generated writing, as well as a bunch of bad writing, full stop. ## In closing, I have to ask What are your beefs? And what do you recommend? [I’d love to know](mailto:brian@joechip.net). ### With paper, glue & scissors: how little zines can make a big difference URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/zines/ Last updated: 2026-07-24T17:17:02.000Z Today, two ways to put together a specific type of mini-zine—an 8-page cut-fold-&-glue apparatus you can make on letter paper using any printer on hand. These are: - Method 1: a word processor, and - Method 2: whatever design-y software you like & a free web-based imposer. But first: ↓ ## Why might you want to make a zine? 1. **For ‘networking’ or other events**, it is useful to have a zine on hand to give to people instead of a business card (dated) or nothing at all (the default). Share something relevant, personal, and provocative, as well as your contact info. 2. **For in-person facilitated events**, making a customized zine helps keep everyone on the same page. Laying out facilitation instructions as well as working/writing space helps guide participants through an activity. It also eases your job as facilitator by reducing explanation and grounding group work in a defined, page-by-page progression: e.g. you can ask everyone to turn to a specific page and keep things moving along. I’ve found that participants appreciate having something that encloses the entire activity. For those who want to read ahead or worry about structure or timing, the zine satisfies. It is also a signal that you take things seriously. People will notice that you created a custom zine for this specific gathering, and printed and folded the right number of them. This does not take long to do, but makes an impression. 3. **Instead of a plain old handout for a presentation**. It’s more fun to flip through a zine than flap a single sheet of paper. You also get to make some choices about structure and organization of the material. At the end of a talk, zines tend to go into pockets or bags while handouts are discreetly dropped into the trash. ## Method 1: a word processor This is a simple but annoying method. Start with a ready-made template for your word processor of choice, and then fill in the blanks to lay out your zine. Here’s an example in Apple Pages, using these [wonderful templates from Jess Driscoll](https://jessdriscoll.itch.io/pages-templates): ![Screenshot of Apple Pages with an 8-page mini-zine laid out in a 4x2 grid for printing. Pages 5-8 are upside down across the top row, and pages 1-4 are right-side-up along the bottom row.](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-09-at-4.24.12---PM.png) 8-page mini-zine for a [1-2-4-all facilitated activity](https://www.improvesomething.today/four-liberating-structures-continuous-improvement-lean/). Specific topic and questions redacted. 💡 In this example: a group was dealing with an organizational change that would split their one team into three parts. The discussion was about how the team could preserve some norms and quality standards despite the re-org. What you may detect in the screenshot is that laying out pages 5 through 8 in this method is comically irritating. The advantage is that it’s simple to do: fill in and print. Word processing upside-down is possible but not recommended. As a result, I prefer the next method instead. ## Method 2: whatever design-y software you like & a free web-based imposer 📖 Lingo alert: [imposition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imposition) is a printing term for pre-press arrangement of material on the page so it can then be printed, cut, folded, and bound. This method uses [delphitools’ amazing online zine imposer](https://tools.rmv.fyi/tools/zine-imposer) to lay your zine out for printing. Specifically, the tool takes a set of appropriately-sized individual pages and gives you a printer-ready PDF in a layout similar to what you saw in method 1. ![A full page screenshot of the Zine Imposer tool.](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/2026/01/Zine-Imposer---delphitools.png) delphitool’s [Zine Imposer](https://tools.rmv.fyi/tools/zine-imposer). Use this thing by first selecting your paper size and then noting the dimensions it gives you for the zine pages. Next, in your software of choice, set your page size to these dimensions, and begin. You’ll want to create 8 pages, including front and back cover, and then export them as images to pull back into the zine imposer. Options here include Keynote or other presentation software—or pretty much anything that can lay out images and text on pages. I use Canva, where it’s simple to create pages at the right size and adhere to whatever aspects of the [style guide](https://www.improvesomething.today/web-publishing/#style-guide) seem important at the time. My only advice is to get the physical size of the page onscreen to roughly match what it’ll look like in print. Given Canva and my particular combination of hardware, that ends up being a 33% zoom. If it seems like this section is a glorified link to the [zine imposer](https://tools.rmv.fyi/tools/zine-imposer), you’re right. It’s a great tool (and part of a larger collection of [web-based goodies worth investigation](https://tools.rmv.fyi)). ## What to put in the zine Here are a few places to look for starting points or inspiration: - I’ve zine-ified various templates, handouts, and posts from this site. You might have a similar collection to work from. - Dan Klyn and colleagues have a great zine introducing their [BASIC framework](https://understandinggroup.com/posters/information-architecture-basic-framework). (There’s also a video where Dan shows you how he prints and folds the things.) - For facilitated gatherings, use a step-by-step approach as shown in the method 1 example above. Take the instructions you’d project or write onto a whiteboard and put them into the zine. If you want to put your contact information on the back page, use a [QR code generator](https://tools.rmv.fyi/tools/qr-genny). Point it to your web site, a social media profile, or newsletter sign-up page. Make sure you list the exact page it’ll take someone to and what they’ll find there. ## Some examples (free to download) ... ### We have to remember this: notes for January 2026 URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/notes-january-2026/ Last updated: 2026-03-23T16:50:08.000Z ![audio-thumbnail](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/media/2026/03/32_thumb.png) Podcast episode 0032: We have to remember this 0:00 /403.712 1× *More podcast episodes* [*online*](https://www.improvesomething.today/tag/podcast/) *or in* [](https://www.improvesomething.today/podcast/)[*your favorite app*](https://pod.link/1413904169)*.* ## Two Januaries It’s the first Tuesday of the month—January 6, 2026\. I remember where and how I was five years ago today: holed up in my office, up in the finished attic of our previous home, cold but cozy, laboring desperately and fruitlessly to finish some mildly overdue items for a client, making no progress whatsoever, instead watching video feeds on C-SPAN and texting furiously with Liana and various friends. My consulting partner on that project (*hi Jennifer! miss you & hope you are well*) created a little wiggle room for us that day. People die only the once, but ideals fall again and again, and either way the absence and grief is felt whole-heartedly. Yesterday was the first day back at work for many of us who had the good fortune to enjoy some downtime or time away around the end of the year. I felt tense going into the weekend, not from apprehension about returning to work but rather from worry about what they’d do on—or for—the fifth anniversary of January 6\. I needn’t have waited. In 1992 Leonard Cohen sang that he couldn’t “run no more with that lawless crowd / while the killers in high places say their prayers out loud.” In the current circumstance the killers skipped the praying in favor of congregating in front of a wall-sized display with results of a search on X dot com for ‘Venezuela.’ Square that with the expectation that work happens underneath a context-free, ahistorical capitalist realism dome; in this dome the past is about two months long and the future extends only as far out as the end of the quarter or the next round of asinine bulk layoffs. I see cracks in the dome. I wonder what might shine through. ## Three responses How to respond in these conditions? I see three ways: 1. The first response is to **remember**. I wrote recently about [undiscussables](https://www.improvesomething.today/undiscussables-2025/) and [shifting baselines](https://www.improvesomething.today/vanishing-fish-boiling-frogs-the-dry-bed-of-the-sea/). In both cases I think this is what I was really on about. We have to remember this, so we can give an account of what happened, and hold to account those responsible, and produce a better place in its aftermath, restoring rights and generating protections for all. 2. Another is to **take time & show care**. People are hurting, worried, scared. These are best antidotes I know of, at least on a the scale of local, daily interactions. 1. *Taking time*: this looks like 90 minutes with friends instead of 60; showing up early to arrange chairs and cushions into an inviting circle; and joining a few calls or meetings that are not strictly necessary but I hope will be beneficial. 2. *Showing care*: helping people around me ease back into things. At work this means a deliberate, gentle reiteration of commitments and arrangements. What have we all signed up for? By what method will we try to it get it done? We might adjust as needed, but largely I think people just need to hear it again. 3. A final response is to do **what we can**. My city elected its new mayor, someone I know and respect and for whose campaign our whole family was proud to volunteer. He’ll be sworn in at the top of tonight’s city council meeting. There is a sense that this is the start of something good, despite the limitations of that position and other constraints in place. These three are incomplete, but it’s what I have, and how I’m operating right now. ### Going wrong, going great: notes for December 2025 URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/notes-december-2025/ Last updated: 2026-01-22T17:49:18.000Z ## ‘Failure gaps’—online reading Cat Hicks in [Fight for the Human](https://www.fightforthehuman.com/empirical-security/): > The experiences of folks who find themselves fighting on a technical battleground—privacy, security, infrastructure, or even developer experience—have a lot of common themes. There’s a psychological fortitude that goes into becoming a Champion, a clarity of seeing the consequences that other people don’t like to see. Most people systematically underestimate the problems, failures, fragility, and errors around them … Researchers tested people’s estimation of failure rates across more than thirty domainsand found a consistent “failure gap.” Champions may just be the people who have learned to overcome the typical failure gap in a particular domain. They’re like our sociocognitive field scouts, with sharper prediction skills for the disasters most of us can't tolerate imagining for long. [Can we make Security Empirical, and why might we want to?There’s a paper I recently came across by Mohammad Tahaei and colleagues called Privacy Champions in Sofware Teams: Understanding Their Motivations, Strategies, and Challenges. In it, they interview 12 folks on software teams who try to promote user privacy across their teams and organizations. It’s a small group, and there![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/icon/Cat-6-1-2.png)Fight for the HumanCat Hicks![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/thumbnail/empirical-security--4-.png)](https://www.fightforthehuman.com/empirical-security/) The paper Hicks mentioned is this (freely available to read online or download): [Eskreis-Winkler, Lauren and Woolley, Kaitlin and Kim, Minhee and Polimeni, Eliana, The Failure Gap (August 04, 2025)](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract%5Fid=5407064). Across seven studies, this team looked into responses to failure: > People closest to a failure—those with the clearest access to information about a failure that occurred—will tend to be those with the strongest motive notto share it. This could seriously impede the accessibility of information. For example, a reporter looking to write a story about an individual, a company, or an organization, may find that the most knowledgeable and powerful sources more freely share information on what is going right, versus what is going wrong. If you’d rather not read the entire, dense paper, read [Fred Hebert’s summary and discussion](https://ferd.ca/notes/paper-the-failure-gap.html) instead. I’ve been thinking about how and why bad news related to likely failures or recent failures does not get communicated inside organizations, or is deliberately hidden from view; hence my recent posts on [shifting baselines](https://www.improvesomething.today/vanishing-fish-boiling-frogs-the-dry-bed-of-the-sea/) and [undiscussables](https://www.improvesomething.today/undiscussables-2025/). As various initiatives don’t pan out—in the typical case of mandated ‘AI’ usage, because they won’t, and can’t—people are left the unenviable task of ‘easing in’ the bad news (to use Argyris’ phrasing). ## Some good things from 2025 This is the part where we bask in the accomplishments of my friends, pals, and comrades. An incomplete, roughly chronological list: - Chris and pals at Fenwick published [Rewild Magazine](https://fenwick.media/rewild/magazine) (issues 0 and 1 available) as part of a larger [community project](https://fenwick.media/rewild). - Jenny created [Show Up Toronto](https://showuptoronto.ca), my favorite newsletter for local events in a city I haven’t been to in 20 years. Wherever you are, read the [manifesto](https://showuptoronto.ca/manifesto). - Tonianne and Jim started their [Humane Work](https://humanework.substack.com) newsletter. Recommended: Tonianne’s [Sundays with Saarinen](https://humanework.substack.com/p/sundays-seeing-sincero-with-saarinen). - Greg published [Eject Disk](https://brilliantcrank.com/ejectdiskseries/), a set of 4 zines for people who are stuck in work or otherwise. Read online, or pay Greg to mail them to you. The first zine told me what I need to do in 2026, for which I’m grateful. - Shannon (singer) and Jamie (producer) released the album that is now part 1 of their [80s Kids](https://shannoncurtis.bandcamp.com/album/80s-kids) project, toured all year, and have raised funds and released the first single from [80s Kids 2](https://shannoncurtis.bandcamp.com/album/80s-kids-2), for which a 2026 tour is already scheduled. When I imagine I am busy, I think about these two and sit back down. - Isabel launched [flux studio](https://www.fluxstud.io). If you loathe ‘personal branding’ or ‘content marketing’ but gotta do it anyways, hire Isabel to help. Beyond this, various friends left jobs (by choice or otherwise), started new work or adventures, and have done the right things for themselves. My family is healthy and mostly doing stuff they like. Walk into our home and beware sewing scraps, LEGO bricks, and books piled underfoot. Meanwhile: a steady, year-length drumbeat of protest. I love all of this, and this is what I celebrate. ### Vanishing fish, boiling frogs & the dry bed of the sea URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/vanishing-fish-boiling-frogs-the-dry-bed-of-the-sea/ Last updated: 2026-03-23T16:48:55.000Z ![audio-thumbnail](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/media/2026/03/33_thumb.png) Podcast episode 0033: Vanishing fish, boiling frogs & the dry bed of the sea 0:00 /596.832 1× *More podcast episodes* [*online*](https://www.improvesomething.today/tag/podcast/) *or in* [](https://www.improvesomething.today/podcast/)[*your favorite app*](https://pod.link/1413904169)*.* The original tagline for this site and newsletter was ‘continuous improvement in a world that’s one damn thing after another.’ Today let’s revisit that last bit. What does it mean for a world to be one damn thing after another? And what does this have to do with the potential for continuous improvement, or the [possibility of provision](https://www.improvesomething.today/notes-october-2025/#:~:text=Fall%20is%20a%20season%20for%20Wendell%20Berry%2C%20who%20helps%20me%20remember%20that%20caring%20is%20not%20abstract%2C%20or%20theoretical.%20I%20love%20his%20definition%20of%20%E2%80%98provision%E2%80%99%E2%80%94what%20it%20means%20to%20provide%E2%80%94from%20the%20recent%20collection%20The%20Art%20of%20Loading%20Brush.)? ## Something fishy In 1995 fisheries scientist [Daniel Pauly](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel%5FPauly) (by this time 20 years into his career and already a [prolific author](https://www.seaaroundus.org/daniel-paulys-publications-with-pdfs/)) wrote a one-pager published on the back page of an obscure biology journal. This was the location of one of the biggest, gloomiest ideas going. Pauly described a ‘shifting baseline syndrome’ affecting his profession: > This syndrome has arisen because each generation of fisheries scientists accepts as a baseline the stock size and species composition that occurred at the beginning of their careers, and uses this to evaluate changes. When the next generation starts its career, the stocks have further declined, but it is the stocks at that time that serve as a new baseline. The result obviously is a gradual shift of the baseline, a gradual accommodation of the creeping disappearance of resource species, and inappropriate reference points for evaluating economic losses resulting from overfishing, or for identifying targets for rehabilitation measures. 📖 Read this article for yourself. It’s very short: [Anecdotes and the shifting baseline syndrome of fisheries](https://www.seaaroundus.org/daniel-paulys-publications-with-pdfs/#:~:text=Text%29-,1995,10%29:%20430.%20.%28Full%20Text%29,-Van). Pauly viewed this as a generational ‘shift’ to be countered with careful data collection and analysis. These countermeasures would occupy much of his time and publication schedule for the rest of his career. ## The blissfully boiling frog When I first read this article some years ago, it really stuck with me. It seemed to explain a lot. But I wondered: - Might it explain more, and more broadly? Doesn’t everybody do this? - And at a faster pace than the gradual, generational cycles under discussion? I believed then, and believe now, that people can get used to just about anything. The evidence is all around us. - I also worried that expanding the idea of ‘shifting baselines’ beyond Pauly’s original scope would lead to nostalgia. There are many important ways in which the present is better than the past, even as we rush to forget what has passed away. Eventually I poked around the archive. No surprise that Pauly continued to think and write about this big, gloomy idea. In 2011—sixteen years after ‘shifting baselines’—he wrote: > Without firm rooting in scientific, quantified knowledge of what we now have, or had, we will inevitably experience the ‘shifting baseline syndrome.’ As I have described, successive generations of naturalists, ecologists, or even Nature lovers use the state of the environment at the beginning of their conscious interactions with it as the reference point, which then shifts as successive generations degrade that same environment. The story of the frog kept in water that is heated very slowly comes to mind here, and if we are not careful, we are going to get boiled as the frog does: a runaway greenhouse effect would do the job nicely. I found here in the 2011 writing the broadened scope, the boiling frog, and the slow-but-fast progression of human-caused climate change that is the defining feature of our century. The decade-scale example is excess deaths caused by COVID-19\. We never did a great job tracking mortality due to COVID. Instead, we mostly stopped counting 3 years ago, and mostly stopped estimating one year ago, as the body count [neared 30 million](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/excess-deaths-cumulative-economist-single-entity). There is a huge impulse to forget and to move along, although [insurance companies remember](https://www.swissre.com/institute/research/topics-and-risk-dialogues/health-and-longevity/covid-19-pandemic-synonymous-excess-mortality.html). (Thanks to Susannah for these links.) Is this another aspect of shifting baselines? Despite, alongside, and during this unsurpassed tragedy, we continue to care for the people in our lives and provide and labor in community. What the hell else would we do? Emerson wrote that “we learn geology the morning after the earthquake.” This is true; also true is that only a few days or years pass before the “cloven mountains, upheaved plains, and the dry bed of the sea” become as unremarkable as any other feature of our surroundings. A disaster as invisible as any other. Pauly made an additional point—also revealed to me by my friend Summer: > For baselines to shift is not always bad. There are many stupid things that must be forgotten even if they have been the rule for thousands of years. Getting rid of these notions will free our minds and enable us to concentrate on things that matter, including some important things that we should remember. Forgetting, remembering—and in Pauly’s discussion, forgetting some things in order to remember others. All baselines can shift. It seems that most will. But a few must not, lest we lose our footing during the ongoing scramble toward liberation. This is the idea. It is big, and it is gloomy. 📖 These 2011 quotes are from a book chapter called “On baselines that need shifting.” It is reprinted in Pauly’s 2019 book [Vanishing Fish](https://bookshop.org/a/56572/9781771643986). ## Shifting baselines in the workplace This is not mere theory. I see it in my daily efforts as a consultant supporting people in their work and in their workplaces. 1. The conditions of shifting baseline syndrome—of vast, continual retrenchment of natural and built and social environments—are those under which people work. Even if [undiscussable](https://www.improvesomething.today/undiscussables-2025/), it’s ever-present. 2. As someone who lives and works in the US, this has only accelerated in our current bad times. The Christian fascists in power have an agenda that depends on baselines shifting quickly and broadly. Whether people resist and ignore this—or, as a minority do, accept it—the effort keeps everyone distracted and uncomfortable. 3. Finally, certain ultra-Amazonified workplaces intentionally leverage the ‘shifting baseline syndrome’ to get staff to accept bad policy, missing strategy, poorly leveled workloads, and so forth. 1. If employees are to perform inside these settings, they must develop a context-free, history-less pragmatism. 2. Some people will shift to accommodate. 3. Other people will wash out. 4. Either way, the corporation gets what it wants. I don’t have answers to any of this. But I find it helpful to remember that these are the conditions people are in. ## Pauly’s closing advice Let’s give Pauly the last word. He ended his 2019 book [Vanishing Fish](https://bookshop.org/a/56572/9781771643986) with an offer of advice, which—after all of the above—I was eager to accept. His advice is honest and true. I suppose time will tell whether it is sufficient. Pauly wrote: > If I have any advice to give, it is that one should have friends and work hard. ### A choice to counter culture: notes for November 2025 URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/notes-november-2025/ Last updated: 2025-11-04T19:52:27.000Z I bring you a few practices of doing *otherwise*—doing anything other than the default, expected, thoughtless thing. Wiggle room where and how we find it. ## As a person First, a practice of refusal, from Winston Hearn: > When you practice refusal, you start conjuring up space for different futures. It’s a magic trick. When you refuse to do a thing that the majority of other people are doing, you create space for others to join you. When you refuse to enforce a dumb rule, you make the world malleable. When you refuse to believe a story without doing your own research, you build trust in yourself. When you refuse to take people at their word—when you understand that trust has to be earned it is not just given by default—you undermine power. The effects of the practice of refusal is to create a less predictable world, which makes planning harder. [Practice RefusingWhen you practice refusal, you start conjuring up space for different futures. It’s a magic trick.![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/icon/favicon-10.ico)Winston Hearn (the third)Cadwell Turnbull![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/thumbnail/share-building_hu_f32cc2e51ae80c70.jpg)](https://www.winstonhearn.com/wrote/2024/practice-refusing/) --- Next, a practice of invitation, from Jack Kornfield: > You see a hungry child, a painful injustice, an act of violence to an innocent person and your heart goes out. You want to help. The profound reality of suffering is an invitation to step out of the fiction of separateness, grasping at what is called the “small sense of self” or the “body of fear,” where we are frightened or selfish or self-centered or cut off. This is not who we are. We know there is a reality beyond this. We feel it walking in the high mountains or making love or being there at the mystery of the birth of a child or the death of a human being. All of a sudden we step out of time-bound consciousness, the separateness, and feel ourselves part of the turning of the seasons of life. You can feel it on retreat. You’re doing walking meditation and all of a sudden you realize you’re not doing it. It’s all just doing it itself. It’s amazing. One of my teachers explained this as “No self, no problem.” More self, more clinging; more self-centered, more problem. [An Invitation to FreedomMeditation teacher Jack Kornfield on how to view our suffering as a gateway to liberation![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/icon/site-icon-300x300.png)Tricycle: The Buddhist ReviewJack Kornfield![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/thumbnail/callous-gee-UszLFIa57a4-unsplash.jpg)](https://tricycle.org/article/an-invitation-to-freedom/) ## In the workplace The busy lil’ consultant in me is preoccupied with how this plays out in the workplace. First, let’s acknowledge with Sumantra Ghoshal—in his classic paper from 2005—that labor markets are *not* efficient, and transfer risk to workers: > Shareholders can sell their stocks far more easily than most employees can find another job. In every substantive sense, employees of a company carry more risks than do the shareholders. Also, their contributions of knowledge, skills, and entrepreneurship are typically more important than the contributions of capital by shareholders, a pure commodity that is perhaps in excess supply. (This paper is well worth reading if you haven’t. JSTOR and mysterious PDF links below.) [Bad Management Theories Are Destroying Good Management Practices on JSTORSumantra Ghoshal, Bad Management Theories Are Destroying Good Management Practices, Academy of Management Learning & Education, Vol. 4, No. 1 (Mar., 2005), pp. 75-91![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/icon/android-chrome-512x512.png)](https://www.jstor.org/stable/40214265) [Somewhat dodgy PDF link for those who need it](https://www.corporation2020.org/documents/Resources/Ghoshal.pdf) --- If you’re a worker storing your bosses’ risk in your head and heart and hands, what might you do? Mandy Brown writes: > Most employment in the US is what is known as “at will.” Legally, that means both you and your employer can end the job at any moment, for any reason or for no reason at all. But to “will” something is to choose it, to exercise the mind and body towards an act. Every choice you make in your work is an act of will, an act of your will, and the collective will of the people you make those choices with. And will is a powerful thing! The story of inevitability is a story that wants you to forget that you have the will to change things; but the future remains, as ever, unwritten. [Not doing | everything changesAt will.![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/icon/favicon-11.ico)everything changes![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/thumbnail/social-1.png)](https://everythingchanges.us/blog/not-doing/) --- And, finally, Jenny: > It’s possible to see this with despair or derision: who are we becoming that even the use of tools and technologies has become a matter of identity? But the fun thing about reading anthropology is learning how much humans have always been Like This™. There were tribes who refused to adopt agriculture not because they didn’t know about it, but because the tribe up the road does agriculture and they’re not like *them*. Groups that refused to domesticate cattle because it was important to their group identity to see bulls as wild and untamed. I refuse to use generative AI because I simply don’t want to be the kind of person who uses generative AI. The promise of AI is that it removes friction. It doesn’t matter whether it can actually fulfill that promise, it matters that the sovereign wealth funds with seemingly infinite pockets and patience for Sam Altman’s megalomania believe it can. [choosing frictionIn 2018, legal scholar Tim Wu wrote in the New York Times that: Today’s cult of convenience fails to acknowledge that difficulty is a constitutive feature of human experience. Convenience is all destination and no journey. This piece well predates the current AI boom, but “all destination and no journey” is a pretty good explanation for why using AI to create art is mainly compelling to people who think about creativity in terms of producing content and generating intellectual property. They just want the thing they can market and sell for money or clout; they don’t care how they got there. I know you’re sick of talking about AI. I am too. This is only a little bit about AI, I promise. Like all my writing about technology, it’s mostly about people.![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/icon/favicon-12.ico)The Roof is on PhireThe Roof is on Phire](https://phirephoenix.com/blog/2025-10-11/friction) ## A book recommendation I’ve been enjoying this new book of edited talks from Ram Dass, with supporting essays by various teachers: [There Is No Other: The Way to Harmony and WholenessThe Way to Harmony and Wholeness![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)HarperOneHarperOne![](https://images-us.bookshop.org/ingram/9780063443020.jpg?v=2570393fbcfd0b18d728a2ea247980dd)](https://bookshop.org/a/56572/9780063443020) Ram Dass—who you may know as the author of “Be Here Now” among may other books—was not the most accessible speaker or thinker to get into, but this collection provides a generous structure for doing so. For example, the ‘invitation to freedom’ by Jack Kornfield I mentioned above is one of the supporting essays from this book. I’d recommend this collection to anybody. ## A year of whole-heartedness closes A year ago, I wrote about whole-heartedness as we entered into what we all knew would be—politically, socially, culturally—a very bad time. [Monthly links & notes for November 2024A talk on values at work. The Multisolving book, which I think you should read. Whole-heartedness.![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/icon/Logo---for-hero-spot-2-1-12.svg)Improve Something TodayBrian Kerr![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/thumbnail/IMG_3355.jpeg)](https://www.improvesomething.today/monthly-links-notes-for-november-2024/#whole-heartedness) How has this year of whole-heartedness worked out? Great, I think, but not without a lot of heartache. I try to be less cynical, to bring care and kindness. It’s hard, sometimes (all the time), but also something I can do to run counter to the culture being produced while the “killers in high places say their prayers out loud.” In that same post I wrote that this song is what whole-heartedness means to me, and a year later, I have no better definition: [Anthem by Leonard Cohen on Apple MusicSong · 1992 · Duration 6:09![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/icon/favicon-180-1.png)Apple Music - Web Player![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/thumbnail/1200x630wp-60-1.jpg)](https://music.apple.com/us/album/anthem/511074710?i=511074721) It’s Election Day in the United States. My ballot is dropped off and has been counted. On Friday, Mavis Staples’ new album is out. The tracklist indicates she’s covered this song. I look forward to it. --- One more thing. If you’re in the US, consider a cash donation of *any* amount to your community food bank. This part of the social safety net is in crisis right now due to the government shutdown and the Republican party’s refusal to fund SNAP (aka food stamps). Here’s detailed information about how SNAP works, how the Trump administration broke it, and the day-by-day accumulating impact on families: [How Propel’s Emergency Fund Is Supporting SNAP Households With Cash TransfersPropel launches $1M Relief Fund to support SNAP households affected by the government shutdown. Track real-time data, see the impact of direct cash transfers, and join us to help families buy food.![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/icon/apple-touch-icon-1.png)Propel![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/thumbnail/72306c63f5be109ce3c980d5312ed3debedbecef-2000x1235.png)](https://www.propel.app/shutdown-fundraise/) Take good care. See you a little further down the road. ### On ‘undiscussables’ 45 years later: still here, still bad & somehow even worse URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/undiscussables-2025/ Last updated: 2026-05-29T06:00:04.000Z In 1980, Chris Argyris published a short article called ‘Making the Undiscussable and its Undiscussability Discussable’. Argyris wrote broadly and for decades about organizational behavior and its consequences, but this is the article with the catchy title and the fun terminology so it’s the one people remember. Let’s start there. (Access the article via [JSTOR](https://www.jstor.org/stable/975372) or [archive.org](https://archive.org/details/argyris%5Fchris%5Forg%5Flearning/argyris1980/page/205/mode/2up).) ## Undiscussables 1980 Argyris wrote that as individuals enter organizations they bring > a set of values, action strategies, and skills that lead them to respond automatically to threatening issues by ‘easing in,’ ‘appropriately covering,’ or by ‘being civilized.’ > > Any way you wish to describe the actions, they add up to making threatening issues undiscussable and then to making their undiscussability undiscussable. The organization may not be the culprit; it may be the victim of the individuals who work within it. However, once the victim, the organization may collude to maintain and reinforce the problem. The article uses undiscussability to diagnose mismatches between various learning strategies available—what Argyris called single-loop vs. double-loop learning—and their (mis)application to various problems that arise. This is valuable and good, but it feels incomplete. ## Undiscussables 2025 At 45 years’ remove from the paper, there has been a change: - Back in 1980, Argyris approached undiscussables as emergent, unwanted behaviors that a wise organization could route around in order to achieve shared understanding and clarity of purpose. - In 2025, individuals bring their own perspectives on undiscussability into an organization, per Argyris. But the typical organization has also established its own set(s) of undiscussables. To what end?—as a means of control. This is not solely a result of the present political circumstance. Although authoritarianism trickles down in a way that most things do not, what we’ve seen in the last year in the workplace is a change in degree, not in kind. The widening circle of undiscussability has consequences. 1. The further up someone is in the org chart, the more fabricated (as in: filtered, or ‘eased in’ to acceptability) the information they receive. This huge disconnect helps nobody, as Argyris discussed in the 1980 paper. 2. Conversely, lower on the org chart, a simply outrageously tremendous amount of labor goes into producing these limited, acceptable, discussable messages. 3. Things go worse than they otherwise might. Opportunities and ideas are constrained. Failures take longer and cost more. People are excluded. 4. And you aren’t meant to talk about any of it. It’s all undiscussable. ## Courage & kindness I bring all this up because I want you to have courage. I want you to know that if you’re feeling this pressure, you’re not alone. I don’t suggest you stand up and shout out the organization’s undiscussables. But maybe write them down somewhere, on a 100% offline piece of paper, and think about how their mere, invisible, undiscussed presence benefits the organization. Returning at last to Argyris’ formulation of undiscussables as ‘threatening issues’: what are they afraid of?—what are they threatening you with?—and what kindness or stout-heartedness might you extend today, tomorrow, and again the day after, to others feeling the same sense of enclosure? ### The undefined moon: notes for October 2025 URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/notes-october-2025/ Last updated: 2026-05-06T17:25:47.000Z ## Looking ahead I’m adjusting the schedule of this newsletter. We’re looking ahead into the month as we begin, not back at the past month. So: October. Let’s go, together. ## Online reading Sometimes you read something that clarifies the moment. What is going on right now, really? For me, it was this detailed reporting from a ‘materials sourcing’ conference for footwear companies: > When you make stuff to sell—mountains of stuff, so much stuff that the human mind cannot fathom the volume of it—you cannot pretend that your industry will just function as it has forever. Sneaker manufacturing isn’t like tech, where you can blabber on about how you actually need to devour cities’ worth of energy for years at a time in order to make Generative AI and keep your investors happy. These companies are in a more tactile business. Whatever Nike’s vision of itself might be, it sells shoes and facilitates the manufacturing of shoes. For a company in that business, thinking five years ahead means thinking about what the marketplace will be like five years deeper into multiple environmental catastrophes. [The Future Of The Sneaker Business First Requires A Future | DefectorPORTLAND, ORE. — Global capitalism begins with apparel. Slaves were brought to the American South from West Africa to do farm labor, and by the 19th century that largely meant cotton, a ubiquitous puffball that is easy to grow and aggravating to harvest. Seeds would be removed with a cotton gin, and the bulk of…![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/icon/cropped-defector-circle_avatar512-1.png)Defector homeCorbin Smith![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/thumbnail/CD8A9392.jpg)](https://defector.com/the-future-of-the-sneaker-business-first-requires-a-future?giftLink=298b0dfe269b9a597d6a3a238aac59ea) ## Books Fall is a season for old science fiction. Let’s visit J.G. Ballard’s [Studio 5, The Stars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studio%5F5,%5FThe%5FStars) from 1961\. Here, ‘VT’ is short for ‘Verse-Transcriber’—a machine that emits soulless poetry on demand, to spec. > Fifty years ago a few people wrote poetry, but no one read it. Now no one writes it either. The VT set merely simplifies the whole process. Ballard’s vision of text extruders everywhere fits our moment, which is the moment of over & over encountering LLM-generated text, copy without end, argument-shaped things without arguments. Of “pushing a button, selecting metre, rhyme, assonance on a dial.” I’m so tired of all of it. Fall is a season for Wendell Berry, who helps me remember that caring is not abstract, or theoretical. I love his definition of ‘provision’—what it means to provide—from the recent collection [The Art of Loading Brush](https://bookshop.org/a/56572/9781640091580). > Provision, I think, is never more than caring properly for the good that you have, including your own life. As it relates to the future, provision does only what our oldest, longest experience tells us to do. We must continuously attend to our need for food, clothing, and shelter. We must care for the land, care for the forest, plant trees, plant gardens and crops, see that the brood animals are bred, keep the house and the household intact. We must teach the children. But provision does not foresee, predict, project, or theorize the future. Provision instructs us to renew the roof of our house, not to shelter us when we are old—we may die or the world may end before we are old—but so we may live under a sound roof now. Provision merely accepts the chances we must take with the weather, mortality, fallibility. Perhaps the wisest of the old sayings is ‘Don’t count your chickens before they hatch.’ Provision accepts, next, the importance of diversity. Perhaps the next-wisest old saying is ‘Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.’ When the bad, worse, or worst possibility presents itself, provision only continues to take best possible care of what we have, or of what we have left. We’re here in the moment of bad, worse, or worst. What to do? As Berry puts it, ‘only continue.’ I can do that. So can you. It just might be enough. ## On the site I’m running a new publication schedule. If you’re reading this on the e-mail newsletter, you’ll get two mails a month: 1. newsletter for the month ahead (first Tuesday of each month), and 2. a regular old blog post (third Tuesday of each month). Now, I update the site more frequently than this. One example of updates that aren’t sent out as e-mails (or even distributed in the [RSS feed](https://www.improvesomething.today/rss/)) are [HOWTOs](https://www.improvesomething.today/howtos/). These HOWTOs are more telegraphic and less explanatory than what I usually write here. Procedures for assembling a particular kind of diagram, checking in with a group—that kind of thing. I joked that I have reinvented the concept of putting up a plain old web page, for my own use. Take a walk through them here: [HOWTOsHow to do different things. More quick reference than deep explanation.![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/icon/Logo---for-hero-spot-2-1-8.svg)Improve Something TodayBrian Kerr![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/thumbnail/Logo---for-hero-spot-2-2-2.svg)](https://www.improvesomething.today/howtos/) ## Upcoming events Looking ahead to November, you can get your ticket today for Makesensemess on Nov. 7\. This will be an incredible event, as always. It is: > The brain child of information architect and author, Abby Covert. It is an annual (virtual) celebration of sensemaking that started in 2021\. Part virtual unconference, part virtual party, all virtual fun. It is celebrated every November, which also happens to be the publication anniversary for *How to Make Sense of Any Mess.* [Makesensemess: An Annual Celebration of SensemakingMakesensemess is an annual celebration of sensemaking and happens to take place around the publication anniversary of How to Make Sense of Any Mess written by Abby Covert.![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/icon/7ba6af5-785a-c331-f6b-5105cb8df5c_The_Sensemakers_Club_with_Information_Architect_Abby_Covert.png)Header Logo![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/thumbnail/b3b4b-678e-5e7-ff05-de28e88b4c57_Makesensemess_4_.png)](https://www.thesensemakersclub.com/makesensemess) ## The undefined moon Pity the wayward [Moon Phases](https://fedibot.dev/@moonphase/115299503597015091) Mastodon bot. It posted the following on October 1: > Today’s undefined moon is 0% of full brightness, and is currently NaN km from Earth and NaN km from the sun. It’s been NaN days since the last new moon. I thank this misfiring script or disconnected data feed for nearly a week of happiness produced by that phrase. It is the season of the undefined moon, unnumbered in distance, duration, and brightness. Yet, as I write these words, the moon is up, and it is full, and still, and brilliant. ### Needing Earth & body: notes for July 2025 URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/notes-july-2025/ Last updated: 2025-10-21T22:48:45.000Z ## Remembering Joanna Macy The environmental activist and Buddhist scholar [Joanna Macy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joanna%5FMacy) died this month, the end of a long and generative life. Here’s a little passage from her book [World as Lover, World as Self](https://bookshop.org/a/56572/9781946764843): > The strength and wisdom we need is not to be concocted on our own, but to be found in interaction—for that is how they arise, interdependently. The same is true for our goals and the visions that guide us; they, too, interdependently co-arise. New visions do not come from blueprints inside our heads, concocted by past experience and old habits of thinking, so much as from our interactions with our world and fresh sensations and perceptions. And for that we need Earth and body, the stuff out of which we are made. For these remind us that we are not brains on the end of a stick, but an organic, integral part of the web of life. One thing I appreciated about Macy is that she never seemed satisfied with theory. She needed to know: how should we act? What can we do in intractably difficult, hate-filled, inhumane times? So if you’d like to learn more about Macy’s work—and how to apply it directly to your own—I encourage you to take this free, online [“Active Hope” training](https://activehope.training) based on [the book](https://bookshop.org/a/56572/9781608687107) she coauthored with Chris Johnstone. ## Books ### Creative Intelligence I’m deeply skeptical of LLMs and related “AI” technologies, and think people should not use them. However, a lot of folks I work with have been *made* to, like it or not. Bosses are looking for returns on their investments—returns that don’t exist, and won’t. So the pressure is on. If you are being required to demonstrate use of LLMs at work but want to do this in as considered and thoughtful a way as humanly possible, give [Greg Storey’s](https://brilliantcrank.com) new book [Creative Intelligence](https://brilliantcrank.com/creative-intelligence/) a shot. Greg will even get you started with a [free chapter](https://brilliantcrank.com/creative-intelligence-chapter4/). ### Designing and Facilitating Workshops with Intentionality I found this new book from [Dr. Tolu Noah](https://www.tolunoah.com) helpful in filling in the middle spaces between (a) having a grab bag of facilitation methods on hand, and (b) knowing how to design and run professional learning workshops skillfully. Newer facilitators will benefit from the practical advice about gluing together methods, approaches, etc., to get to the outcomes they have in mind. And more experienced folks will find something interesting and insightful in the mix. Personally, I appreciated the discussion of ten traits that facilitators can demonstrate to produce the right kind of tone in a workshop setting. [Order a copy today](https://bookshop.org/a/56572/9781032758046). ## The burning, flowering chair I leave you today with two passages from two books giving different—yet similar—ways of looking at a wooden chair and seeing what is ‘inside’. First, from Thich Nhat Hanh’s [The Other Shore](https://bookshop.org/a/56572/9781941529140): > The word interbeing was born while I was leading a retreat at Tassajara Zen Center in the mountains of California in the 1980s. I was teaching about emptiness and I did not have a sheet of paper with me to illustrate the point, so I used an empty wooden chair. I invited everyone to look carefully into the chair to see the presence of the forest, the sunshine, the rain, and the clouds. I explained that the chair was not subject to birth and death, nor could it be described in terms of being or nonbeing. I asked them whether there was a word in French or English that could describe how the chair existed along with all the other non-chair elements. I asked if the word ‘togetherness’ would do. Somebody said that it sounded strange, so I suggested the word ‘interbeing.’ And second, from Rob Burbea’s [Seeing That Frees](https://bookshop.org/a/56572/9780992848934): > A thing is ‘empty’ of its seemingly real, independent existence. And all things are this way, are empty. This voidness is what is also sometimes termed the ultimate truth or reality of things. To illustrate this and begin to get a hint of what it means we could consider a wooden chair thrown onto a big fire. The chair begins to burn, then gradually deform and fall apart, slowly turning to ashes. At what point exactly is it no longer a chair? Is it not the mind perceiving and conceiving of it one way or another that determines whether it is ‘a chair’ at a certain moment in time after catching fire? Its chair-ness is given by the mind, and does not reside in it independently of the mind. The lack of an inherently existing ‘official’ time when it stops ‘being a chair’ points to a certain emptiness, its lack of inherent chair-ness. Both of these visions of a chair bring me comfort, and their juxtaposition makes me smile. I hope you can keep at least one of them with you and remember it next time you notice a wooden chair. ### Always becoming otherwise: notes for June 2025 URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/notes-june-2025/ Last updated: 2025-10-21T22:48:25.000Z ## Online reading—on caring It started with Dan Sinker’s [The Who Cares Era](https://dansinker.com/posts/2025-05-23-who-cares/) on May 23\. Sinker wrote about a situation where US newspapers published a summer reading supplement generated by ‘AI’ referencing nonexistent/fabricated books: > The writer didn’t care. The supplement’s editors didn’t care. The biz people on both sides of the sale of the supplement didn’t care. The production people didn’t care. And, the fact that it took *two days* for anyone to discover this epic fuckup in print means that, ultimately, the reader didn’t care either. It’s so emblematic of the moment we’re in, the Who Cares Era, where completely disposable things are shoddily produced for people to mostly ignore. A few days later, Les Orchard wrote that [Only the Metrics Care](https://blog.lmorchard.com/2025/05/27/only-metrics-care/): > It reveals such a grim meathook future ahead, a solipsistic view of humanity: most people reduced to NPCs in someone else's growth funnel. Not peers. Not audiences. Just marks—behavioral units to be nudged for another uptick. Then Jenny Zhang wrote that it’s time to [Kill the Metrics in Your Head](https://phirephoenix.com/blog/2025-05-30/metrics): > I want to know who is visiting my site and whether they’re returning visitors and what pages they clicked through and for how long because it gives me the illusion of knowledge and control. Maybe I’ll know my project is connecting with people if I just hit some arbitrary threshold of pageviews, subscribers, conversion rate. But none of that will tell me the thing I ***actually*** want to know, which is: am I making a difference? Back to Sinker’s original post: > In a moment where machines churn out mediocrity, make something yourself. Make it imperfect. Make it rough. Just make it. At a time where the government’s uncaring boot is pressing down on all of our necks, the best way to fight back is to care. There is more where that came from, from [Mandy Brown](https://aworkinglibrary.com/reading/non-things) and [Molly White](https://www.citationneeded.news/it-matters-i-care/) and many others. This is a year where caring—sheer, mere giving a shit, wanting to know that you’re making a difference, and putting in the effort day after day—is the most important, human, humane thing. ## A personal note Please do whatever you can to keep showing and giving care. (And turn off analytics wherever you can.) ## A professional note This experience of being wrenched into the ‘Who Cares Era’ is exhausting for everyone. Yet many employers expect their teams to show up and perform work while not caring about any bad things happening in the world, in their communities, to/with themselves, their families, friends, and so on. I find this expectation is an important cause of burnout and despair in 2025. My countermeasures—ways of showing care—as a consultant are twofold: 1. Leave wiggle room for people to talk about this, when possible, if they want. Because we bring to work our entire lives and whole beings as people with bodies in places, even if the company wishes we didn’t. 2. Plan as if everyone will enter into a meeting or activity immediately after reacting to bad news or difficult circumstances. Because they might be, even if they keep this to themselves. It is always important to use time skillfully and get the [fenceposts established](https://www.improvesomething.today/purpose-rational-aim-experiential-aim/). Now, it is also another small way to show care. ## Gratitude Let me leave you with a short, early, minor, Emily Dickinson poem. I memorized this as a child, and I think cross-stitched it onto a little piece of cotton fabric. While it doesn’t compare to the more esoteric word-mazes she’d write later, its directness precisely fits this moment. > If I can stop one heart from breaking, > I shall not live in vain; > If I can ease one life the aching, > Or cool one pain, > Or help one fainting robin > Unto his nest again, > I shall not live in vain. ### A real hoot: notes for May 2025 URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/notes-may-2025/ Last updated: 2026-01-08T17:33:36.000Z ## Unbreaking dot org First up, a plug for [Unbreaking](https://unbreaking.org), an important new volunteer-led project: > The United States is experiencing institutional collapse at a speed and scale that are difficult to understand, especially through feeds and updates designed to atomize our attention. We believe that mapping the damage done and its human costs—and the pushback and resilience work already underway—is necessary groundwork for building and retaining political agency. I encourage you to read their [announcement post](https://newsletter.unbreaking.org/archive/laying-the-groundwork/), or pick a topic they’re covering and read up (for example, [transgender healthcare](https://unbreaking.org/issues/transgender-healthcare/) or [food safety](https://unbreaking.org/issues/food-safety/)). ## The curse of knowledge & cursed knowledge The ‘curse of knowledge’ is a term coined by economists in the 1980s. It describes circumstances where someone has specialized, uncommon knowledge and incorrectly assumes—or acts as if—others also know the same thing. In negotiation, you can imagine why that’s worth keeping straight. In my own work (including what I write here) the curse of knowledge afflicts me in a particular way. I assume that because I am experienced in a certain topic, it’s universally boring and there is no point in sharing it. This is wrong. It’s an impulse I am learning to ignore, but it’s always there. For example, the most broadly useful post I’ve written for the site is this three-minute [how-to on running a premortem](https://www.improvesomething.today/premortem-learn-how-a-project-failed-before-it-starts/). This method no longer seems special to me, but it remains very useful, and the post is a decent enough introduction for those who find it and benefit from it. [Carina Rampelt](https://reverdie.substack.com) wrote about a similar problem in this piece on the relationship between the curse of knowledge and interminable jargon: [The Curse of Knowledge: Is Your Expertise Turning You Into A Bad Writer? — Fenwick“The main cause of incomprehensible prose is the difficulty of imagining what it’s like for someone else not to know something that you know,” writes Steven Pinker. This failure of imagination spells trouble for marketers. When we can’t envision what our customers don’t know, we can’t effectively co![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/icon/favicon-8.ico)FenwickCarina Rampelt![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/thumbnail/FN-BP-Thumbnail---The-curse-of-knowledge---9.29.2021.png)](https://www.fenwick.media/all-blog-posts/the-curse-of-knowledge) Slightly different from the curse of knowledge is the idea of ‘cursed knowledge’, which my pal [Isaac Wyatt wrote about](https://www.isaacwyatt.com/posts/2023-06-06/). In Ike’s formulation, cursed knowledge is that which one knows, but wishes one didn’t—for reasons of comfort, privacy, or to product effects such as plausible deniability. A recent example of cursed knowledge is this collection of unwanted arcana learned by the developers of a photo & video storage service: [Cursed Knowledge | ImmichThings we wish we didn’t know![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/icon/favicon-4.png)Immich Logo![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/thumbnail/feature-panel.png)](https://immich.app/cursed-knowledge/) ## Upcoming event Registration is now open for in-person and online PuMP Performance Measurement Workshops by [Brook Rolter](https://www.linkedin.com/in/brookrolter/). I took an earlier version of this workshop with Brook some years ago and found it super helpful. It has influenced how I use performance measurement in my work ever since. Last month, I shared [Donald Wheeler’s seminars](https://www.improvesomething.today/notes-april-2025/#:~:text=Donald%20Wheeler%20is%20a%20statistician%2C%20author%2C%20and%20consultant.%20I%20rely%20on%20his%20books%20%E2%80%9CUnderstanding%20Variation%E2%80%9D%20and%20%E2%80%9CUnderstanding%20Statistical%20Process%20Control%E2%80%9D%20for%20my%20own%20consulting%20work.) on using statistical analysis for management. PuMP is a proprietary performance measurement approach that is similar to Wheeler’s, but does as much of the work for you as possible. You’ll get a detailed program to take and run for your group. The in-person offering in Virginia in July and a waitlist available for the online offering in November. This is the real deal: [KPI Workshops | Rolter AssociatesPuMP Performance Measure Blueprint Workshop and Evidence Based Leadership Program - Rolter Associates, improving organizational performance against strategy & mission.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Rolter Associates![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/thumbnail/33a0c8_a538a35a2ead4c88902891999c53234f-mv2.webp)](https://www.rolterassociates.com/kpi-training) ## Gratitude I am grateful to the anonymous correspondent who wrote: > I love what you have created on the web. it is a real hoot — obviously, the product of someone enjoying life!! The reality is that I post this a day later than I wanted to, with fewer links and goodies than I’d hoped. The curse of knowledge combines with my general perfectionism and lingering headache, all of which make me hesitate to publish anything at all. But I will, and I trust it will be useful, or at least amusing, to a few people. (And if it’s not, please go find something better over in [my recommendations](https://www.improvesomething.today/recommendations/).) I hope you are doing well and finding the blue behind and above each cloudy sky. What specific thing can I do to help you? Let me know. ### You only take what you bring: notes for April 2025 URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/notes-april-2025/ Last updated: 2025-10-22T21:29:55.000Z It’s been a busy month of client work and springtime and trying to stay focused and active while the killers in high places say their prayers out loud. And at the end of this month, I come to you with an offering of words glowing on a screen. Let’s begin. ## Online reading First, Cat Hicks offers her theory of “Why I Cannot Be Technical”. This is a wonderful, challenging essay and I hope it is the first of many on her new blog, Fight for the Human. Hicks writes: > Your theory has to ask why, so your theory has to include repair. A description of the things happening for technical people and technical work has to include a realization of boundaries and how they are policed. This helps you start to see. Despite how real it feels, despite how carefully we have knit supposedly objective judgments of performance and evaluation and delivery of work into these words, Technical is not an assessment of reality. Labeling someone Technical is a reality-transforming weapon. I am structurally incapable of being Technical because in the world we have built, Technical must always be conditional for people like me, buffeted around by some unearned privileges and some undeserved exclusions as mediated by people’s perceptions and the current social location of my gender, class, race, ideological perspective, the role-related identities that the label put on my work gives me, and all of the other categories our brains are using to slice up this planet in between meteor strikes. [Why I Cannot Be TechnicalWith some regularity, kind-hearted Technical people tell me that I Can Be Technical, Too. This usually happens when I’m asking us to define what we’re calling technical in a software environment. I understand why it happens. I am a psychologist of software environments and that is something of![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/icon/Cat-6-1-1.png)Fight for the HumanCat Hicks![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/thumbnail/PXL_20250201_230244207-2.jpg)](https://www.fightforthehuman.com/why-i-cannot-be-technical/) --- Earlier this month I had the good fortune to see Naomi Klein in conversation with [Kate Starbird](https://faculty.washington.edu/kstarbi/) about her book [Doppelganger](https://bookshop.org/a/56572/9780374610326)—the most recent, and easily my favorite, of Klein’s books. Klein did a huge service for a few hundred people gathered at a local university by merely saying that what is happening is not normal, and not OK. Everybody in attendance needed a moment to hear that, and feel it, in a crowd. This event was only a few days after Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor wrote about the “darkly festive fatalism” currently dismantling the American state and what one can do—what **we** can do—in response: > To have a hope of combating the end times fascists, with their ever-constricting and asphyxiating concentric circles of ‘ordered love’, we will need to build an unruly open-hearted movement of the Earth-loving faithful: faithful to this planet, its people, its creatures and to the possibility of a livable future for us all. Faithful to here. [The rise of end times fascism | Naomi Klein and Astra TaylorThe governing ideology of the far right has become a monstrous, supremacist survivalism. Our task is to build a movement strong enough to stop them![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/icon/apple-touch-icon-512-1.png)The GuardianNaomi Klein![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/thumbnail/3000-1.jpg)](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2025/apr/13/end-times-fascism-far-right-trump-musk) ## Moving from zero to one: how to… ### Start consulting Brea Starmer is the CEO of [Lions & Tigers](https://lionsandtigers.com/), a local/global consulting firm. She recently posted a remarkable six-point checklist for getting started in consulting. I truly wish I’d had this list in front of me when I began this work \~20 years ago. And as bad times are on horseback and people consider different ways of working, I’ve talked through this list with a couple folks. I think it’s a great starting point for those thinking about consulting, and specifically, how to begin. [Read Starmer’s post on LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/breastarmer%5Findependent-activity-7317886973900136448-TnYp/) ### Start writing Liana has started up a blog where she’s sharing worthwhile advice from her work in/around writing. Now, Liana is my sweetheart and I linger over every word she publishes. Does that make me biased? Yes. Is this blog very good? Also, yes. Her first big post is about moving past fear and other self-inflicted obstacles. This will help anyone who’s ever stared into an empty page and despaired. Plus, if you read the piece, you’ll find out how the two of us met. Check it out: [Eight Principles To Help Aspiring Writers Conquer Their Fear Of InadequacyTalent isn’t enough. Sometimes, nothing’s harder than getting over yourself.![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/icon/icon-1.svg)Liana’s SubstackLiana Kerr![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/thumbnail/https-3A-2F-2Flianareads.substack.com-2Ftwitter-2Fsubscribe-card.jpg%3Fv%3D-836837676%26version%3D9)](https://lianareads.substack.com/p/eight-principles-to-help-aspiring) ### Find insight in data Donald Wheeler is a statistician, author, and consultant. I rely on his books “Understanding Variation” and “Understanding Statistical Process Control” for my own consulting work. I recently learned that Wheeler’s [seminars are freely available online](https://www.spcpress.com/seminars.php), with [videos on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUeXRJ5a5UC1cDLxbZPs6Jg%5Fd9m-nvIjO). These are not flashy. But I encourage you to make time for the first two presentations, in which Wheeler makes his case that “the purpose of analysis is insight,” and demonstrates some basic, immediately useful methods. ## Days like these It’s hard to focus on anything right now. So much awful stuff is happening every day. It’s a challenge for me to treat each day and each breath as its own awesome thing, encountered whole-heartedly. Of course I fall short in this. I hope that in memory this entire period feels like a montage—a compressed interval of political decay, massive unhinged cruelty, etc.—with a beginning and an end, set to some energetic yet gloomy song (perhaps New Order’s “Ceremony”). But we are not here in memory. We’re in the middle of things. So let’s keep at it. ### Monthly links & notes for March 2025 URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/monthly-links-notes-for-march-2025/ Last updated: 2025-10-22T21:25:55.000Z ## Online reading A few conversations this month have sent me back to Donella Meadows’ [Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System](https://donellameadows.org/archives/leverage-points-places-to-intervene-in-a-system/). In this short essay from 1999, she wrote about formulating a list in a burst of exasperation, and then having to explain it. Here’s how Meadows introduces the thing: > What bubbled up in me that day was distilled from decades of rigorous analysis of many different kinds of systems done by many smart people. But complex systems are, well, complex. It’s dangerous to generalize about them. What you are about to read is a work in progress. It’s not a recipe for finding leverage points. Rather it’s an invitation to think more broadly about system change. What this invitation turns out to be is a list of twelve places to intervene in a system, ranked in order of effectiveness, spanning from (least effective): > 12\. Constants, parameters, numbers. to (most effective): > 1\. The power to transcend paradigms. I have benefited from this document many times over the years: - It guides me away from “inflicting help” (thanks, [Jerry Weinberg](https://www.improvesomething.today/merely-being-the-person-you-are/)) by offering interventions that are not wanted. - And it guides me toward noticing interventions that: - People love to do—“quick fixes” or strategy or whatever—but - End up pushing problems around. They will never be effective in changing systems. That said, what I offer now is an invitation to ponder Meadows’ invitation. [Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/icon/favicon-2.png)The Academy for Systems Change![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/thumbnail/logo-2.gif)](https://donellameadows.org/archives/leverage-points-places-to-intervene-in-a-system/) --- ProSci has published a great online guide to [managing resistance to change](https://www.prosci.com/managing-change-resistance). I was pleased to see this as it shares a bunch of their research findings and recommended actions that one would normally have to hit the books or take a course to access. I’ve written about [resistance](https://www.improvesomething.today/the-jewel-of-resistance/) before. If you want to dig in to the topic and get a few solid checklists and approaches for making the most of this important signal, start here: [The Complete Guide Managing Resistance to ChangePrepare to manage resistance to change effectively by using Prosci’s research-backed change management strategies for lasting success.![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/icon/prosci-favicon-48.png)Prosci - The Global Leader in Change Management![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/thumbnail/the-20complete-20guide-20to-20managing-20resistance-20to-20change.jpg)](https://www.prosci.com/managing-change-resistance) (Although, if you have a few days and a professional development budget, consider their [three-day certification](https://www.prosci.com/solutions/training-programs/change-management-certification-program) course.) ## On the site I’ve refreshed a couple pages on the site recently, including: - a less bad [biography/introduction](https://www.improvesomething.today/brian-kerr/) page, - a new [consulting](https://www.improvesomething.today/consulting/) page, and - a much shortened set of [recommended books and sites](https://www.improvesomething.today/recommendations/). ## Upcoming event In April, May, and June, some practitioners and teachers of Liberating Structures—[a facilitation approach I’ve written about before and use regularly](https://www.improvesomething.today/liberating-structures-facilitation-continuous-improvement/)—are hosting a series of online gatherings under the topic of “Vitalizing Health, Care, and Community with Liberating Structures”. One problem folks run into when learning group facilitation is that the best way to learn this is to [see one, do one, teach one](https://www.improvesomething.today/three-step-method-for-learning-anything/). But it’s not always easy to find opportunities to watch other facilitators do what they do, and then to practice the methods directly. I lucked out: I learned Open Space Technology by watching [Michael Herman](https://michaelherman.com/ia/) do it decades ago. And my first real exposure to Liberating Structures was at some local events in Seattle. Because this series is offered online and has sliding scale pricing, consider attending if the topic or the format are interesting to you: [Vitalizing Health, Care, and Community with Liberating StructuresThis series explores the relationship between health and LS. Funds will support the health and recovery of a member of our community.![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/icon/safari-pinned-tab-1.svg)Eventbrite![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/thumbnail/logo-1.20250308-222640)](https://www.eventbrite.com/e/vitalizing-health-care-and-community-with-liberating-structures-registration-1262942026599) ## The storm 2025 in America has been tough so far, and things are worsening rapidly. So many people have lost so much in such a short time. It is like watching a bulkhead in ill repair erode with each tide. Can such erosion be restored, reversed? Yes, but not without huge effort and coordinated action. That’s why I am so focused on systems thinking and facilitation these days: - Systems thinking as a way to reason about systems, power, change—not “merely” in the workplace, but all around us. - And facilitation as a simple, whole-hearted way to improve gatherings. Last week we had an evening of spring thunderstorms, with cautions of hail and wind damage—rare weather conditions here in the Pacific Northwest, especially this time of year and at the forecasted intensity. I grew up in the middle of the cornfields in Michigan, so something in me is always longing for a thunderstorm. Hearing rolling thunder as the clouds rushed overhead was such a joy. The beauty of weather. Here in Tacoma, the worst conditions did not come to pass—no hail, no wind damage, and so forth. But it was good to prepare, and to be ready. To watch and to listen. And now, a few days later, everything is in bloom and the blossoms are very fragrant and bright. ### Why people work at cross-purposes & what to do about it URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/why-people-work-at-cross-purposes/ Last updated: 2025-10-22T21:20:08.000Z When you’re learning your way through a new organization, look for peers or collaborators working at cross-purposes—people who are working together, but towards different ends. For example: - A will tell you the purpose of her work is to solve a social problem. - B will tell you the purpose of his work is to make sure resources are shared fairly. Another example: - C wants to make something customers have never seen before—but that they’ll love the moment they see it. - D needs people to pay a little bit more, or costs to come down, or both. ## Why this happens People work at cross-purposes when they value different things: - A & B don’t agree on the **purpose** of their work. They disagree on underlying principles, not in the particulars. - C & D are trying to produce different **results** with their work. Each has a perspective that is necessary for the organization, but you can imagine how they’d clash. ## Three responses These conflicts—propped up by different individual understandings of goodness—store a lot of potential energy. What does one do with all that? Three responses I consider: 1. **The dismal response.** Working at cross-purposes makes people unhappy; it generates needless suffering, worry, and conflict. Decreasing any of that opportunistically is important. 2. **The pragmatic response.** As a consultant, I look for the hand-offs. That’s where things break, where errors get produced and passed along. When people are working at cross-purposes, their hand-offs tend to be bad. Fixing these is one of the first, and best, local improvements I can make. 3. **The optimistic response.** Maybe there is a chance to gather everyone together and figure out what “good” means. ## What good means—and who decides I used to believe the received wisdom from lean, as mired in bog-standard management—that it is the task of leadership to define what’s good and then to require everyone else adhere to that standard. From this comes various goofs, gags and sacraments: True Norths, Mission Statements, Visions & Values. Things most people in an organization don’t remember, don’t care about, and can’t relate to their own work. Barring that, there are elaborate structures organizations can construct and service over time to give an answer to what good means and show how everything connects. This is the realm of OKRs, KPIs, PuMP, and so forth. These can be useful, but take effort to keep active. They are leaky buckets. These days, I think it’s best that everyone decides what good means, together. You gotta sit down and do it. Many executives, and many organizations, don’t have the appetite for that. - **No appetite:** I happily dodge the question entirely, and seek local improvements (see the pragmatic consultant’s response above). - **For the bold,** methods are available: the [strategy-culture bicycle](https://www.improvesomething.today/the-strategy-culture-bicycle/), [ecocycle planning](https://www.improvesomething.today/four-liberating-structures-continuous-improvement-lean/), [open space](https://www.improvesomething.today/open-space-technology-principle-1-whoever-comes-is-the-right-people/), and the like. I can’t close this section without a link to Dan’s essay on the topic. And yes, Dan is the person I swiped the “what good means” question from: [What Good MeansI’m obsessed with the question of what “good” means, and blame the genius loci of West Michigan for this affliction.![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/icon/10fd5c419ac61637245384e7099e131627900034828f4f386bdaa47a74eae156)MediumDan Klyn![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/thumbnail/1-lszYTwIJ47VPJ8hc8r51_w.jpeg)](https://medium.com/@danklyn/what-good-means-25cc8cd93a56) ## Three questions The rubric I use to help a group get through it is three simple questions, asked and answered one a time, with as much care as needed: 1. What do we make? 2. Who do we make it for? 3. How do we know if it's any good? As you work through these, draw a diagram or write a few sentences. Disagreements will arise. Sometimes they touch on various forbidden or undiscussable topics. But in the end you’ll find something the group created together that sets the standard for what good means, here, today. ### Monthly links & notes for January 2025 URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/monthly-links-notes-for-january-2025/ Last updated: 2025-10-22T21:26:08.000Z ## Online reading SessionLab’s third annual State of Facilitation report is out. It helps me reflect on my own facilitation practice, which tends toward the solitary and variable based on the projects I take on. Three personal highlights from this year’s report: > Facilitated sessions are becoming shorter. Comparing responses from the 2022 and 2024 surveys, the proportion of facilitators who have never conducted workshops lasting more than one day has increased by 10%. I ditched the multi-day facilitated workshops in 2019\. I traded in “big bang” three-day workshops in for sequences of 1- or 2-hour online sessions, spaced out over a week or two, with opportunity for new ideas in the margins. This works out better for everyone involved, except for the person who has to schedule all the meetings. (That person is usually me!) > In-person sessions are back, but remote and hybrid facilitation are here to stay. In 2022, 57.8% of sessions were held online, but by 2024, in-person workshops have regained the top spot. Although 2024 was a very busy year, the *only* days I worked with clients in-person were devoted to facilitating workshops. If you are reading this and I handed you one of those little vinyl cactus toys, you are very special to me. You can even detect the random walks of corporate fashion, with the rise of L&D and the total gutting of design and product organizations: > The responses to the question, “What department do you work in?” highlight that individuals facilitating sessions, training, and workshops are spread across various company departments. Major contributors include Learning and Development and, of course, Management. Then cast one’s gaze toward the bottom of the list, where Design and Product departments accounted for less than 8% of responses. Much more for you to peruse in this free report: [State of Facilitation 2025 – Report and Expert InsightsThe 2025 edition of SessionLab’s State of Facilitation report. Data, trends, and insights from a survey of workshop design and facilitation professionals.![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/icon/cropped-logo_512_transparent-270x270.png)SessionLabKeith McCandless (2014)![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/thumbnail/Report-out-now-social-media.jpg)](https://www.sessionlab.com/state-of-facilitation/2025-report/) --- Next, from Ali Alkhatib’s “Defining AI”: > We should shed the idea that AI is a technological artifact with political features and recognize it as a political artifact through and through. AI is an ideological project to shift authority and autonomy away from individuals, towards centralized structures of power. Projects that claim to ‘democratize’ AI routinely conflate ‘democratization’ with ‘commodification’. … This way of thinking about AI (as a political project that happens to be implemented technologically in myriad ways that are inconsequential to identifying the overarching project as ‘AI’) brings the discipline—reaching at least as far back as the 1950s and ’60s, drenched in blood from military funding—into focus as part of the same continuous tradition. [“Defining AI” by Ali Alkhatib](https://ali-alkhatib.com/blog/defining-ai) --- Finally, Erin Kissane’s celebration of Ursula Franklin: > Ursula Franklin's lifework was highly practical. As a metallurgist, she studied the structure of ancient artifacts to produce knowledge about the cultures that made them. As a peace activist and conservationist, she practiced civil disobedience and obstruction as well as healthy renewal. As a far-sighted thinker about modern technology, she worked relentlessly to lay the foundations of ways to think together that could produce better technologies—and to define what “better” meant. Maybe starting with this small way into her work—a single list for thinking about decisions—makes sense. Kissane wanders through a little passage where Franklin wrote seven questions to consider when designing a public project. Here’s the seventh: > Whether the reversible is favoured over the irreversible? The last item is obviously important. Considering that most projects do not work out as planned, it would be helpful if they proceeded in a way that allowed revision and learning, that is, in small reversible steps. If we’ve worked together before and Franklin’s name rings a bell, it’s because I rely on her formulation of “small, reversible steps” (which I sometimes call “[small, reversible changes](https://www.improvesomething.today/the-pdsa-bucket/)”). [Ursula’s listUrsula Franklin is one of my all-time favorite thinkers about both the obvious and obscured parts of our technological world.![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/icon/favicon-4.ico)wreckage/salvageErin Kissane![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/thumbnail/aime2.jpg)](https://www.wrecka.ge/ursulas-list/) ## A plug for better online typography There was this thing going around that the presence of em dashes (—) is a hint that a text is generated by an LLM. Of course, the real tell is that the text is boring as shit. You have my eternal permission to stop reading anything dull. When your mind wanders, let your feet follow. For example, I recently resolved to stop reading anything containing the word “alignment” and this has saved time. Anyway, my purpose is to share Matthew Butterick’s Practical Typography, a site on using typography—[including em dashes](https://practicaltypography.com/hyphens-and-dashes.html)—to improve your written communication. This is not a topic I know much about, but I do know enough to crib from an expert and spend an additional 5 minutes making things look nice on the screen or page before proceeding onwards. [Butterick’s Practical TypographyButterick’s Practical Typography![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/icon/favicon-5.ico)![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/thumbnail/og-image.jpg)](https://practicaltypography.com/) ## Podcast appearance Last week I appeared on my pal Andy’s “Own Your Awkward” podcast. True to the name, it was an awkward, but ultimately fruitful, conversation. My main awkward thing is that I’m too hard on myself. For the awful details on what that means and ways in which I’m a work-in-progress on getting past it, [listen in your podcast player](https://creators.spotify.com/pod/show/own-your-awkward/episodes/Awkwardly-Critical-with-Brian-Kerr-e2t8hc4) or [watch on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7A0GzBgf0w). --- Take good care of yourself and the people in your life. There is so much more to do, urgently, but let’s begin there. ### Monthly links & notes for December 2024 URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/monthly-links-notes-for-december-2024/ Last updated: 2025-10-22T21:26:32.000Z ## My accomplished, wonderful pals 2024 was difficult—but ultimately very good—for me. Something that got me through the difficult parts was enjoying the successes of my friends, pals, and comrades, of which I offer an incomplete list here, in roughly chronological order: - The boffins over at Fenwick released the [Think Like a Writer](https://learn.fenwick.media/p/think-like-a-writer-course) course, which I have taken and personally recommend. Most online courses are bad. Not this one. Instead, it’s a three-week commitment that produces immediate, durable results. (I wrote about this [in May](https://www.improvesomething.today/monthly-links-notes-may-2024/#:~:text=The%20second%20cohort%20of%20Fenwick%E2%80%99s%20%E2%80%9CThink%20Like%20a%20Writer%E2%80%9D%20course%20begins%20next%20week%2C%20on%20June%203.)). - [Lissy](https://www.linkedin.com/in/lissyt/) launched her playful learning company, [HuMindWise](https://humindwise.com/), “turning burnout, stress, and imposter syndrome into opportunities for growth through game based learning and community.” - [Devon](https://devonpersing.netlify.app/) completed and published her book project: [The Accessibility Operations Guidebook](https://devonpersing.netlify.app/book/). (My notes [from October](https://www.improvesomething.today/monthly-links-notes-for-october-2024/#:~:text=And%20finally%2C%20my%20friend%20Devon%20Persing%E2%80%99s%20book).) - A bunch of my friends rafted the Grand Canyon on the Colorado River. No names and no URLs to share, but everything about that adventure astonished and inspired me. - Shannon and Jamie completed their [80’s Kids](https://shannoncurtis.bandcamp.com/album/80s-kids) cover album, which you can stream now, and which they’re taking on the road next year. My favorite track is the Boss’s [Dancing in the Dark](https://shannoncurtis.bandcamp.com/track/dancing-in-the-dark); play it really loud. - Over the summer and fall, [Neetal](https://www.innov8social.com/about#:~:text=Neetal%20Parekh%20is%C2%A0a%20social%20impact%20ecosystem%20builder%20and%20licensed%20attorney%2C%20with%20expertise%20in%20digital%20strategy%2C%20storytelling%2C%20and%20communications.) released a set of 4 children’s books in her [Pineapple Friends series](https://www.innov8social.com/social-impact-books-for-kids) of social impact books for kids. These passed muster with my seven-year-old child—so they’re the real deal. ## On the site in 2024 I only shared [one new blog](https://www.improvesomething.today/how-to-push-problems-around-without-ever-solving-them/) post this year. I did manage to keep up with [monthly links & notes](https://www.improvesomething.today/tag/monthly-links-notes/), and did a bunch of cleanup—tidying older posts, organizing the [junk drawer](https://www.improvesomething.today/goodies/), and so forth. Everything about this was good, but I’d like to do more soon. ## A format for year-end reflection Greg and Brett at [Same Team Partners](https://sameteampartners.com/) created a simple, free activity called [Replay and Reset for 2025](https://sameteampartners.com/samepage/replay-and-reset-reflect-refocus-and-recharge-for-2025-2/). I worked through this over the weekend—in under an hour—and uncovered a couple ah-has as well as committed to some new to-dos for the new year. I encourage you to try this for yourself. - If you’re a video person, [watch this 10-minute introduction](https://www.loom.com/share/81915dad530a4aa0b9da3370d1a61a31) that walks you through the activity and how to do it on your own. - After drafting my own Replay and Reset for 2025, I had coffee with Greg and shared what I came up with. [Here’s what Greg had to say about that](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/brilliantcrank%5Freflection-goalsetting-careerplanning-activity-7279619422187626496-maXG/?utm%5Fsource=share&utm%5Fmedium=member%5Fdesktop). ## The bit about my waders I hope you find some time to say farewell to 2024 and get your waders on for 2025\. The water is rising fast and looking pretty choppy. 🐀 I must mention that the waders I use got eaten by rats this summer. I truly wish this was only a figure of speech. I leave you with this, from §67 of the Tao Te Ching, in Stephen Mitchell’s translation. It’s as good an answer as any to the question of how we are meant to proceed from here. > I have just three things to teach: > simplicity, patience, compassion. > These three are your greatest treasures. > Simple in actions and in thoughts, > you return to the source of being. > Patient with both friends and enemies, > you accord with the way things are. > Compassionate toward yourself, > you reconcile all beings in the world. ### Monthly links & notes for November 2024 URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/monthly-links-notes-for-november-2024/ Last updated: 2024-11-27T18:42:28.000Z ## Online reading “I feel connected to my organization’s culture.” Only 40% of leadership, 23% of management, and 19% of staff [agree with this statement](https://www.gallup.com/workplace/651980/managers-feeling-connected-organization-culture.aspx). My pal [Jenny Zhang](https://www.phirework.com) recently gave a superb conference talk on ways it might be more useful to think about values (fit/mismatch/tension) in the workplace, instead of culture. I particularly enjoyed this: > The expected return of going to leadership with negative feedback is *terrible*. Risk alienating your boss for the sake of telling the truth? Why? Even if you’re not directly retaliated against, and people often are, it can still really damage your standing. If you speak up too often, you’re branded as the naysayer. If you’re part of a marginalized group raising issues about how marginalized people are treated, you’re tarred as being “political” or “biased”. And of course, most of the time the canaries in the cultural coal mine *are* the marginalized employees with the least standing, because they’re the ones with the least protection when the cracks start to show. Part of my client work is to get emerging leaders to develop systems for: - hearing bad feedback and - actually doing some damned thing about it— - even when the doing is difficult. An important predicate here is that leaders must realize that by the time one person is willing to speak up about a problem, they typically speak for a scared-as-shit coalition of their peers. And, as Jenny points out, leaders should understand that the people who have the capability and urgency to speak up first tend to be the least protected. Please, read Jenny’s talk or watch the recording: [the values of workIn October I gave a talk at Monktoberfest in Portland, Maine, a small and intimate tech conference with a big impact in the industry. It’s quite unlike any other conference I’ve been to, which is explicitly the point. I’d been hearing about the conference from friends for years, and it somehow still managed to exceed all my lofty expectations. Monktoberfest asks that your talk be something you wouldn’t be able to hear at any other conference. Mine was about values and how they show up at work and what happens when there is a gap between your stated and enacted values. It’s a theme that percolates through a lot of my writing and something I’ve spent many sleepless nights ruminating on, and giving this talk to such a receptive, empathetic, and compassionate audience was incredibly meaningful to me. You can watch the talk here: Seeing as I am personally allergic to watching any YouTube videos longer than five minutes unless I absolutely have to, I’ve also included a lightly edited version of the text of the talk below.![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/icon/favicon-3.ico)The Roof is on PhireThe Roof is on Phire![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/thumbnail/slide1.jpeg)](https://phirephoenix.com/blog/2024-11-27/values) ## The “Multisolving” Book I think this book by Elizabeth Sawin, just released, is an instant classic in systems thinking. The approach: > While the idea of killing two birds with one stone (or “filling two needs with one deed”) is age-old, and the notion of co-benefits in policy-making has been around for years, *Multisolving* addresses the current mismatch between complex, deeply intertwined societal issues and our siloed approach to them. Systems thinking is vital for so many kinds of work, but it can also be easy to encounter it and come away thinking—*that’s neat, but all a little theoretical, and I have these specific things I am trying to get done this week*. This book builds on systems thinking from [Donella Meadows](https://donellameadows.org/archives/dancing-with-systems/) and others, but organizes it all in a direct, useful way. Each chapter ends with two things: - First, some questions for reflection that I am finding useful, both for myself and to bring into discussions with others. - And second—this is a really wonderful surprise—a short poem that crystallizes the point of the chapter. I remember the images from these poems better than I do the content of the text (which is a good thing). Buy a copy at the link below and use the code `MULTI` for a 20% discount. [Multisolving Book - Multisolving InstituteMULTISOLVING: Creating Systems Change in a Fractured World Order the Book Synopsis For most of Elizabeth Sawin’s career, she was not a multisolver. Instead, she worked on a single, albeit immensely important problem: climate change. Despite tremendous effort—long hours of teaching, attending conferences, publicizing analysis—at the end of the day, she felt like she was \[…\]![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/icon/cropped-Designelement-bluecircle.png)Multisolving InstituteKelsi Bowens![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/thumbnail/Book-cover-background-with-Book-cover-683x1024.png)](https://www.multisolving.org/multisolving-the-book/) ## Whole-heartedness A theme for the month of Zen readings and week of silent retreat I did back in October was “whole-heartedness”—which I cannot think of as anything but the opposite of half-assedness. Here in the USA, we’re entering a season of the politics of the very worst. [Achille Mbembe’s 2019 “Necropolitics”](https://bookshop.org/a/56572/9781478006510) is the book through which I understand where we’re heading. My task right now is to know where the community is—where my communities are—and to engage gently, but whole-heartedly. Does everyone know it’s OK to ask for help? Or to share their fears and specific, material concerns? Because we will continue to need each another. There is no one, or nothing, else. I’ve been listening to this song for 25 years. It is what whole-heartedness means to me, and I hope it lets some light in for you: [Anthem by Leonard Cohen on Apple MusicSong · 1992 · Duration 6:09![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/icon/favicon-180.png)Apple Music - Web Player![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/thumbnail/1200x630wp-60.jpg)](https://music.apple.com/us/album/anthem/511074710?i=511074721) Take good care of yourself and the people around you. ### Monthly links & notes for October 2024 URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/monthly-links-notes-for-october-2024/ Last updated: 2025-10-22T21:27:43.000Z ## Online reading At the beginning of October, I felt afraid and stagnant. Let’s start there. On fear—Bill McKibben writing on October 9, a few hours before Hurricane Milton hit Florida, a month before a consequential and confusing US election: > The fear of a planet where the old rules no longer hold is the ultimate fear—because then how do you even think about the future? And that’s as true as politics as it is in meteorology. [FearWhen It Helps, When It Hurts![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8bbc8602-eb99-46a1-bb8a-9c3c0d9cf3fa%2Fapple-touch-icon-180x180.png)The Crucial YearsBill McKibben![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1200,h_600,c_fill,f_jpg,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep,g_auto/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F06532711-a702-4c2b-afcb-ba0a9ddefe0b_8368x5584.jpeg)](https://billmckibben.substack.com/p/fear) And stagnation—revisiting an essay by Mandy Brown: > Growth occurs in intervals: there are times of growth, and there are times of non-growth. The latter isn’t a failure so much as a necessary period of rest. Dormancy isn’t stagnant; it’s potentiating. It’s patient. If you’ve grown a lot in the past however many months or years and now feel that growth coming to a close, don’t fret right away. Wait. Reflect on what you’ve learned. Look for signs of spring. Move to where there’s water, if you need to. [Latewood | everything changesOn the seasons of growth.![](https://everythingchanges.us/favicon.ico)everything changes![](https://everythingchanges.us/assets/img/social.png)](https://everythingchanges.us/blog/latewood/) --- While all this is going on, I keep busy at work. In my [facilitation practice](https://www.improvesomething.today/tag/facilitation/), I help people uncover their priorities and values and then, within those new structures, gleefully deliberate and take skillful action. Here’s Chelsea Troy on group deliberation: > The perspectives that matter the most in decision-making, are precisely those perspectives that typically get excluded from participation in the thing we’re making decisions about. … When you’re facilitating a decision that’s going to have a wide impact crater, you have to go find precisely the interests that often aren’t represented for this kind of decision—who don’t even get a vote—or who always lose the vote. > > These parties frequently have concerns that the vote completely fails to address. Recall from the last post that we introduced two categories of metric: optimizing metrics (where we need to find the best solution) and satisficing metrics (where we need a minimum acceptable solution). Marginalized concerns in decision-making often should be preliminary satisficing metrics: they should be table stakes, because they determine who gets to participate at all, rather than a slight preference. [How to flub (and not flub) group decision-making on technical teamsThis post from a week ago talked about three decision-making traps that technical leaders fall into like flies into a honey jar: They’ll solve for the general case without collecting or considering…![](https://s0.wp.com/i/webclip.png)Chelsea TroyView all posts by Chelsea![](https://chelseatroy.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/image-7.png)](https://chelseatroy.com/2024/10/22/how-to-flub-and-not-flub-group-decision-making-on-technical-teams/) By the way, the best method I know of for designing something new while ensuring that everybody’s minimum specs (what Troy calls table stakes) are identified, met, and exceeded is [set-based design](https://www.improvesomething.today/options-set-based-design/). ## Books Standard Ebooks has produced a beautifully formatted, freely available ebook edition of Mary Parker Follett’s “The New State” from 1919\. Yes, it’s over a hundred years old. And it remains a readable, engaging look into group formation, deliberation, and decision-making. [The New State, by Mary Parker Follett - Free ebook downloadFree epub ebook download of the Standard Ebooks edition of The New State: The theory of group organization is formulated and applied in an attempt to design a truly democratic political state.![](https://standardebooks.org/apple-touch-icon.png)Standard Ebooks: Free and liberated ebooks, carefully produced for the true book lover.![](https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/mary-parker-follett/the-new-state/downloads/cover.jpg)](https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/mary-parker-follett/the-new-state) There are a million ideas in Follett’s writing. One that sticks with me is this: > Unity, not uniformity, must be our aim. We attain unity only through variety. Differences must be integrated, not annihilated, nor absorbed. --- And finally, my friend [Devon Persing](https://devonpersing.netlify.app)’s book, “The Accessibility Operations Guidebook,” is out. She writes: > This book is two things. The first is a crash course in frameworks and ways of thinking from fields like information science, organizational theory, and DEI. The second is a walkthrough of building and operationalizing sustainable, data-driven accessibility programming. Even though I don’t work in the digital accessibility field, I got a lot of practical information out of the back half of this book (chapters 10-14). Devon has great advice on org design + operations challenges, like: - whether to couch an offering as a service and/or a program, - ways to use or commission information, and - tips on goal-setting in service of group decision-making. Learn more about the book and buy a copy (if purchasing on Payhip, use coupon code `PUMPKINTOAG` for 25% off): [The Accessibility Operations Guidebook | Devon PersingLessons in making accessibility work more practical and sustainable for you and your organization.![](https://devonpersing.netlify.app/favicon.ico)Devon Persing![](https://devonpersing.netlify.app/static/img/toag_cover.jpg)](https://devonpersing.netlify.app/book/) ## Gratitude I entered October feeling afraid and stagnant: worried about the climate, about the US elections, about a dozen wars around the globe, about every horror ongoing and unabated and by this point nearly forgotten, about the health and wellbeing of my immediate family. Thank you to Liana and our children and various folks at work and kind friends in town and around the globe, each of whom supported me in going on silent retreat for a week. This month, that community of silence made all the difference. So as we leave October, I’m still afraid. But I am also ready. I cling to these lines from [Yu Xuanji](https://leonard-ng.com/complete-poems-of-yu-xuanji/) (the 9th-century poet/courtesan/Daoist nun): > Water fits itself to the vessel that contains it. > Clouds drift artlessly, not thinking of return. > Spring breezes bear sorrow over the Chu river at dusk: > separated from the flock, a lone duck is flying. The season has turned here in Tacoma. Rainfall and drifting clouds. I look out the window for the reminders I need: to fit myself to this vessel. To drift imperfectly and without thinking of return. To engage and assist and participate as much and as long as I can. To keep flying, in darkness. ### Monthly links & notes for September 2024 URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/monthly-links-notes-for-september-2024/ Last updated: 2024-09-30T15:00:19.000Z ## Online reading First, novelist Thea Lim on the many harms of algorithmic systems and the stultifying context their corporate owners want us all to be stuck in, where “every notification ping holds the possibility we have merit”: > If there’s an off-duty pursuit you love—giving tarot readings, polishing beach rocks—it’s a great compliment to say: “You should do that for money.” Join the passion economy, give the market final say on the value of your delights. Even engaging with art—say, encountering some uncanny reflection of yourself in a novel, or having a transformative epiphany from listening, on repeat, to the way that singer’s voice breaks over the bridge—can be spat out as a figure, on Goodreads or your Spotify year in review. > > And those ascetics who disavow all socials? They are still caught in the network. Acts of pure leisure—photographing a sidewalk cat with a camera app or watching a video on how to make a curry—are transmuted into data to grade how well the app or the creators’ deliverables are delivering. If we’re not being tallied, we affect the tally of others. We are all data workers. [The Collapse of Self-Worth in the Digital Age | The WalrusWhy are we letting algorithms rewrite the rules of art, work, and life?![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/icon/favicon1.ico)The WalrusThea Lim![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/thumbnail/h-heyerlein-ndja2LJ4IcM-unsplash-scaled.jpg)](https://thewalrus.ca/collapse-of-self-worth-in-the-digital-age/) --- Next, Mandy Brown on a changed, distanced stance to social media: > There was a time when I felt some resonance between spending time in the social stream and doing my own work. As if the movement of the water imparted some energy or power I could make use of, and then return. But it’s been a long time since I’ve felt that way. I grieve that loss: a great number of my closest friends are people I met in the halcyon days of Twitter, and I find I still often long for that kind of connection, the ambient awareness of people in whose company I felt at home. But I know that longing to be a kind of nostalgia, an unrealizable wish to return to a past that never was quite as I remember it. I do not want those memories to be a burden, like stones weighing down my pockets. I want, instead, to carry them lightly and tenderly, to have the fortitude to accept the grief that comes with leaving the past where it belongs. I have become comfortable with my little nests on [Mastodon](https://phire.place/@chrkrhc) and \[REDACTED\], with the [small web goofiness of the moment](https://chrkrhc.omg.lol/), but I also think and worry sometimes about the countless people I’ve lost track of—or lost “ambient awareness” of—as tech+finance hollows out, immolates, and desecrates the places where we once played. [Coming homeInto the gap.![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/icon/favicon.ico)A Working LibraryMandy Brown![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/thumbnail/social.png)](https://aworkinglibrary.com/writing/coming-home) --- Not all is gloomy. A recording of Rear Admiral Grace Hopper’s famous 1982 lecture, “Future Possibilities: Data, Hardware, Software, and People,” has recently been pried off some obsolete media and parked on YouTube. This is an astonishing, hilarious, valuable talk. I watched it through twice. I took notes. You will benefit from this lecture if you are interested in systems stuff or continuous improvement stuff or working with smart, cranky, opinionated people. Here’s a taste: > Never in this office say, “but we’ve always done it that way.” If, during the next 12 months, any of you says, “but we’ve always done it that way,” I will instantly materialize beside you and I will haunt you for 24 hours. Some additional context and links to the recordings: [We can now watch Grace Hopper’s famed 1982 lecture on YouTubeThe lecture featured Hopper discussing future challenges of protecting information.![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/icon/ars-ios-icon-d9a45f558c.png)Ars TechnicaJennifer Ouellette![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/thumbnail/hopper1-760x380.jpg)](https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/08/we-can-now-watch-grace-hoppers-famed-1982-lecture-on-youtube/) --- ## On the site Recent changes @ improvesomething.today: - Created a new, simple [Recommendations](https://www.improvesomething.today/recommendations/) page with selected books, newsletters, blogs, and podcasts. - For web-based readers, a new overall theme & organization. The old one was feeling that way. Read [about this site](https://www.improvesomething.today/about-this-site/) for more detail. --- ## Online event Registration is now open for [Abby Covert’s 4th annual Makesensemess](https://www.thesensemakersclub.com/makesensemess), an affordable, online celebration coming up on November 1, 2024. This is the hottest ticket in the nerdile, infinitely curious information architecture zone. Flexible pricing, anchored around $30. [![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/2024/09/IMG_1995.webp)](https://www.thesensemakersclub.com/makesensemess) [Register for Makesensemess](https://www.thesensemakersclub.com/makesensemess) I have attended several Makesensemesses prior and it’s a great event. If you like messes, or making sense of them, consider joining us. --- That is all I have for now. I sit in a campus library looking idly out the window at some gorgeous trees in the arboretum whose leaves seem not more than a week away from turning into their fall colors and changing from there into the next thing. Change is here for each of us, it is all around us, and it is all, ultimately, somehow, good. ### Monthly links & notes for July 2024 URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/monthly-links-notes-for-july-2024/ Last updated: 2025-10-22T21:28:10.000Z ## Online reading Mark Rosenthal’s blog is always great. I recommend his recent post called “Boeing: The Turning Point(s).” He connects Boeing’s ongoing difficulties to two attempts to change company strategy twenty years ago. I enjoyed Mark’s detailed reminiscences from the time: > There were actually two lines running parallel, each one on a two day cycle. … Each time the line was indexed, it generally took a shift to, in succession, pull each plane back, then forward, then dock it into the next position. And because this was a schedule-driven line, the planes moved on time, ready or not. Incomplete work became “travelers”—jobs that traveled with the plane to be completed later when, for example, the parts became available. Exactly who was supposed to do that out-of-sequence work while everyone was busy with the scheduled jobs was a little vague. > > The assembly manager for 737 then ran an experiment. Instead of trying to solve all of the problems they could think of before trying anything she took the opposite approach. She got an RV winch, bolted it to the floor by the door, hooked the cable to the last plane, and started pulling it—slowly—through the work position. > > If everything was going smoothly, they kept pulling. If something disrupted the work, they stopped the winch, wrote that down, and picked off a few of those things to try to fix on the next cycle. [Boeing: The Turning Point(s)In early spring of 1999 I was sitting in a classroom at Boeing with a couple of dozen other employees. Everyone with a “management” job code was being sent to this session over a few we…![](https://theleanthinker.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2019/01/cropped-Novayama-Mountain-Logo-270x270.png)The Lean ThinkerMark![](https://theleanthinker.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2024/05/777-rollout.jpg)](https://theleanthinker.com/2024/07/02/boeing-the-turning-points/) --- Daniel Katz writes that, even though we add new people to groups in order to address medium- or long-term needs, there are also short-term benefits: > The act of adding a new person also has immediate benefits to the group, as a new person who doesn’t know the practices and culture of the group can reflect on them as they learn them, ideally leading to lessons and improvements for the whole group. I think about this often as a consultant—e.g. a person sometimes inserted into groups on a temporary basis, and who sometimes pushes the dirt around when organizations expand, split, or rearrange. [How groups can immediately benefit when new members joinWhen thinking about a group adding a new person, we often think that while the group will benefit from adding the new person in the long run, there is a cost to the group in the initial period. But…![](https://s2.wp.com/i/webclip.png)Daniel S. Katz's blogView all posts by Daniel S. Katz![](https://s0.wp.com/i/blank.jpg)](https://danielskatzblog.wordpress.com/2022/10/31/new-group-members/) --- And Michel Baudin assembled a long, informal survey of different attempts to define “quality” in operations & management contexts. The theme is that people love to talk about quality, but no expert knows, and no group agrees about, what it *is*: [What is Quality? – Michel Baudin’s BlogProfessionals wrongly assume a shared understanding of quality and talk past each other. Let’s address the issue.![](https://michelbaudin.com/wp-content/uploads/fbrfg/apple-touch-icon.png?v=9ByxB4YGJO)the takt times groupMichel Baudin![](https://michelbaudin.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/RealityExpectancy-1024x796.png)](https://michelbaudin.com/2024/07/18/what-is-quality/) This all becomes a problem in lean interventions—as transmitted by Lean Enterprise Institute, et al—which begin by spinning a group’s tires in an intractable, wasteful effort to produce a working definition of “customer value,” of which “quality” is one component. Of course, none of this is necessary and is best avoided. But the waste and confusion these conversations produce is one reason I walked away from those methods and found better ways to spend the time. Baudin’s piece brought to mind this entertaining, possibly apocryphal, quote from designer Massimo Vignelli. It bears the confidence of someone who (a) knows quality when they see it, (b) does not care to explain, and (c) will be submitting an invoice: > There are no hierarchies when it comes to quality. Quality is there or is not there, and if is not there we have lost our time. --- ## Disability Pride Month July is Disability Pride Month, which commemorates the 1990 passage of a key civil rights law in the USA—the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). I wrote on this topic last year: [The world of silence: marking Disability Pride MonthBeing a hearing-impaired person whose job is to listen. Quiet, noise, and rest.![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/2024/06/Your-paragraph-text-3.png)Improve Something TodayBrian Kerr![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/2024/04/a4dca865ba236411.png)](https://www.improvesomething.today/the-world-of-silence/) Two points I’d add this time around: 1. The experience of disability has entered my family life in a different, terrifying way in 2024\. I am grateful for the limited protections and affordances of the ADA that helped us these past months. 2. Many of those same protections are now at risk as a result of one of June’s disastrous set of US Supreme Court decisions. Why discuss any of this at all? Because my disability has mostly been a “hidden” one, and at some point I became tired and ashamed of all the work that went into keeping it so. My disability is an important part of who I am, and—as I wrote in the piece—I have a good life and I do good work. --- And that’s it for the moment. Be back next month with more links & notes, and hopefully some other updates in-between. ### Monthly links & notes for June 2024 URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/monthly-links-notes-for-june-2024/ Last updated: 2025-10-22T21:28:20.000Z I’ve been looking for new ways of thinking about problem-solving beyond the tired lean frameworks, and better ways of helping groups decide what to do next. This month, I’ve found something. ## Online reading From Beth Sawin’s June 21st [Multisolving Institute](https://www.multisolving.org) newsletter: > People are removing dams so salmon can spawn. They are replacing asphalt with urban gardens, to help cities stay cool and prevent flooding. Highways that divided neighborhoods for decades are being phased out, replaced with parks and walking paths and bikeways. … The systems that surround us—bricks and mortar infrastructure, the structure of healthcare, the endowments of universities—have not always been constructed in ways that respect the interconnection of our world. The tree cover of cities aligns with maps of racial segregation. The wealth of many powerful interests traces back to conquest, slavery, or extraction. Because of this, moving forward is going to sometimes require looking backward and removing structures (and laws, incentives, and habits) that are doing harm. [Read or subscribe to the newsletter.](https://us20.campaign-archive.com/home/?u=6ae45465333f4345accfda057&id=c8e58de830) I learned from my technical days that multi-objective optimization is hard. Yet it no longer makes sense to suppose that a group can solve one problem at a time—or to ignore the fact that when they do, they’re merely pushing problems around in ways that are unhelpful and unjust. And “moving forward is going to sometimes require looking backwards and removing structures… that are doing harm.” This reminds me of [TRIZ](https://www.improvesomething.today/four-liberating-structures-continuous-improvement-lean/): the laughter that comes with noticing system behaviors that reliably produce bad outcomes. Stopping those and patiently seeing what happens next can be more fruitful than actively starting new things. ## Facilitation for engagement with FLOWER Also from the Multisolving Institute, The *Framework for Long-term, Whole-system, Equity-based Reflection* (FLOWER), which “helps a group explore the co-benefits a project might produce. … Who would need to be involved? How do we design for co-benefits? How do we ensure burdens and benefits are shared equitably?” I haven’t had a chance to use FLOWER yet, but have slotted it right next to the [strategy-culture bicycle](https://www.improvesomething.today/the-strategy-culture-bicycle/) as a method to help a group get real about evaluating projects and their benefits, impacts, and possibilities. [FLOWER - Multisolving InstituteFLOWER: Framework for Long-Term, Whole-System, Equity-Based Reflection FLOWER is an interactive community engagement tool about multisolving. FLOWER helps a group explore the co-benefits a project might produce. It prompts some of the most important questions about multisolving. Who would need to be involved? How do we design for co-benefits? How do we ensure burdens and \[…\]![](https://i0.wp.com/www.multisolving.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/cropped-Designelement-bluecircle.png?fit=192%2C192&ssl=1)Multisolving Institute![](https://www.multisolving.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Blog.jpg)](https://www.multisolving.org/flower/) ## How to fry a Mars rover Let’s end on a lighter note. Enjoy Chris Lewicki’s story about a simple wiring mistake on the Spirit Mars rover: > The pulse was sent to the motor. As always, the result was immediate, but this time, alarmingly unfamiliar. The strip chart did not look like anything we had seen before. It did not even look like a broken motor. It was decidedly—something else. … My eyes followed the wires from our breakout box on the test cart to the spacecraft, and the reason for the unfamiliar signal landed like a dagger through my heart. All that power we just released did not go into the RAT-Revolve motor. Due to a mistake I had made with the break-out-box, it went the other direction on the connector interface, sending a surge of electricity straight into the spacecraft, instead of the motor. [My $500M Mars Rover Mistake: A Failure Story — Chris LewickiSome mistakes feel worse than death.![](https://assets.squarespace.com/universal/default-favicon.ico)Chris LewickiChris Lewicki![](http://static1.squarespace.com/static/629bbf78894a462d58b8002f/t/656538c27225576eb7dc7a44/1701132485990/Failure+Story+Social+Image.jpeg?format=1500w)](https://www.chrislewicki.com/articles/failurestory) --- ### Monthly links & notes for May 2024 URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/monthly-links-notes-may-2024/ Last updated: 2025-10-22T21:28:33.000Z It’s been a few months. Life happened in our home this spring, to the tune of a child who became very sick in February and is still slowly coming back into his own. A season of ongoing adjustment—see how much badness one can smuggle into that little word?—with abiding comfort in asinine clichés *(“taking things one day at a time”)*, and big changes in how I’ve used the time. We are fine, and will be fine. I’m grateful for all the people who have given support or slack in one way or another. All that said, it’s time to get back to words, a whole bunch of ’em, in deliberate sequence. Let’s go. ↓ ## Online reading From Tom Wolfe’s absurdly fun 1983 profile of Robert Noyce: > “Some twenty-four-year-old just out of graduate school would find himself in charge of a major project with no one looking over his shoulder. A problem would come up, and he couldn’t stand it, and he would go to Noyce and hyperventilate and ask him what to do. And Noyce would lower his head, turn on his 100-ampere eyes, listen, and say: ‘Look, here are your guidelines. You’ve got to consider A, you’ve got to consider B, and you’ve got to consider C.’ Then he would turn on the Gary Cooper smile: ‘But if you think I’m going to make your decision for you, you’re mistaken. Hey … it’s ***your*** ass.’” [The Tinkerings of Robert Noyce | Esquire | DECEMBER 1983How the sun rose on the Silicon Valley![](https://esquire.archive.content.pugpig.com/esquire/favicon.png)Esquire | The Complete ArchiveTom Wolfe![](https://esquire.blob.core.windows.net/esquire19831201thumbnails/Spreads/0x600/176.jpg)](https://classic.esquire.com/article/share/58ff278a-21da-4ee4-a446-b7f451b90275) From Maria Farrell & Robin Berjon’s essay on rewilding the internet: > “When a failure by cloud provider Fastly took high-profile websites offline in 2021, its share price surged. Investors were delighted by headlines that informed them of an obscure technical service provider with an apparent lock on an essential service. To investors, this critical infrastructure failure doesn’t look like fragility but like a chance to profit. The result of infrastructural narrowness is baked-in fragility that we only notice after a breakdown. But monoculture is also highly visible in our search and browser tools. Search, browsing and social media are how we find and share knowledge, and how we communicate. They’re a critical, global epistemic and democratic infrastructure, controlled by just a few U.S. companies.” [We Need To Rewild The Internet | NOEMAThe internet has become an extractive and fragile monoculture. But we can revitalize it using lessons learned by ecologists.![](https://www.noemamag.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/cropped-ms-icon-310x310-1-180x180.png)NOEMAMaria Farrell![](https://noemamag.imgix.net/2024/04/noema_pillar_growth_004.jpg?fit=crop&fm=pjpg&h=628&ixlib=php-3.3.1&w=1200&wpsize=noema-social-facebook&s=ed786aab26f0df4b5442254d726cce13)](https://www.noemamag.com/we-need-to-rewild-the-internet/) ## Books It is the English major’s way of scrabbling through a difficult time—I’ve been reading Ralph Waldo Emerson. From his “Circles” essay: > “Our life is an apprenticeship to the truth that around every circle another can be drawn; that there is no end in nature, but every end is a beginning; that there is always another dawn risen on mid-noon, and under every deep a lower deep opens.” [Essays, by Ralph Waldo Emerson - Free ebook downloadFree epub ebook download of the Standard Ebooks edition of Essays: A collection of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essays.![](https://standardebooks.org/apple-touch-icon.png)Standard Ebooks: Free and liberated ebooks, carefully produced for the true book lover.![](https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/ralph-waldo-emerson/essays/downloads/cover.jpg)](https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/ralph-waldo-emerson/essays) During the past few months I’ve collected a few older kaizen books, but haven’t cracked these yet. They’re next, and coming up soon. ## Recommended courses & workshops The second cohort of Fenwick’s “Think Like a Writer” course begins next week, on June 3\. (Still time to join up, or you can take it on your own time, anytime.) I was part of the first cohort. I encountered a breezy course loaded with rubrics, questions, and checklists that led to immediate improvements in my own business writing. I appreciate the respect this course extends to participants’ time and attention—I was able to complete it during a busy month of client work and in the midst of the aforementioned family health crisis. Use code `PENPAL25` at checkout to knock $25 off the asking price: [Think Like A WriterClear writing starts with clear thinking. Practice three questions to clarify anyone’s writing, including your own![](https://process.fs.teachablecdn.com/ADNupMnWyR7kCWRvm76Laz/resize=width:32,height:32/https://cdn.filestackcontent.com/odiIymoR7uVwO9goQRE8)Fenwick Writing School![](https://cdn.filestackcontent.com/zVLANt6FSoyvdaSIkW4t)](https://learn.fenwick.media/p/think-like-a-writer-course) I also recently enjoyed Ryan and Greg’s half-day “Restart” workshop, the premise of which is to guide you through existential and scary stuff related to independent work. You’ll spend the morning designing a business, uncovering ways to talk about your services, and mapping out specific positioning and marketing opportunities. I’ve worked for myself before, would like to again someday, and have many nervous questions about the prospect right now. This workshop and the subsequent bi-weekly calls and take-home activities was perfect for me. When I think about some of the readers of this site & mailing list—well, it might be perfect for you, too. Next one planned for June 17: [Restart: A workshop to figure out if working for yourself is worth it.Design a business plan you can see yourself in and figure out if working for yourself is worth it.![](https://www.letsjumpship.com/content/images/size/w256h256/format/png/2023/08/jumpship-logo-5.svg)Jump Ship!Ryan Rumsey![](https://www.letsjumpship.com/content/images/2024/05/Jump-Ship-Program-Graphic---Square--2-.png)](https://www.letsjumpship.com/restart/) ### Monthly links & notes for February 2024 URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/monthly-links-notes-2024-02/ Last updated: 2025-10-22T21:28:47.000Z ## Online reading SessionLab’s second annual State of Facilitation report is out and it’s great. It covers topics like disability and methods for inclusion: > “Nobody had previously asked how many facilitators identify as having a disability themselves. About 20% of respondents identified as having a disability. Are our gatherings, communities and events designed to include them?” And changes to facilitated session format and duration: > “One of the inheritances of the global pandemic has been the spread of shorter interventions. The circa 2 hours session is now the most common session length, whether online or remote.” (Before the start of the pandemic, my experience was that more time-intensive “dedicated” lean workshops turned out better when decomposed into smaller kaizen activities anyways—allowing more time for reflection, getting new data and ideas, etc.) These are just two items from this very thorough free report: [State of Facilitation 2024 – Report and Expert InsightsThe second edition of SessionLab’s State of Facilitation report. Data, trends, and insights from a survey of workshop design and facilitation professionals.![](https://www.sessionlab.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/cropped-logo_512_transparent-270x270.png)SessionLabKeith McCandless (2014)![](https://www.sessionlab.com/wp-content/uploads/SoF-Report-2024-Out-now-Social-media-share.jpg)](https://www.sessionlab.com/state-of-facilitation/2024-report/) Next, “Zombie leadership: Dead ideas that still walk among us” in The Leadership Quarterly: > “By only looking for leadership amongst leaders we only find it there and bury all signs of leadership from below. By only recognizing, training, selecting and nurturing a few in positions of leadership we ensure that only a few develop the qualities associated with leadership. Elitist theory scaffolds elitist practice which creates an elitist world. This helps us understand the true extent of the threat posed by zombie leadership: not that the world it describes is false but rather that it may help to create a world in which it becomes true.” [Read the article in “The Leadership Quarterly”](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1048984323000966) Finally, I enjoyed this thought-provoking article about a family’s day trip to visit a data center in a suburb of Dublin: > “Ireland is no exception to the rule that what we remember and what we forget are always contingent upon the power structures and hierarchies that shape our contemporary moment. At the birth of the state, we burned our history in an act of carelessness; we also freed ourselves to create a new national history. We entrusted the church with our moral guidance and guardianship, and then allowed it to commit unspeakable cruelties on our citizens … At the latter end of the century, and in the wake of joining the European Union, we moved away from our old bad memories and toward a prosperous new era, placing our faith in international investment, almost at any cost. But in a small country like Ireland, the old names — whether they be companies or state organizations or political dynasties — crop up again and again. Sometimes our faulty memories flash up a warning. But often that history is stored in the cloud: intangible, vulnerable to exploitation, and degrading over time.” [Ireland’s Memory Machines — The DialData centers have proliferated across the country, at great cost.![](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6317a497832bf15c3b30f236/8155af84-68d8-4471-ab2b-c642a63268fc/favicon.ico?format=100w)The DialJessica Traynor![](http://static1.squarespace.com/static/6317a497832bf15c3b30f236/t/65b98a4b9d8b3a4f9d4b316f/1706658383314/Issue+13+Order_Ireland+Data+Centers_banner.jpg?format=1500w)](https://www.thedial.world/issue-13/ireland-data-center-energy-historical-memory) ## No books I haven’t read much this month due to some family/schedule things. It is weird to not be reading a few books. I miss the sustained attention that comes with it. Also, that’s where the ideas are: inside books. I’ll get back to it soon! ## Upcoming event The Global Lean Summit returns for its fifth year (and second in-person). It will be held in Indiana in mid-September with a 3-day conference format including an onsite tour at Toyota Material Handling. I went to the 2023 Summit and it was a remarkable experience. I hope to attend this one, and hope you consider it too. As of this writing, you have a week to dial in early-bird pricing: [The Global Lean Summit – The Global Lean Summit![](https://www.globalleansummit.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/GLS24-Colored-LogoLIVE.png)](https://www.globalleansummit.com/) ### 8 ways to push a problem around (without fixing it) URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/how-to-push-problems-around-without-ever-solving-them/ Last updated: 2025-10-07T15:41:28.000Z 1. Do the very first thing someone suggests. Commit as many resources to it as possible: we’re *all in* on the new approach, no matter what. 2. Do the very first thing someone suggests. Do not commit anything at all to the solution: we’re [doing more with less](https://www.improvesomething.today/on-doing-more-with-less/). 3. Don’t waste valuable time identifying or understanding the problem. As people wheel and mill around and solve for slightly different things, it’ll boost creativity or some damned thing. 4. Fix something upstream without looking downstream. 5. Fix something downstream without looking upstream. 6. Have you considered a reorg? 7. Don’t talk to customers. Of course you know who they are and what they want. This goes without saying. 8. Whatever else you do, put a thing on the timeline called “evaluate & adjust” or similar. Schedule it to be held in 6 months’ time. By then, everyone will have forgotten. ### Monthly links & notes for January 2024 URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/monthly-links-notes-2024-01/ Last updated: 2025-10-22T21:28:56.000Z ## Online reading This month I’m remembering the life and work of David Mann, who passed away in late December. He was one of those Michigan lean people who had a big effect on me, although I only met him once, in passing, at a conference. That big effect was through his book [Creating a Lean Culture: Tools to Sustain Lean Conversions](https://bookshop.org/a/56572/9781482243239). It helped me and [Andre](https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrehelmstetter/) more skillfully support a couple of lean projects back in the day, including the one where I saw that when it all worked, it really *worked*. So, thanks, David. [David Mann Obituary](https://obits.mlive.com/us/obituaries/grandrapids/name/david-mann-obituary?id=53961061) Ruth Malan shared a free systems thinking (“systems seeing”) month-long daily journal. She encourages you to work through it, spending \~15 minutes on each daily exercise: [Ruth Malan (@RuthMalan@mastodon.social)The System Seeing Journal “starter kit” (daily prompts and related quotes to reflect on) is up: (Pdf) https://ruthmalan.com/systems/2024SystemSeeingJournalStarter.pdf It expands on the #AdventOfSystemSeeing prompts (to a full month) and is a revision/extension to last year’s version.![](https://mastodon.social/packs/media/icons/apple-touch-icon-180x180-a75559a0af48064c1b7c71b81f3bf7c6.png)Mastodon](https://mastodon.social/@RuthMalan/111687003121161583) Finally, Anne-Laure Le Cunff’s “The Science of Learning to Let Go” is one of those pieces I’m still thinking about a month after reading. [The Science of Learning to Let GoLearning to let go is much harder than holding on. Why do we cling onto past sorrows, bad relationships, old things, meaningless goals?![](https://nesslabs.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/cropped-favicon-ness-270x270.png)Ness LabsAnne-Laure Le Cunff![](https://nesslabs.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/letting-go-science-banner.jpg)](https://nesslabs.com/learning-to-let-go) (If you like that, and want something short enough to carry with you forever, contemplate [Tilopa’s Six Nails](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilopa#Six%5FPrecepts%5For%5FWords%5Fof%5FAdvice).) ## Books Mike Rother posted a thing that included a citation from [Ignorance and Surprise: Science, Society, and Ecological Design by Matthias Gross](https://bookshop.org/a/56572/9780262543989) and I immediately picked up a copy. *(Ever since I encountered one of the key concepts of my consulting practice in a tossed-off back page column about fish scientists in a 1995 ecology journal, I know to pay attention to these people (ecologists).)* I owe Mike and his outfit more detailed notes on this book, but for the moment let me share this amazing illustration. I give you the “house of the unknown” ↓ !["The house of the unknown", showing a progression from nescience outside the house, to ignorance, nonknowledge, further non knowledge and negative knowledge inside the house. Finally, there an interior 'core' of extended or new knowledge.](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/2024/01/Screenshot-2024-01-25-at-10.02.19-PM.png) The ecological interventions (or experiments) Gross is concerned with tend to happen in “the real world” instead of a laboratory. And that’s the ledge I use to climb up into this book. Kaizen is the choreography that happens in order to allow people to make improvements to their own “real world” work and relations. I think we can learn a lot from this book’s framework about how people respond to various kinds of surprising conditions or discoveries. ## On the site Recent changes @ improvesomething.today: - Added to the [Junk Drawer](https://www.improvesomething.today/goodies/) → a placeholder for LinkedIn carousel postings I’ve been doing. These mostly reiterate items from the site, but in a format people seem to enjoy. - Some changes to e-mail newsletter delivery, formatting, and list membership that hopefully go smoothly. (If you’d like to join, unsubscribe, or change delivery of the e-mail newsletter, [this is the link](https://www.improvesomething.today/#/portal/).) ## Course recommendation I recommend The Center for Humane Technology’s free, self-paced, multi-mode course, “Foundations of Humane Technology.” If you design or make decisions about technology products or experiences, you might take a couple of afternoons to work through this material. The shift you’ll grapple with: ![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/2024/01/6570b98e3b690807f03b025a_cht-course-what-learn.jpg) And the course: [Foundations of Humane Technology Course - Center for Humane TechnologyA free, self-paced online course for professionals shaping tomorrow’s technology. Join thousands globally, including people from top organizations such as Meta, Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and the United Nations.![](https://assets-global.website-files.com/5f0e1294f002b15080e1f2ff/5f0e1294f002b1e0b2e1f48a_CHT-Logo-white-01.png)HomeTom GruberCo-founder of Apple’s Siri![](https://assets-global.website-files.com/5f0e1294f002b15080e1f2ff/62212686316eb702667d3643_foundations-of-humane-technology-course-social-thumbnail.png)](https://www.humanetech.com/course) ### Monthly links & notes for November 2023 URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/links-notes-for-2023-11/ Last updated: 2025-10-22T21:29:06.000Z ## Online reading First, a remembrance of Freddy Ballé—the French popularizer of lean—after his passing last month. You may know his name from a few of the books he cowrote with his son, Michael Ballé. Dan Jones writes: > I can still hear his voice saying, “Keep your focus on the detail of the work and understand its significance for the customer and the system as a whole.” Thank you, Freddy, for your example and your inspiration. [Remembering Freddy Ballé![](https://assets-global.website-files.com/63e10e9fed21c8eec4e91804/645e2ddc6ef85e96abfb115c_pl-favicon.png)Rose Heathcote and Eivind Reke![](https://assets-global.website-files.com/63e10f20140d9cbf73f9b946/654e4ef5f005d18e9afdf5cc_Remembering-Freddy-Balle.png)](https://www.planet-lean.com/articles/remembering-freddy-balle) Product-Quantity-Routing (PQR) Analysis and its close cousin, Work Unit Routing Analysis (WURA), are super underutilized continuous improvement methods for discovery and group sense-making and generally sorting things out. I’ve used WURA a bunch recently in my client work, and would like to write it up here soon. In the meantime, I am curious about how other people use PQR. Shahrukh Irani had this to say, in a very detailed post: > Kaizen event teams usually don’t have time to collect relevant data for all products. But with analyses already complete, the team could easily use just the PQ Analysis to segment their product mix into at least two areas, high volume and low volume. Then, using the PR Analysis for at least the high-volume segment, they could seek product families in that segment. Any product family found in that segment could then be the focus of a high-impact kaizen to implement a cell. [Minding your P’s, Q’s, R’s--and revenue tooIncorporating the PR Analysis (relating product mix and routing similarities) into a PQ Analysis (relating product mix and quantities), creates the PQR Analysis.![](https://cdn.thefabricator.com/favicons/favicon.svg)The FabricatorLean and Flexible LLC![](https://cdn.thefabricator.com/a/minding-your-p-s-q-s-r-s-and-revenue-too-1494529599.jpg)](https://www.thefabricator.com/thefabricator/article/shopmanagement/minding-your-p-s-q-s-r-s-and-revenue-too) We’re now a solid year into the impossibly tedious and generally underwhelming LLM/spicy autocomplete/ChatGPT era. Looking past the OpenAI+Microsoft clownshow currently underway, two things are clear: 1. These LLMs aren’t actually good enough to use for anything besides some Cal Newport style deeply evil “Deep Work” (aka middle-management strivers getting ahead by pushing lower status work onto lower status people in/outside an organization); and 2. They waste too much water. I’d encountered that second point repeatedly, but not really understood it until I read this, by Manuel Pascual in *El País*: > Many data centers use cooling towers to prevent overheating, the same system used in other industries. It is based on exposing a flow of water to a current of air in a heat exchanger, so that the evaporation cools the circuits. > > This method is more energy efficient than electric coolers, but it involves a significant amount of water evaporating (i.e. not returning to the circuit). Approximately 20% of the water used in cooling systems (that which does not evaporate) is discharged at the end of the cycle into wastewater treatment plants. “This water contains large amounts of minerals and salt, so it cannot be used for human consumption without being treated first.” [Artificial intelligence guzzles billions of liters of waterThe growing thirst of data centers, which use water to cool their equipment, is beginning to cause tensions in the territories where they are located![](https://static.elpais.com/dist/resources/images/favicon.ico)Ediciones EL PAÍS S.L.Manuel G. Pascual![](https://images.english.elpais.com/resizer/I8wzGNekGYI8CJaqO6gGx-kysaI=/1200x0/filters:focal(1572x1255:1582x1265)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/prisa/C3Q5BCDTHJEJXFBKBJQHGGZMUA.jpeg)](https://english.elpais.com/technology/2023-11-15/artificial-intelligence-guzzles-billions-of-liters-of-water.html) (Thanks [Bill for passing that link along](https://octodon.social/@billmerrill/111443689554966052).) Finally, all the chatter about spicy autocompletes “ruining” software development brought to mind one of my favorite pieces of online writing—Ellen Ullman’s 1998 two-part essay “The dumbing-down of programming.” > The computer was suddenly revealed as palimpsest. The machine that is everywhere hailed as the very incarnation of the new had revealed itself to be not so new after all, but a series of skins, layer on layer, winding around the messy, evolving idea of the computing machine. Under Windows was DOS; under DOS, BASIC; and under them both the date of its origins recorded like a birth memory. Here was the very opposite of the authoritative, all-knowing system with its pretty screenful of icons. Here was the antidote to Microsoft's many protections. The mere impulse toward Linux had led me into an act of desktop archaeology. And down under all those piles of stuff, the secret was written: We build our computers the way we build our cities—over time, without a plan, on top of ruins. > > My Computer. This is the face offered to the world by the other machines in the office. My Computer. I've always hated this icon – its insulting, infantilizing tone. Even if you change the name, the damage is done: It's how you've been encouraged to think of the system. My Computer. My Documents. Baby names. My world, mine, mine, mine. Read “The dumbing-down of programming” [part 1](https://www.salon.com/1998/05/12/feature%5F321/) and [part 2](https://www.salon.com/1998/05/13/feature%5F320/). ## On the site Recent changes @ improvesomething.today: - I culled books from the [reading list](https://www.improvesomething.today/reading-list/) (eventually I’ll add new ones), and - switched the site appearance from Ghost’s previous/old default theme to its current/new default theme. ## Course recommendation This season I’m luxuriating in an online, affordable, six-week information architecture course with Dan Klyn and a few new learning friends. Now, I first studied information architecture back in grad school, in a course taught by Dan in 2006 or so. It’s awesome to revisit this way of apprehending and creating environments more than 15 years later, and to do so with one of the people who have really pushed/pulled the discipline forwards. This is absolutely a course you should consider taking in 2024. [Intro to Information Architecture (IA) - Remote Course — The Understanding Group (TUG)This course meets for six (6) consecutive Tuesdays at 1pm Eastern starting November 14th. Course Dates: Week 1: November 14, 2023 @ 1pm Eastern Week 2: November 21, 2023 @ 1pm Eastern Week 3: November 28, 2023 @ 1pm Eastern Week 4: December 5, 2023 @ 1pm Eastern Week 5: Decembe![](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5cc25caa7eb88c697c948991/1556545258565-WALBWWWR0Z2WDX66ENJ6/favicon.ico)The Understanding Group (TUG)What We Do![](http://static1.squarespace.com/static/5cc25caa7eb88c697c948991/t/64ad9363c6f92b037e6de4ae/1689097062791/introtoia.png?format=1500w)](https://understandinggroup.com/remote-workshops/intro-to-ia-course) ### Monthly links & notes for October 2023 URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/links-notes-2023-10/ Last updated: 2026-01-09T17:13:09.000Z Trying something slightly different today: sharing a couple online reads, interesting books, and other recent updates. I might end up doing this monthly. ## Online reading First, this great short article from the great Donald Wheeler: > “Adjustments are necessary because of variation. And the variation in your process outcomes doesn’t come from your controlled process inputs. Rather, it comes from those cause-and-effect relationships that you don’t control. This is why it’s a low-payback strategy to seek to reduce variation by experimenting with the controlled process inputs. To reduce process variation, and thereby reduce the need for adjustments, we must understand which of the uncontrolled causes have dominant effects upon our process.” [Can We Adjust Our Way to Quality?Many articles and some textbooks describe process behavior charts as a manual technique for keeping a process on target.![](https://www.qualitydigest.com/files/qd_favicon.ico)Quality DigestBio![](https://www.qualitydigest.com/files/editorial_images/wheeler-640_21.jpg)](https://www.qualitydigest.com/inside/six-sigma-article/can-we-adjust-our-way-quality-100223.html) Next, Mandy Brown wrote about work being too much and also not enough: > “Once you accept (or re-accept) that there is too much, it becomes easier to turn some things away. You may still feel grief or loss at the things you cannot do. You may feel guilt, especially if an institution or person benefits from you feeling that way. But accepting that you must leave some things undone shifts the problem from one of *being not enough* to one of *being in a position to make choices*. And even when those choices are coupled to difficult or prickly constraints, they are still choices.” [Too much and not enough | everything changesDon’t do the hard work alone.![](https://everythingchanges.us/favicon.ico)everything changes![](https://everythingchanges.us/assets/img/social.png)](https://everythingchanges.us/blog/too-much-and-not-enough/) Here’s a fun one—this case study by Regina de Melo on a lean project I designed and contributed to several years ago: > “By piloting small and fast ideas and using agreed-upon measures of success, ideas are vetted quickly and objectively by reviewing the attainment of the agreed upon outcomes.” Lots of specifics about outcomes and trade-offs we encountered during this engagement. I enjoy this because the consulting team (that’s me!) recedes into the background and, as far as I’m concerned, that’s as it should be. [“Work Smarter, Not Harder: A Case Study on Lean Design in San Mateo County Human Services Agency” (Regina de Melo - 2018)](https://mackcenter.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/work%5Fsmarter%5Fnot%5Fharder%5Fa%5Fcase%5Fstudy%5Fon%5Flean%5Fdesign%5Fin%5Fsan%5Fmateo%5Fcounty%5Fhuman%5Fservices%5Fagency.pdf) And this, on the topic of listening as a capability for movement-building, from Kelly Hayes and Mariame Kaba in the Boston Review: > “Organizers will often repeat the maxim, ‘We have to meet people where they are at.’ It is difficult to meet someone where they’re at when you do not know where they are. Until you have heard someone out, you do not know where they are, so how could you hope to meet them there? Relationships are not built through presumption or through the deployment of tropes or stereotypes. We must understand people as having their own unique experiences, traumas, struggles, ideas, and motivations that will inform how they show up to organizing spaces.” [How Much Discomfort Is the Whole World Worth? - Boston ReviewMovement building requires a culture of listening—not mastery of the right language.![](https://www.bostonreview.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/cropped-Favicon-1-270x270.png)Boston ReviewKelly Hayes![](https://www.bostonreview.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/townhall7.png)](https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/how-much-discomfort-is-the-whole-world-worth/) ## Books I’m still hung up on [Naomi Klein’s “Doppelganger”](https://bookshop.org/a/56572/9780374610326)—this will end up being my favorite book of the year unless something truly amazing happens. Read it. It is somewhat unclassifiable (memoir? polemic? weird-as-hell COVID-19 retrospective? etc.?) but whatever it is, it is an astonishment. If you need more information, [start with Cory Doctorow’s review](https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/05/not-that-naomi/#if-the-naomi-be-klein-youre-doing-just-fine). Beyond that, I am increasingly impatiently waiting for my preorder of [“The Flow System Playbook” from Turner and Thurlow](https://bookshop.org/a/56572/9798988023913) to get in. “The Flow System” is an invaluable book—several of my projects have cribbed heavily from its pages—but I think the playbook format will really adhere to Thurlow’s strengths. More about this one after I dig in. ## On the site Recent changes @ improvesomething.today: - I added a [links & listens](https://www.improvesomething.today/links-newsletters-blogs-podcasts/) page with selected continuous improvement blogs and podcasts (only the weird/good ones), - refreshed a couple recommended books on my [reading list](https://www.improvesomething.today/reading-list/), and - updated [about this site](https://www.improvesomething.today/about-this-site/) with more information about your privacy and additional ways of reading. As the algorithm-poisoned social media landscape decoheres, I am left feeling that web sites are great. I wish there were more of them. So I try to keep this one tidy. ## An upcoming event [Makesensemess](https://www.thesensemakersclub.com/makesensemess)—the “nerdiest party of the year”—is coming up in a few weeks and I would be delighted to see you there. It’s a two-hour, cheap, online celebration of things people do to make sense of an absurd and silent world. Last year’s Makesensemess was phenomenal. That’s it for now! Have an awesome day. ### Dan’s Device: “Now that I see it… [it’s completely wrong.]” URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/now-that-i-see-it/ Last updated: 2026-01-04T06:54:53.000Z It is 1976\. Neil Diamond saunters onstage at The Last Waltz and introduces his performance of ‘Dry Your Eyes’ by saying: > [I’m going to do one song for you, but I’m going to do it good](https://youtu.be/ohKqaWmHCCQ?feature=shared&t=19). Isn’t that what we all want? We want to do something *once*, and to do it *good*. And easy enough: the first step is to be Neil Diamond. The rest of us should probably acknowledge that—whatever the work is—we’ll have to do it more than once, because it almost certainly won’t be done good the first time. My friend [Dan](https://about.me/danklyn) gave me the notion of the now-that-I-see-it moment. This occurs when a work-in-progress becomes real enough that people can say a sentence beginning with “*Now that I see it*” and ending with things like “*it’s completely wrong*” or “*we forgot this important detail*” or “*this will never work for this particular reason.*” Methods for building quality at the source, shifting left, [set-based design](https://www.improvesomething.today/options-set-based-design/), and so forth all help elicit “now that I see it” moments as early as possible. By arriving earlier to “now that I see it,” we also arrive earlier to the wrong place, to the just-revealed insight, or to the key constraint. It is hopefully early enough that there is wiggle room to learn and iterate and retry. Airbrushing the side of a van is delightful. It is a job that takes as much time as you care to give. But you need only outline those first few flames and/or wolves to wedge open space for the objection that what we really need is a bicycle, or for the idea that we might be able to take the train. I leave you with this dismal little project management couplet: > “Now that I see it” is certainly true; > That’s why to use tape first & then glue. (This advice does not apply to Neil Diamond or to his beaded shirts.) ### Noticing little things & little thinks URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/noticing-little-things-little-thinks/ Last updated: 2025-12-05T18:51:36.000Z I’ve written about the power of noticing before: - noticing why [people resist change](https://www.improvesomething.today/the-jewel-of-resistance/), - noticing [as a bedrock practice of lean](https://www.improvesomething.today/goodies/#6-missed-wastes-a-field-guide), and - noticing as [a way to close meetings](https://www.improvesomething.today/end-your-meetings-with-this-short-powerful-question/). Beyond all this, I spend a certain amount of time and effort on a meditation cushion, where [mental noting](https://www.insightmeditationcenter.org/books-articles/mental-noting/) has been a tremendous relief and balm over the years. Briefly, mental noting is a practice of noticing and ‘tagging’— without discussion or judgement—sensations and thoughts as they arise. Capability and joy come through seeing things with a little less presumption, a little less judgement, and a little less hurry towards sense-making. ## Noticing while out and about A great way to try different ways of seeing and experiencing is to play some of the games in Rob Walker’s [The Art of Noticing](http://robwalker.net/noticing/). One example is the “secret scavenger hunt” of looking for security cameras while running an errand: which cameras want to be seen?—and which want to remain hidden? ## The ant’s puzzle How is observing the bottoms of coffee mugs (a Rob Walker staple) similar to looking carefully for those places where workplace environments produce errors, injury, and waste? And what do both of these have in common with the experience of sitting quietly for a moment and paying careful attention to the quantity of thoughts that arise unbidden and just as quickly fall away? I don’t have a tidy answer. I wish I did. I can see that these three are related somehow, meaningfully. It is as if they were three legs of a stool that I—as an ant—endlessly crawl to and fro and back to, without apprehending the larger structure. I will keep trying, and I encourage you to give it a go as well. August 30, 2024: Edited for length. ### Starting a new project? 3 things to figure out immediately URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/new-project-3-things-to-understand/ Last updated: 2025-10-22T21:23:42.000Z I’m starting a new client project next week. Now, I’ve been at this for a long time—it’s consulting project #74 *(& yours could be #75!)*. Along the way, I cobbled together a short checklist for the first days of a new engagement. Here it is: 1. understand the project, 2. understand the client, & 3. understand the work. Sounds simple—and it sometimes is—but I’ve watched skilled people create problems for themselves by rushing in. Hell, I’ve *been* one of those people. ## Understanding the project Take as given some sort of plan or statement of work or agreed-upon outcome—which is great, but not what I’m interested in up front. Instead, the very first thing I wonder is: who wants the results of this work to be good (also, what might ‘good’ mean for them)? And the second thing is: who is worried it will be bad (and what are they worried about)? I might host a [premortem](https://www.improvesomething.today/premortem-learn-how-a-project-failed-before-it-starts/) in order to get people talking specifically about the bad things that might happen. This helps me suss out who cares about what, and who else should have been included that hasn’t been (yet). I am also drawing pictures in order to answer questions like: why this work? and why now? A round of [ecocycle planning](https://www.improvesomething.today/four-liberating-structures-continuous-improvement-lean/) can bring this to light. Another approach is to [map the value chain](https://learnwardleymapping.com/landscape/), which will reveal some dependencies, possibly hidden, and clarify what’s super important and what’s not. ## Understanding the client How does a client want to interact with the consultant or the consulting team? ← You would be amazed at how often consultants do not ask this. I follow [Jerry Weinberg’s advice](https://www.improvesomething.today/merely-being-the-person-you-are/) (*“Your methods of working are always open for display and discussion with your clients”*) but it’s an invitation, not a demand. Some clients want to work “at the elbow” and participate in the mess from beginning to end. Others want to check in weekly, or monthly. Dial this in and you’ll know whether to work with the metaphorical garage door up or down. When getting to know a new client, I will pay attention to what they react to in materials (documents, plans, etc.) and what it’ll take to get good feedback on those materials. I remember the client for whom we did a full style adherence pass on even the roughest drafts and sketchiest ideas before putting thing in front of them—because otherwise we’d get a sequence of comments about images being imperfectly aligned and nothing else. And that’s OK—giving thoughtful feedback is hard and people are busy. Sometimes clients, or their teams, need an idiosyncratic feedback container & review process ([example](http://21676589.hs-sites.com/containers-for-feedback)) in order to elicit the right kind of notes at the right time. At the same time, I figure out how to make myself easy to fire. I recently ended a project 2 months early due to my client’s budget getting jerked around. This came at precisely the worst time: I was close to wrapping up, but not quite finished. Even so, I was able to hand things over in an orderly way. I’d kept things organized as we went, so the various transitions (or “knowledge transfers,” to use the unlovely jargon) were easy to make. I could focus on communication and relationship and problem-solving, rather than scrambling to claw half-baked work items together. An old consulting boss said she never wanted her clients to create a dependency on our services. There’s always more work to do, and people mostly remember how they felt at the end of something, no matter how miserable the middle portion was. Being easy to fire means that I can always find time at the end of a project—even when they end early or suddenly—to make the ending nice and calm and appropriately bittersweet for everybody. ## Understanding the work Finally, I will begin to indulge my curiosity. Not just in the work specifically entailed in the project, but in everything surrounding it. This is the fun part! It’s also where, as my friend Andre says, “every project is a lean project.” I start this by going to where the work happens, and spending time with the lowest-status people doing the work, and paying attention. The point is to learn the process, notice where it breaks down, and find the places where success hinges on tacit knowledge. ↑ Read my [field guide on the 6 MISSED wastes](https://www.improvesomething.today/goodies/) for more on how to do this. When people tell me things like “we don’t have a process“ or “every *x, y, or z* is different,” I’ll break out a work-unit routing analysis (WURA, sometimes also known as product-quantity-routing or PQR analysis) worksheet and become a student of the variation I see and hear about. This gets me on the way towards sorting things into value streams or some other aggregation. Despite the experience or expertise that the client presumably hired me for, in these moments the value I bring is that I can look with a beginner’s eyes and wonder with a curious mind. ## Last but not least: doing the project But that is—as they say—another story, and shall be told another time. ### Open space technology, principle 3: “Whenever it starts is the right time” URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/open-space-technology-principle-3-whenever-it-starts-is-the-right-time/ Last updated: 2026-05-22T21:38:10.000Z I’ve been visiting these particular trees for years. Each time, I wonder: is this a view of perfect stability, or of a system building up potential until it changes—collapses, in this case—into something new? There’s tension, and strength. When I visit these trees I also see Stewart Brand’s pace layers: ![Stewart Brand's "pace layering" figure from "The Clock of the Long Now." Things change at different rates, and are layered. From inner/slowest to outer/fastest: nature, culture, governance, infrastructure, commerce, fashion.](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/2023/08/bab-02x10-int-1.jpg) Figure by Stewart Brand, in his book [The Clock of the Long Now](https://bookshop.org/a/56572/9780465007806). Some things move faster than those trees: animals, water, me, you. Other things move slower. If you sit with this, it might become beautiful. And then we go to work, where projects are atomized and boxed and shuffled around in tidy intervals, even though “whenever it starts is the right time.” ## New beginnings are sudden Transformation happens [when it’s going to happen](https://www.improvesomething.today/on-speeding-things-up/)… and when it’s time, it happens fast, noisily, and irreversibly, like a tree falling. - As a sandy bank erodes and trees slip into the saltwater, we tend to see that as a loss. The tides and the weather and the climate got to ‘em. - When a group of people get to a moment of shared insight and identity and possibility, we tend to think that’s good. The choreography and structure and careful engagement got to ‘em. Either way, what happens is a sudden shift from one state to another. The visible shift is a result of accumulated actions over time. ## Not everything starts at the same time Seven years ago I tossed out the “house of Lean”—with its [ossified, layered columns and foundations](https://www.lean.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/build%5Fyour%5Fhouse%5Fhouse.png), it was a powerful vision poorly communicated. Instead, I taught for a while from this doodle: ![A shearing layer model of a house, with CI concepts as the foundation, ways of thinking as the exterior structure, and collection of tools as the interior "style" elements.](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/2023/08/Screenshot-2023-08-16-at-11.35.19-PM-1.png) Figure by Brian Kerr. Old thinking but I stand by about 50% of it. (These are shearing layers, after Stewart Brand’s [How Buildings Learn](https://bookshop.org/a/56572/9780140139969).) What I liked about this figure is that it helped people sort out their approach to continuous improvement as a collection of things that start and stop and change over time and at different rates. These days, I get people to the same point using [ecocycle planning](https://www.improvesomething.today/four-liberating-structures-continuous-improvement-lean/): ![An eco cycle planning template, showing a figure-eight loop from birth, through maturity, to creative destruction, and back to gestation. At each state there is a drawing of a tree growing from an acorn into a large tree and then being harvested or burned at the end of its life.](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/2023/08/Screenshot-2023-08-17-at-12.20.07-AM-2.png) An ecocycle planning template, from a document [shared by Fisher Qua](https://www.liberatingstructures.com/31-ecocycle-planning/). I’d prefer to work from a picture of trees growing than from a schematic of a little house. For me, creative destruction is not “plowing” or the little controlled burn in the image above, but rather a huge tree slipping off and down into the tide, where it will drift and—at its own pace—break down and provide shelter, enrich the food web, become the beginning of many things. Whenever it starts is the right time. --- Open space technology series: - [Whoever comes is the right people](https://www.improvesomething.today/open-space-technology-principle-1-whoever-comes-is-the-right-people/). - [Whatever happens is the only thing that could have](https://www.improvesomething.today/open-space-technology-principle-2-whatever-happens-is-the-only-thing-that-could-have/). - Whenever it starts is the right time. → now reading - [When it is over, it is over](https://www.improvesomething.today/open-space-technology-principle-4/). August 30, 2024: Edited for length. --- ### Disconnected improvement events fail. What to do about that URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/disconnected-improvement-events-fail-what-to-do-about-that/ Last updated: 2025-06-13T16:14:10.000Z Most continuous improvement events fail. I am curious why. Today’s reason for failure is **disconnectedness**. Earlier in my consulting days, I’d say “yes” to any one-off continuous improvement project that came my way—things like sitting with a new group to do an A3, or hosting a half-day event. I figured that if folks had a problem to fix and a sponsor willing to let them to work things out, it couldn’t possibly hurt, and might even help. The events themselves were always fun. It’s fun to gather people together for a few hours and enable them to learn from each another in surprising ways. It’s fun to go where the work gets done and notice weird things happening there, to fix problems, to enjoy snacks and coffee and the company of others. But I became dissatisfied with the success rate. Here’s what happened: - *Sometimes the events worked.* Ideas arose, people made changes, the changes stuck. - *Sometimes they sort of worked.* Maybe there was a short-term change for the better, but then things reverted back to the way they were before. - *Sometimes they didn’t work at all.* And this is the problem: Everything is interdependent. We’re all connected. To pick up a particular piece of the muddle and draw a tidy rectangle around it and work on it in isolation is to miss nearly everything. ## The ideal Ideally, specific lean interventions are part of the daily work. In one classic formulation: **Work = Job + Kaizen**. Ideally, they are supported by leadership through a management system. Ideally, they are broadly understood and intelligible by passersby within and without the organization. ## The strongly OK But if that ideal condition does not exist (it very rarely does), now what? Should you say ‘no’ to everything? Or say ‘yes’ to everything and hope that some of it sticks? My move—and it’s a pragmatic, or ‘strongly OK’ move—is to connect continuous improvement activities to something that is already valued and understood by the organization. This connection is what you can establish at the outset, and cling to after an event is over. It’s the hook you hang the continuous improvement hat on. So, in a ‘strongly OK’ world, try to connect continuous improvement work to (from most to least preferred): 1. **Safety, quality, or satisfaction**—for customers, employees, or suppliers. Must be quantifiable. 2. **Business value**—show how the current condition is costing the company money. Must be quantifiable, and something that is already familiar and meaningful to people. 3. A executive’s **important initiative**. But initiatives don’t last long, even the important ones, and some people will not be on board. This is a weaker connection than it might seem. 4. The organization’s **mission, vision, or strategic plan**. These things probably exist under a thick layer of dust. They’ll motivate continuous improvement to the same extent they motivate anything else in the organization—very little. If your organization is the exception to this rule, then move this up to the top of the list. By connecting a continuous improvement event to one of these, and making that connection strong and broadly communicated, you increase the odds that the event—or its results—won’t float away. June 10, 2024: Edited for length. ### 4 favorite Liberating Structures for continuous improvement URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/four-liberating-structures-continuous-improvement-lean/ Last updated: 2025-10-22T21:20:33.000Z I’ve previously shared an [introduction to Liberating Structures](https://www.improvesomething.today/liberating-structures-facilitation-continuous-improvement/), the methods that filled the “facilitation gap” in my own continuous improvement practice. These 4 Liberating Structures have been most important to my continuous improvement practice. ## During planning - [Ecocycle Planning](https://www.liberatingstructures.com/31-ecocycle-planning/)—an initial conversation that can help an uncertain or newly formed team figure out what to work on. Starting with a portfolio-level listing of major systems or responsibilities, people locate each of those in its overall lifecycle. The resulting ‘ecocycle’ is a big picture of things that need fixing, things that could be skillfully closed down, and things that need to be nurtured into further growth. There’s your schedule of continuous improvement projects. ## During an improvement activity - [TRIZ](https://www.liberatingstructures.com/6-making-space-with-triz/)—a scavenger hunt for existing system behaviors that produce bad outcomes. Purposefully designing a broken system is fun. Then, insight comes when people look for similarities between the bad system they’ve imagined and the way things get done today. TRIZ lets groups see how their collective work is both interrelated and necessary—and where there is room for creative destruction. - [25/10 Crowdsourcing](http://www.liberatingstructures.com/12-2510-crowd-sourcing/)—a machine for generating bravery, starting with the question: *“If you were ten times bolder, what big idea would you recommend?”* The activity ends with a tantalizing presentation of the weirdest ideas that were elevated or supported by the whole group. There will be a few ideas you can go do right away, ‘ten times bolder’ premise be damned. ## Afterwards - [What/So What/Now What](https://www.liberatingstructures.com/9-what-so-what-now-what-w/)—a group closing reflection and commitment. Can [scale up or down](https://www.improvesomething.today/end-your-meetings-with-this-short-powerful-question/), but this is the smallest possible closing that helps people make sense of what happened and to decide what’s next. ## Look, they’re all good There are dozens of Liberating Structures. Even if you are familiar with some of them, others will be new. [I encourage you to seek them out](https://www.improvesomething.today/liberating-structures-facilitation-continuous-improvement/). For example, I only started using Ecocycle Planning in the last year or so, but it has already gotten me out of a couple real pickles. November 14, 2024: Edited for length. ### The world of silence: marking Disability Pride Month URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/the-world-of-silence/ Last updated: 2026-07-02T01:23:14.000Z ![audio-thumbnail](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/media/2026/07/44_thumb.png) 0044: The world of silence 0:00 /923.712 1× *More podcast episodes* [*online*](https://www.improvesomething.today/tag/podcast/) *or in* [](https://www.improvesomething.today/podcast/)[*your favorite app*](https://pod.link/1413904169)*.* Quiet isn’t. Here’s what I mean: You write sitting in the back garden, where the barest breeze is enough to rustle the limbs and leaves of the fruit trees, to raise a little hiss from the tall grasses, and to awake a larger, fuller breathing from all the trees beyond. You hear the chittering of birds jockeying for position at the feeder, or the occasional squabble of gulls or crows. A fence gate clacks, a vehicle revs, an airplane passes low on its return to base. You hear the sound of your fingers hitting keys on the keyboard, even though you use the quietest keyboard money can buy. You hear your breathing and the rustling of your linen shirt. You hear your teeth grinding, which is how you know you’re lost in thought. That’s quiet. It’s active, it’s noisy, it never stops. Even in a perfectly still, empty house there is an ongoing tumble of things to hear. But—there’s something else entirely. Take out your hearing aids, set them aside. So much drops away. The breeze becomes a pattern of pressure and temperature on your skin, in your hair. This is the real silence, the silence that opens up once you shut down all the hissing, buzzing quiet. For a little while, you don’t have to worry about how much work it is to listen to people. You don’t have to adjust position, posture, device settings at the beginning and end of every single conversation, forever. You can unhook the 20% of your awareness that is held to listen for voices, always standing by to begin the energetic work of listening. ## Being tired I am usually tired after a day of work—especially onsite—because listening to people is hard. - On the one hand, I love listening to people, because people are interesting, and listening is one of the best ways to learn about them (the other best way is *watching*). And [my whole thingy](https://www.improvesomething.today/consulting/) of reducing suffering and wasted effort across an organization depends on getting people to speak with one another. - On the other hand, listening to speech is something that so far as I can tell comes easily to most people, but is a lot of effort for me. Reading is easy. Listening is hard. That’s just the way it is. ## Being lucky I’m lucky that I was born where and when I was, and to be part of a supportive family with resources. I started using assistive technology when I was a toddler. The pile accumulates and updates as I age: fewer knobs, more touch-screens. My first hearing aids were unlovely wasp-like devices to catch and boost sound in delicate little curves mirror-matched to my hearing loss. Machines for converting an expensive, wasteful heap of disposable batteries into speech, music, the clatter of life. Over the decades the hearing aids have become accessories to everything else—to the car, to the computer, to the iPad. My iPhone doubles as a discreet little roving mic to pick up what you’re saying in that noisy cafe. You put your phone on the table for whatever reason. I put my phone on the table to hear what you say. ## Being a talking animal As a child I read Carl Sagan’s “Cosmos”: > We are the local embodiment of a Cosmos grown to self-awareness. We have begun to contemplate our origins: starstuff pondering the stars; organized assemblages of ten billion billion billion atoms considering the evolution of atoms; tracing the long journey by which, here at least, consciousness arose. Our loyalties are to the species and the planet. We speak for Earth. Our obligation to survive is owed not just to ourselves but also to that Cosmos, ancient and vast, from which we spring. I read Albert Camus’ “The Myth of Sisyphus”: > At this point of his effort man stands face to face with the irrational. He feels within him his longing for happiness and for reason. The absurd is born of this confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world. This must not be forgotten. This must be clung to because the whole consequence of a life can depend on it. For most of my life, I thought this was the project: to obliterate the silence of the world, offensive in its mere presence, by filling it up with speech, and to use speech to do good things. To speak for the earth, since (after Rorty) the world does not speak, only we do. ## Being comfortable In 2022, I sat a silent meditation retreat for a week, my first time practicing at that duration and intensity. It was an important experience, and I also complained about it a lot. The first day or two or three I really struggled as I found myself alone in our very quiet family cabin. The longer I sat the more noisy and rattly it all became. At a certain point I pulled out my hearing aids and that made all the difference. I could rest. The silence I expend so much effort and money to dispel became exactly what I now wanted to sit with. I couldn’t hear the daily chants or the heart sutra with my friends in the Zoom sangha, but that was OK—I knew what we were saying. On that retreat I realized how much work I put into listening, even when there is no need to hear, or nothing to listen for. That silence produced stillness, and in sitting I fell away from the logics of attainment and progression that had haunted me for decades (and still do). I used to get deeply unhappy or funky when I couldn’t wear my hearing aids for whatever reason. But these days—here’s my secret—the instant I am alone, out they go. I want the world to be safe and lovely and a place of liberation and flourishing for everybody, and I feel somehow closest to that world when I am in the world of silence. I also want to sit and talk with people and listen to them all day every day—to chat ceaselessly with my friends, to gossip with everyone at work, to learn what my past clients are up to, to listen to one child give an artist’s statement for his most recent tongue-preserver-and-colored-pencil apparatus, or to, at nighttime, listen to the other child practice his violin, or to Liana singing and playing guitar. They say the body is a city with nine gates. Two of mine happen to be a little finicky. I truly believe that if I could begin again at life with a body that could hear better, or more typically, I wouldn’t go for it. While I might have an easier time and have fewer large out-of-pocket expenditures, I just don’t know what it’d be like to live in the world of hearing. It’s a wonderful place to visit. But the world of silence is where I began and where, I think, I will end. It’s the underlying fact of my life. And I have a good life; I do good work. It’s on that basis I embrace disability, and *my* disability, and—this month—disability pride. --- [Happy birthday to the ADA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americans%5Fwith%5FDisabilities%5FAct%5Fof%5F1990). --- July 2, 2025: Edited to add the following dismal 2025 coda. ↓ ## Dismal 2025 coda As I revisit this piece from 2023, I stand by everything in it. But a few updates are in order: - In 2024 I was lucky enough to do another week-length silent retreat and reconnected with that deep silence. I am so grateful for that experience. - Just last month, in June 2025, I paid cash out of pocket for newer, fancier hearing aids. Rule-making by Joe Biden’s FDA increased the range of options available to me and dramatically decreased my costs. - And as I write these words on July 2, 2025, Republicans in the US Congress are scrounging together the remaining votes they need to pass the ‘big beautiful bill’ containing (in addition to every other awful thing) numerous specific attacks on services, protections, and basic health care for people with disabilities. This is a particularly intense moment in that regard. But today, this week, this season, is also part of their larger, ongoing project of excluding, denationalizing, and dehumanizing anybody that doesn’t fit into their specifically chicken-hearted, incoherent Christian Nationalist nightmare vision. It is in this context that we celebrate Disability Pride Month this year. ### Using Liberating Structures to facilitate continuous improvement URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/liberating-structures-facilitation-continuous-improvement/ Last updated: 2025-09-07T01:28:03.000Z > “Five conventional structures guide the way we organize routine interactions and how groups work together: presentations, managed discussions, open discussions, status reports and brainstorm sessions. Liberating Structures add 33 more options to the big five conventional approaches.” So much of continuous improvement comes down to gathering a small group of people together (ideally with snacks) and opening a space so that everybody can decide what to do next. The Lean books and teachers I learned from taught me *what* needed to happen—the observations, diagrams, analysis, ideas, and plans—but couldn’t convey *how* to get all this to occur within groups of people who were happy, unhappy, skeptical, annoyed, burned-out, eager, curious, tired, distracted, in pain, lost in thought, worried, hungry, or optimistic. Facilitation is its own separate skill. Like the other so-called “soft skills,” it is hard as hell. But eventually, [Liberating Structures](https://www.liberatingstructures.com/ls/) gave me the methods I needed. ## No new thing under the sun Each Liberating Structure is a recipe for a small, generative group interaction. Flip through the collection and you’ll find short definitions and plenty of examples, along with detailed, insightful facilitation guides. As you explore, many of the formats and activities might seem familiar—and for good reason. Very little of this work is original, which is why nearly all of it is useful. For example, the [What, So What, Now What?](http://www.liberatingstructures.com/9-what-so-what-now-what-w/) Liberating Structure is one particular expression of a device you might have seen in academic or business writing (as Chris Argyris’ ladder of inference) or in community development (my teachers at the Institute of Cultural Affairs call it ORID, an unlovely contraction of “objective, reflective, interpretive, and decisional”). The point of this particular Liberating Structure isn’t to be innovative, but instead to give just enough structure to help a group to listen and reflect on its shared experience. And it, like all the others, is offered with attribution and links to further reading to satisfy the eggheads. Most of the Liberating Structures are small, with time commitments beginning at around 15 minutes. As you practice them, you may find yourself planning events by chaining a sequence of Liberating Structures together. There’s even a Liberating Structure for having group plan its own event—what my friend Dan calls choreography, but the Liberating Structure is called [Design Storyboards](http://www.liberatingstructures.com/21-design-storyboards/). And Liberating Structures are a great boost to continuous improvement efforts because they loosen up hierarchies and create new ways for people to learn from one another. This is an important part of Lean, and it’ll happen eventually—but some carefully deployed Liberating Structures can help things along. Some of the structures, like [Ecocycle Planning](https://www.liberatingstructures.com/31-ecocycle-planning/), fit directly into the portfolio planning and management systems that sustain continuous improvement over time. ## Getting started The stuff is available online and is free to use. Read up on the [Liberating Structures web site](https://www.liberatingstructures.com/ls/), starting with the [LS Menu](https://www.liberatingstructures.com/ls/). I recommend the excellent, free [LiSA app for your phone or iPad](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/liberating-structures/id1206361128?mt=8). (LiSA also runs on recent Macs.) LiSA is great for quick reference, as well as for working out an agenda using a chain of Liberating Structures. Beyond that, the very best way to learn Liberating Structures is to watch, do, and teach. (It’s also the best way to [learn anything](https://www.improvesomething.today/three-step-method-for-learning-anything/).) For this purpose, my friend Alyssa recommends this [monthly international, online meetup](https://www.meetup.com/liberating-structures-go-online/events/292446451/). ## Big changes, small changes It’s only fair to let the Liberating Structures folks have [the last word](http://www.liberatingstructures.com/purpose/). Because what they want is what I want, too: > “We want everyone to learn to foster big changes by inviting people to make small structural changes in how they work together.” ### 23 reasons to write online URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/23-reasons-to-write-online/ Last updated: 2025-12-05T18:51:56.000Z People write for lots of reasons: To become famous. To make money. To sell. To connect. To join. To have written. To create social proof. To influence. To communicate. To make a world. To right a wrong. To increase the n. Because everybody else is doing it. Because someone else said they should do it. Today, 23 reasons I think you should consider writing online. Pick one reason, pick them all, make them your own. ## Reasons 1. To allow a small number of as-yet-unknown, possibly very consequential people to feel as though they’ve gotten to know you a bit, before you ever speak. (I’m a consultant. 3 out of 4 interviews I have with prospective clients involve them bringing up something they read or listened to from this web site. I enjoy that.) 2. To make your first conversations with certain new friends immediately engaging and specific, since they will have already apprehended your bullshit and felt there was something there. 3. To disqualify people who don’t vibe with what you are up to. They will glance off the edge of your atmosphere and float somewhere else. 4. To sort things out, to somehow make sense of an absurd world, and cram the results into enough of a structure that it becomes hopefully intelligible to at least one other person. 5. To dispel the curse of knowledge. You know much more about certain things than most people, and your life experiences mean those things have become connected—intertwingled?—in contingent, weird, productive ways. 6. To dispel the curse of knowledge. You probably don’t realize how much you know about the stuff you know about. Lay it all out on a page and, goddamnit, turns out you know a lot. That in itself is good to know. 7. To dispel the curse of knowledge. Here is a super powerful capability: to be able to borrow the perspective of someone who doesn’t know the same things as you do, and support them as they develop their own expertise. 8. To get clear about the language you want to use. And I don’t mean cussing (you must swear at least a bit in your writing so people will know they are dealing with a human being and not some tediously apologetic autocomplete LLM). I mean knowing what things you are thinking about, and what you would like to call each of them. 9. To identify your lil’ shortcuts, jargons, and irritants. (For me, these include the words “just” and “here.”) 10. To find out where you are wrong. 11. To find out where you are right. 12. To eventually give [each idea its own URL](https://www.improvesomething.today/lees-law-every-idea-should-have-a-url/), which is cool. 13. To take these ideas—now having their own URLs—and e-mail them to those who want to read by email, publish in an RSS feed for those who want to read by feeds, and the like. 14. To maybe even circulate these URLs across the various algorithmic hellscapes (LinkedIn, ~~Twitter~~, etc.), giving people something to glance at between the advertisements. Your items are errant kibble in the feed, but you can automate the postings and just—*see #9*—let the machine operate. 15. To locate the people who are your people. Bring them in, wherever they are. One person a month is fine. This is the real deal. 16. To have a very slow conversation with a friend over the span of months or years. 17. To accumulate a “swipe file” you can borrow from when called upon to present, speak, convince, design, etc. 18. To draft a book, one page at a time, with the garage door up. 19. To create the conditions for eventually revisiting your old stuff and noticing with horror how [your thinking has changed](https://www.improvesomething.today/ditching-assume-good-faith/) over time. 20. To get other people to tell you what to read next: this link, this article, this book. You’ll always have a backlog. 21. [To learn](https://www.improvesomething.today/three-step-method-for-learning-anything/). 22. To practice. 23. To figure out who you are, so you can [become that person](https://www.improvesomething.today/merely-being-the-person-you-are/). ### The jewel of resistance URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/the-jewel-of-resistance/ Last updated: 2026-01-09T17:16:49.000Z When planning a change in the workplace, the topic of resistance always comes up. And when it does, it seems bad—resistance as debris to be cleared away or routed around. In this way, labelling people “resistant” is a complaint without recommendation. It’s a wish that things were other than they are. Resistance prioritizes the wannabe change-maker over the people being asked to change. ## **Resistance is not a problem. It’s a signal** People who resist a change are telling you: - **They care about something.** What are they afraid of losing? Someone in this state might not be able to articulate their worry. So draw pictures, make models. Once a shared explanation arises, frustration disappears. - **You’ve overlooked something.** Find the details you’ve missed. Are people burned out after many botched changes? If so, [take special care](https://www.prosci.com/blog/understanding-resistance-to-change). - **They are your future champions.** Convince them of the value of the change and they’ll support it wholeheartedly. ## **The purpose of resistance** Consider this, from Sara Fine’s [1986 study](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1300/J111V07N01%5F09) of how librarians resist change: > “Resistance will always exist, … acceptance of a current innovation is no assurance that the next level of change won’t be resisted, perhaps even more vigorously, as people make commitments to what they have achieved and mastered \[…\]. Perhaps the purpose of resistance is to give us pause, force us to slow down, and impel us to pay attention to our basic human needs and values.” April 15, 2024: edited for length. ### On doing more with less URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/on-doing-more-with-less/ Last updated: 2025-10-07T06:08:21.000Z 2023 is the year of economic headwinds, of the “soft macro,” and the return of an old, wet noodle of a rallying cry: *“We have to do more with less!”* This cliché keeps coming around. I first heard it at my first job after college, where it was issued as a resource for bravery, an utterance that utterly backfired. In the decades since, I keep hearing it. Each time, something about the phrase makes me want to fill in the blanks—“Do more *(of what?)* with less *(of what?)*.” As far as I can tell, the general usage seems to be: - Doing **more** of this→ *Making money for the company* - With **less** of this → *People* OK, that sucks! But first, wanna know where the slogan came from? ## Bucky Fuller’s “ephemeralization” Back in the 1930s, Fuller coined **ephemeralization**—which he defined as the capability of technological advancement to do “more and more with less and less until eventually you can do everything with nothing.” Here it is, on page 279 of Fuller’s [Nine Chains to the Moon](https://archive.org/details/ninechainstomoon00full) (1938): ![A paragraph excerpted from "Nine Chains to the Moon": "A corollary to the ephemeralizing-toward-pure-energy progression that is taking place throughout all science, and, ensuingly, throughout industry—which simply translates science into bread and butter for people—is that the more abstract the means of accomplishment the more specific the results: Efficiency == doing more with less. Therefore EFFICIENCY EPHEMERALIZES."](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/2023/06/Screenshot-2023-04-13-at-10.52.33-PM.png) If you are not fluent in Fullerese, please skip hundreds of pages of turgid reading and know that in his framework “doing more with less” entailed: - Doing **more** of these things → *Curing disease; eliminating infant mortality; providing housing and food for every family on Earth; and increasing the standard of living—and the freedom available for science, for art, for play, for leisure—with no upper limit* - With **less** of these things → *Time, space, and energy* What I wonder is… how’d we get from all that—from the translation of “science into bread and butter for people”—to the current jargon, where it means nothing other than “do the work of five people but with 3, even though our company already sheds cash like a housecat made out of money.” In the 2023 “soft macro” condition of “doing more with less,” the mechanism by which people are meant to actually accomplish this lessening is deliberately undefined. It’s the same old management-by-objective horseshit: “more with less,” but with no material or managerial support, an effort totally unlinked from the value chain. ## From five to three—but what of the two? In lean management, there’s an answer for what to do when people come up with improvements—even improvements so effective that they take the work of 5 people and turn it into the work of three. There *has* to be an answer, because as soon as an organization starts a serious practice of continuous improvement, it *will* find improvements like that. Always. Opportunities are just lying around, and the methods will uncover them. Anyways, the lean management answer is this: OK, three people will now do that work previously done by 5, in a way that is safer, faster, more reliable. This frees up the remaining two to go do something else *within the organization*. Maybe it’s helping another group get ahead, or helping peers learn continuous improvement. Maybe it’s starting a new project. Nobody loses their job. Nobody is catapulted to the next stage of their career via layoff. And all this gets accomplished in a way that everybody can see the changes in quality, cost, and safety. It’s **critical** that management believe in this answer, communicate it effectively, and stick to it over time. Why? Because that’s what moves an organization: - *from* the (bad) condition where people worry about working themselves out of a job, or observe that they will be punished and/or ignored for noticing problems at the workplace… - *to* the (good) condition where people become deeply engaged in noticing problems and designing improvements to their own work. It may not be Bucky’s Utopian, humanist vision of translating “science into bread and butter for people,” but it does mean helping people get the work done on time, with less hassle, and respecting the wisdom and capabilities of everybody involved. And… at least for now, you know, I’ll take it. June 13, 2024: Edited for length. ### Premortem: before starting a new project, learn why it will end in failure URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/premortem-learn-how-a-project-failed-before-it-starts/ Last updated: 2026-03-23T16:45:56.000Z ![audio-thumbnail](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/media/2026/03/35_thumb.png) Podcast episode 0035: Premortem 0:00 /547.264 1× *More podcast episodes* [*online*](https://www.improvesomething.today/tag/podcast/) *or in* [](https://www.improvesomething.today/podcast/)[*your favorite app*](https://pod.link/1413904169)*.* Identify project risks using this fun, thought-provoking 15-minute method to capture wisdom from the people who know best—those who will do the work and those who will be affected by it. It’s the venerable project premortem. I recommend this method if you’re leading a project in your own organization. And if you’re a consultant, like me, it can be a significant information-seeking behavior at the beginning of a project. The underlying capability is **prospective hindsight**. Here’s a definition from Gary Klein, in his [HBR piece from 2007](https://hbr.org/2007/09/performing-a-project-premortem) on premortems: > Prospective hindsight—imagining that an event has already occurred—increases the ability to correctly identify reasons for future outcomes by 30%. We have used prospective hindsight to devise a method called a premortem, which helps project teams identify risks at the outset. The premortem is not a new idea—this 2007 article popularized the technique. However, I keep using it because each time I do, I learn things that are valuable to know at the beginning of a new project—and particularly with a new client. The power of the premortem is this: 1. People will just tell you things if you ask them nicely. 2. And if you ask using prospective hindsight, they will come up with surprising answers, sometimes even mentioning their organization’s ‘undiscussables.’ ## A few things I’ve learned from premortems - That the current effort was the second attempt, and therefore doomed to failure for the same reasons the first effort failed. - That the current effort was the *third* attempt, etc. - The existence of a specific policy making the intended change impossible, and that policy-makers were not involved in designing or selecting the project. - That the ongoing budget to support this work had already been allocated to a particular technology, program, or team. - That people don’t trust or believe their leadership, or the project’s sponsors, or one another. - Various discoveries about organizational problems in communication and clumsiness in making changes. These were all things worth learning quickly—as in, cheap and early—so that possibilities remained for adjustment or better awareness of the environment. ## Here’s how it’s done: running your premortem 1. Before the meeting, write a simple scenario. Something like: *“It is December and our project has failed spectacularly. As the first snow falls, we gather together and ask—what happened? Why did this fail?”* Be precise about the future date: maybe 2 months after the presumed project completion; link the date to some major event or local seasonality. 2. Schedule 15 minutes in a project kick-off meeting to run the premortem. 3. At the start of the premortem, state the scenario and ask the question. 4. Allow 1-3 minutes for individual reflection. 5. Offer an anonymous feedback form and invite participants to provide their responses. Clearly state how you will use these, for example, that individual responses remain anonymous, but you will share themes and takeaways with the group and with project sponsors. 6. After the individual reflection time is complete, open up for a brief discussion across whatever participation modes are available. Acknowledge and thank people for their responses. Do not attempt to problem-solve or diagnose right now, but make it clear you’ll be doing so later. If project sponsors, execs, etc. attend, you will have to coach them on this behavior in advance, the message being: we’re listening now, we’ll problem-solve afterwards. 7. Close with sincere thanks and by telling people where and when you’ll share takeaways from the premortem—ideally with planned remediations for each. ## An encouragement The project premortem concept may seem a little weird. It is. But it’s a great way to show up and listen. The simple act of listening to people and adjusting based on what you hear is wonderful. And, almost as a side effect, the things people mention might be the things that doom the project to failure—or the things that, adjusted and kept in mind, might make it a great success. October 7, 2025: Edited for length & added new photo. ### Merely being the person you are URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/merely-being-the-person-you-are/ Last updated: 2025-12-23T21:31:39.000Z A passage from Jerry Weinberg’s [The Secrets of Consulting](http://geraldmweinberg.com/Site/Consulting%5FSecrets.html): > Your ideal form of influence is first to help people see their world more clearly, and then to let them decide what to do next. Your methods of working are always open for display and discussion with your clients. Your primary tool is merely being the person you are, so your most powerful method of helping other people is to help yourself. I first read Jerry Weinberg around 15 years ago, at a time when I was comfortable working as an independent consultant, but remained deeply uncomfortable with existing in the world as a human being. I wasn’t yet ready to take seriously the projects of caring for myself, or for others, or understanding what it was like to be a person. That passage really stuck with me. Let’s read it together. ## *“Your ideal form of influence is first to help people see their world more clearly, and then to let them decide what to do next.”* The best job description for my [kind of work](https://www.improvesomething.today/consulting/) that I’ve ever seen. It opens questions like: - Which people? Who is excluded yet should be included? - What constitutes their world? - How do they make that world intelligible to themselves or to others? - How might they (as a group) produce explanations, find consensus, or make a decision and stick to it? ## *“Your methods of working are always open for display and discussion with your clients.”* If we’ve worked together, you know what this is like. The garage door is up, where somebody is always making a mess and then cleaning it up so it shines. As a consultant, I will come and I will go. After I’m gone, I hope some of the methods of working I demonstrated might be retained. This is why I enjoy cycling through approaches, methods, and techniques. At the start of an activity, neither you nor I know what will work best, but we can hope to uncover it together. ## *“Your primary tool is merely being the person you are, so your most powerful method of helping other people is to help yourself.”* It’s only in the last few years that I’ve come to recognize myself as an object truly capable of being helped, much less being worth the effort. Weinberg’s words gave me an important, early reason, which I now see as evidence of how deeply damaged I was (and still am) as a subject of capitalism. But that’s fine: [you’ve got to go at the rate you can go](https://www.improvesomething.today/on-speeding-things-up/). These days, I work to keep things quiet in my head, so I can listen carefully to others. I sit still on my cushion so I can get up and move skillfully. I practice kindness so I can act kindly. Would it be better if I had come to these on my own, or earlier? Certainly. But I am grateful they came when they did. No two go by one way; this one was mine. Thanks, Jerry. ### Open space technology, principle 2: “Whatever happens is the only thing that could have” URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/open-space-technology-principle-2-whatever-happens-is-the-only-thing-that-could-have/ Last updated: 2026-05-22T21:38:38.000Z A few years ago, a client asked me to run a half-day lean (A3) workshop with her team. I knew my client and a few of her staff, but hadn’t spent time with the whole group before. And it turned out—neither had they. As we did introductions and settled in, I noticed a few things: - Several people were new to the team or the larger organization. - Everyone was learning about their colleagues. - There were urgent, unresolved, undiscussed topics. After conferring with my client in front of her team, we quickly scrapped the morning’s plan. Instead, I guided the crew into lean coffee—a simple method for letting participants organize and run their own structured discussion. And it was **great**. They got to talk about what they needed to. My appearance in their conference room had the important effect of bringing them together and letting their boss participate as part of the circle rather than running the show. They decided they needed to meet more often—which they continued to do, without my involvement. Success! Two things made this possible. 1. My client was willing to use the opportunity as soon as we saw it. 2. I trusted this group to find its own way, using this principle of open space technology: “Whatever happens is the only thing that could have.” That’s because—[see one, do one, teach one](https://www.improvesomething.today/three-step-method-for-learning-anything/)—I was lucky enough to have previously seen this put into action by another facilitator. ## What the leader must do In 2006 I participated in my first open space technology gathering—a three-day event hosted by Michael Herman. Watching the way Herman embodied the principles of open space helped me see how powerful it was at letting a group become itself. Here’s what Harrison Owen’s [Brief User’s Guide](https://openspaceworld.org/wp2/hho/papers/brief-users-guide-open-space-technology/) has to say: > It is the special function of the leader to raise the expectations of the group, and heighten their sensitivity to the opportunities at hand, whatever they may be. … **The leader must truly trust the group to find its own way.** … Any person who is not fully prepared to let go of their own detailed agenda should not lead. In open space, the role Owen calls “leader” is really half host, half facilitator. Leadership arises from the entire group. And this from John Fowles’ novel “The French Lieutenant’s Woman”: > I said earlier that we are all poets, though not many of us write poetry; and so are we all novelists, that is, we have a habit of writing fictional futures for ourselves, although perhaps today we incline more to put ourselves into a film. We screen in our minds hypotheses about how we might behave, about what might happen to us; and these novelistic or cinematic hypotheses often have very much more effect on how we actually do behave, when the real future becomes the present, than we generally allow. All the time I spend planning for facilitated meetings—prepping agendas, arranging materials, booking rooms, gathering snacks and beverages—is critical to the “cinematic hypotheses” of how I imagine the day could go and the outcomes that might arise from it. It’s important to do this work. And it’s important to be prepared to discard any such planning whenever a group arises and is ready to find its own way. - In a better world, that would happen every single time. - In our given world, we must encourage this arising wherever it is found. Whatever happens is the only thing that could have… as long as you get out of happening’s way. --- Open space technology series: - [Whoever comes is the right people](https://www.improvesomething.today/open-space-technology-principle-1-whoever-comes-is-the-right-people/). - Whatever happens is the only thing that could have. → now reading - [Whenever it starts is the right time](https://www.improvesomething.today/open-space-technology-principle-3-whenever-it-starts-is-the-right-time/). - [When it is over, it is over](https://www.improvesomething.today/open-space-technology-principle-4/). August 30, 2024: Edited for length. --- ### The Strategy / Culture Bicycle: one picture that replaces an infinite amount of bullshit URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/the-strategy-culture-bicycle/ Last updated: 2026-01-09T17:20:05.000Z Putting together a coherent, useful strategy for a group is hard. - When strategy gets too complicated, intelligibility goes out the window. Nobody will adhere to a strategy they can’t remember. But… - When strategy is too simple, it’s merely a container for people to toss their assumptions and pet projects into. - And often a group is required to keep a strategy document in order to unlock funding, etc., even though nobody is excited to create it or use it. Now—as a consultant—I’ve been called upon to create strategic plans and the like that I knew were going to collect dust. The complete and immediate uselessness of the strategy was a foregone conclusion. I’m not proud to say it, but I’ve flown across the country, eaten lousy hotel breakfasts with those weird runny eggs, and hosted elaborate multi-day sessions all in order to generate complicated, detailed strategic plans that nobody wanted, nobody used, and ultimately helped no-one. What a waste! A couple years ago, in an effort to *never* do that again, I hit the books. Here’s what I found—it’s my go-to method to help a group of people generate and explain their strategy. The Strategy/Culture Bicycle: ![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/2023/01/Screenshot-2023-01-10-at-5.50.13-PM.png) A wheel for Strategy. A wheel for Culture. And three questions on each wheel which can produce real, meaningful, shared understanding of a group’s intent. When guided by an attentive facilitator, you can get it done in an hour or two and create something amazing. (A detailed facilitator’s guide is available. It is excellent.) *Not* part of the Strategy/Culture Bicycle: setting goals, establishing performance measurement, planning. But each of these are way easier to do once there’s consensus on thoughtful answers to these questions. In my experience, Strategy/Culture Bicycle works for three reasons: 1. It cuts directly to the big questions without getting mired in a bunch of the inventory-making throat-clearing, fussing about contingency, or working backwards from preferred / “management-approved” actions that overtake many strategy efforts. 2. The inquiry-based affinity mapping that generates a Bicycle prevents any one person from defining strategy in a way that others can’t, or won’t, support. Autocracy is incoherent. 3. The Bicycle reminds us that a group needs to have both strategy and culture operating in parallel. Too many strategy documents exist in a timeless void, severed from the people and ways of being which might realize that strategy. The Strategy/Culture Bicycle was created by Eugene Eric Kim and Amy Wu. I’m grateful for it. It’s in the public domain. Go for it: start with the [web-based intro](https://fasterthan20.com/toolkit/strategy-culture-bicycle/), then move onto the [detailed instructions](https://fasterthan20.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Bicycle%5FInstructions%5Fv2.0.pdf). And here’s a secret: if you want to figure out who to become and where to go, you can prepare a Bicycle for yourself, by yourself. No lousy hotel breakfast required. ### On speeding things up URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/on-speeding-things-up/ Last updated: 2026-03-23T16:47:19.000Z ![audio-thumbnail](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/media/2026/03/34_thumb.png) Podcast episode 0034: On speeding things up 0:00 /497.024 1× *More podcast episodes* [*online*](https://www.improvesomething.today/tag/podcast/) *or in* [](https://www.improvesomething.today/podcast/)[*your favorite app*](https://pod.link/1413904169)*.* People want to go faster. I’ve made my career helping people speed up things they care about: foster care placement, order-to-cash cycles, school transportation, weather radar rendering, customer support escalations, replacement part ordering, academic award selection, environmental site reviews, and on and on. During these adventures, I learned two points about speed—one from the hourglass, the other from the snake. ## 1\. The hourglass isn’t listening Imagine an hourglass. Two glass bulbs, a skinny bottleneck connecting the two, an enclosed volume filled with sand. - The **rate** at which sand falls is controlled by the width of the bottleneck. This bottleneck is what makes it an hourglass, not a jar. - The hourglass is filled with an **amount** of sand, and an amount of air. - The **duration** it takes for the sand to fall from one side to the other is a function of these two: the **rate** at which sand passes through the bottleneck, and the **amount** of sand. Hourglasses are compelling because all parts of the system are in clear view. To see an hourglass is to use it. Complicated systems tend not to be self-documenting like this. It’s work to make the underlying rates, amounts, and durations they produce visible enough that they can then be adjusted with skill and care. ### Bottlenecks & key constraints The simplest way to adjust an hourglass is to add or remove sand. Sand is easier to change than glass. You don’t make an hourglass run at a faster rate by yelling at the bottleneck, or putting it onto a performance improvement plan, or taking it to a baseball game. Tell the sand to [do more with less](https://www.improvesomething.today/on-doing-more-with-less/) and see where that gets you. To adjust a complex system, first, figure out what the bottlenecks are. In this line of work, you might call them constraints. Go look, measure, count. Once you’ve found those constraints, get comfortable with them. There’s always a key constraint. Remove the key constraint and the second-worst constraint rises, smiling, to take its place. Continuous improvement is the practice of removing constraints, one at a time, without hurting anybody. Contrast this with typical improvement projects that merely push problems around until they are held by the unluckiest manager. To adjust the system, you must discover the system under adjustment. We learn from the hourglass that it’s possible: rate, amount, duration. ## 2\. The snake & its skin ![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/2023/01/IMG_0502.jpeg) A page from ‘Be Here Now’ by Ram Dass (1971). This page from Ram Dass’ [Be Here Now](https://bookshop.org/a/56572/9780517543054) helps me find patience. And patience makes me effective. - For example, on the meditation cushion, I appreciate and laugh off moments where I notice a desire to produce more stillness—and faster. - For example, when working with clients, I remember that things only happen at a certain rate, especially inside large, dysfunctional organizations, where people suffer under autocratic leadership, and where safety is neither established or maintained. > You can’t rip the skin off the snake. > The snake must moult the skin. > That’s the rate it happens. Please don’t take this as discouragement against change. It is a reminder that each moment prefigures the next. Let us allow change to happen, to remain steadfast in our conviction that it will, and that we create the conditions for it, and that we’re not to rip the skin off the snake. August 6, 2024: Edited for length. ### How to make any meeting better with 3 simple fenceposts URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/purpose-rational-aim-experiential-aim/ Last updated: 2026-01-09T17:21:46.000Z Before your next meeting, write down these three things: 1. **Purpose** ← the topic or problem that brings a group together. 2. **Rational aim** ← the action, decision, or outcome the group must arrive at. 3. **Experiential aim** ← how the group will feel changed by the experience. Express this as a feeling: something like *resolved* or *open* or *refreshed*. Many meetings begin with only one of these known. The best have all three. Here’s how to use them: - At the beginning of a meeting, share the meeting’s purpose and the rational aim. For example: *“We are here today to X. We’ll get there by creating Y and Z together.”* - Keep the experiential aim to yourself, but keep it in mind. - At the end, close with a question that reinforces the experiential aim. ## Consensus Workshop The Institute of Cultural Affairs’ Consensus Workshop is a more elaborate facilitation method. Consensus workshop uses the rational aim and experiential aim to build a fence around group work, and then offers structured planning tools to make sure those aims are met. ## For today: keep it simple Even for short, informal meetings, take a few moments to get clear on the meeting’s purpose and identify both a rational aim and an experiential aim. - Knowing the purpose will help the group begin. - Knowing the rational aim will help everyone walk the same path. - And knowing the experiential aim will help *you* produce the experience of change or transition that is needed. May 15, 2024: edited for length. ### 5 ways to approach goal-setting. Only one is worth a damn URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/5-approaches-to-goal-setting/ Last updated: 2026-03-23T16:42:20.000Z ![audio-thumbnail](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/media/2026/03/38_thumb.png) Podcast episode 0038: 5 ways to approach goal-setting 0:00 /632.064 1× *More podcast episodes* [*online*](https://www.improvesomething.today/tag/podcast/) *or in* [](https://www.improvesomething.today/podcast/)[*your favorite app*](https://pod.link/1413904169)*.* A few games people play when it’s time to set goals: ## Game #1 **Set easy goals that are super attainable** within the limits of current behavior. In this game, every goal is always met and nothing ever changes. ## Game #2 **Set goals that are more ambitious**, but are less likely to be met. Real progress can be “hidden” behind partial progress towards unmet goals. But that is OK so long as everyone is playing the same game. ## Game #3 **Set goals at the theoretical limit**. Error should be 0%. No one should be harmed. Everyone must be free. ## Game #4 **People loiter about, trying to figure out what kind of goal one is meant to set from various context clues, possibly inscrutable or obscured.** Then, they play the appropriate game from the list above. Whatever you do, don’t guess wrong! Do what everybody else does, but a little more, but not too much! ## Discussion Of these, game #4 is the one I see played most frequently. But as far as I’m concerned, game #3—setting goals at the theoretical limit—is the only one worth playing. Why? Because I *never* want errors to be OK. *No one* should be harmed. I’m in this for the liberation of all beings. Cue the voice from the back of the room. Who are we kidding, it comes from the *front* of the room. This voice is heard to proclaim: “That’s not realistic!” So yes, as a pragmatic concern, a lot of times people do want to see tidy little goals attained relentlessly, quarter after quarter. When I find myself in that scenario, I’ll play a new game: ## Game #5 **Near and far**—Set a **goal** at the theoretical limit, describing the world we should have. Then, set a **target** that would inch the system’s performance toward the theoretical limit. This target is what we’ll commit to going after right now. Three benefits of this game: - First, it creates space for small, incremental achievement. It is the zone of daily kaizen, of ongoing practice, and of continuous improvement. - Second, it allows for huge, transformational shifts—so long as people demonstrate improvements that move things closer to the goal, and there is a supportive management framework. - And third, it brings trade-offs into view. ## Trade-offs revealed Suppose we want a particular error rate to be 0%, and it’s at 50% right now. Half of the time, we do a thing and something screws up. It’s likely that we can find small, reversible changes that brings that error rate down from 50%. Just ask the people who do it every day, they can tell you what to fix. Listen to them, do what they suggest. This is where a *lot* of projects are. Now suppose that things have become better, but still not good enough. The error rate is now 5%. One out of twenty times, something screws up. We are in the zone where not everything we try will actually prevent errors. Or we might identify things that bring the error rate down further, but are not “worth it”—and there, is where the discussion happens: - What is acceptable harm, according to the people who sign the checks? At some point further improvements will be revealed to not be “worth it.” - What amount of pain, damage, loss, is an organization willing to actively produce in its regular workings? Play this game, set goals at the theoretical limit, and eventually you’ll find out what the organization and its toleration really is. August 1, 2024: Edited for length. ### Ditching ‘assume good faith’ as a way to talk about respect URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/ditching-assume-good-faith/ Last updated: 2026-01-09T17:19:09.000Z Looking back at some courses I taught in 2015, I noticed that I had been teaching the lean principle of respect for people using these 4 pillars: 1. Develop skills; give authority. 2. Assume good faith. 3. Create space to share ideas, problems, wisdom. 4. Show how today’s work fulfills the organization’s purpose. It’s #2, ‘Assume good faith,’ that I’m no longer comfortable with. ## Two things this misses - The idea that people are **conditioned** to behave in certain ways, and that there are **causes** underlying behavior. This is true for behaviors we need more of (e.g. thoughtful collaboration) as well as those we must extinguish (e.g. discrimination, cruelty). - The reflection that causes and conditions of individual behavior run impossibly deep. All of the hurt in the entire world is contained therein. We move through the same process of dependent origination. Most of that motion occurred across lifetimes, before everybody came to work or into being. What we can still do—today—is work our asses off to produce better conditions, with kindness. ## My regret I regret recommending that people ‘assume good faith’ as a way of enacting respect for people. Why? Because it assigns extra work to the person dealing with whatever trash someone else has handed them. It opens a door through which a bunch of sexist and otherwise awful shit enters. It tolerates behavior and hides problems that are intolerable. A huge part of the project of lean is to fix problems at the source. The exhortation to ‘assume good faith’ sets us up to do precisely the opposite. I am grateful for [I could not care less about your positive intent](https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6993549704739311616/), a short, illuminating article from Lauren Howard that clarified the situation. And I’ll keep working at a better articulation of a principle I believe in, but have only clumsily expressed. ### Optimization & other failures URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/optimization-and-other-failures/ Last updated: 2026-01-09T17:18:58.000Z I joined a call where people spoke about “optimizing” this and that, and it gave me some time to reflect. Optimization is ultimate jargon. It means less than nothing. The idea of optimization—especially that of prescriptive optimization, where optimization is committed to or smuggled in instead of a strategy—is an absolute liability *unless* you can answer two questions: - First, Dr. Deming’s pure but irritating question, **“By what method?”** - Second, a generic concern for human flourishing, expressed as, **“To what end?”** If you tell me you have 50 top-priority focus areas to optimize, and don’t say *how* you’ll do it (no method) and *why* you’ll do it (no purpose), we’re all just wasting time and effort. ## “By what method?” is the easy question Methods exist, many of them super well-tested. All of the bumps and squiggles ironed out. The best methods will replace or upgrade themselves as you apply them over time. ## “To what end?” is the hard question First, you have to actually have an answer. Then, everyone you share the answer with must agree—or at least reach a working, tentative consensus—on the content of that answer in order to fully engage or commit to the project of “optimization.” ### Lee’s Law: a URL for every idea URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/lees-law-every-idea-should-have-a-url/ Last updated: 2026-01-09T17:18:48.000Z I’m a digital pack rat. So is my friend Lee. We studied human-computer interaction in grad school back in the day; the entire program was a warm, nutrient-rich incubator for nourishing little digital pack rats. Well, we were talking and uncovered a new rule. I give you **Lee’s Law**: > “Every idea should have a URL, bonus points if one does not have to make the URL oneself.” Here are three sites that satisfy Lee’s Law. Three different bodies of work from three distinct perspectives. What makes them awesome is this: they provide *just enough* information to make each idea useful. Find the page you need and use it yourself. Or share it with somebody. Try presenting directly from the page. Bookmark these and come back to them at least once, and—congratulations—you're a digital pack rat too. One of us! - [Liberating Structures](https://www.liberatingstructures.com): Facilitation approach and methods. Indispensable. If I could only keep 5 web sites this would be one of them. - [18F Methods](https://guides.18f.org/methods/): Methods gallery for human-centered product or experience design. I've run entire projects straight out of this playbook. - [Laws of UX](https://lawsofux.com): For those times when you remember what the thing *is*, but not what it's called. June 22, 2025: Updated link to 18F Methods since the US Republican Party’s idiot kleptocracy shut down 18F; link now directs to the alternative 18F.org site. ### Want water? Get a bucket. Want improvement? Get PDSA URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/the-pdsa-bucket/ Last updated: 2026-01-09T17:18:37.000Z If you want water, you need a bucket. If you want improvement, you need PDSA. That’s Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA). Sometimes you’ll hear it called Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA). Same thing; the distinction is a story for another time. Conceptually, PDSA seems simple. In practice, it’s super difficult, especially as groups increase in size and work gets complicated. ## PDSA is easy This is the whole thing: - Zero: Begin with sensemaking and understanding the problem. - One: **Plan** a small, reversible change to test things out. - Two: **Do** what’s in the plan. - Three: **Study**—how did it go? What did we learn anything? - Four: **Act** on what we learned—standardizing on good ideas, spreading what works based on the evidence and narratives we produced above. - Infinity: Begin again. ## PDSA is hard We act without planning. We plan but then don’t do any god damn thing. We plan but do something different from the plan. We plan and will not deviate from plan even when the world changes. We overlearn. We underlearn. We do just fine, but flub the reflection and decision-making. We find awesome ideas but can’t find energy for transformation. Systems revert to mean, people fall back on old ways of doing things. We skip a step. Someone laments, “we already tried that and it didn’t work!” or “we’re already running behind!” We get distracted. We are managed by crisis and punished for experimentation. PDSA is hard because you have to do 4 steps, in order, at scale, with attention, in community. ## Have bucket, carry water Take good care of that bucket. Run PDSA and you can improve. Take good care of that PDSA system. I am reminded of Chiyono’s lament on a cold night 900 years ago: > With this and that I tried to keep the bucket together, > and then the bottom fell out. > Where water does not collect, > the moon does not dwell. October 7, 2024: Edited for length. ### Make your next presentation a spiral, not a line URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/make-your-next-presentation-a-spiral-not-a-line/ Last updated: 2026-01-09T17:18:06.000Z Find your main point: one thing you want people to remember. Begin the presentation by making your main point as quickly and plainly as you can. Then, state the main point again. Elaborate on it this time, with a little more context. Give the two most relevant examples you can. Next, revisit the main point. Explain how it is applicable or meaningful to your audience, based on the elaboration you just did and your understanding of their situation. This is where you can get ultra specific and pile on the details. Nerd out. This works because you’ve built little gathering places into your presentation. When people get distracted or you do a shitty job explaining something, some of your audience’s attention will wander. That’s OK. Each reiteration of your main point is an opportunity for people to get back on board. It is a starting point everyone will be familiar with—since it’s your main point. Finally, revisit the main point. Remind everyone what the main point is, and what it means for them. Conclude with a quote or a story that emphasizes the main point. --- Having a hard time organizing a talk? Plan it backwards. 1. Think of how it will end: the capacities, agreement, and energy your audience will have. That’s your ending. 2. Strip away some detail, and slot that before the ending. 3. Strip all but the main idea, and that’s your opening. ### “What did you notice?” → End your meetings with this short, powerful question URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/end-your-meetings-with-this-short-powerful-question/ Last updated: 2025-06-10T16:59:22.000Z ## “What did you notice?” Asking this question is an incredible way to close out a meeting or gathering. ## Here’s how it’s done 1. Pose the question: *“What did you notice?”* 2. Invite everyone to share an answer, or pass. 3. Indicate that you'll answer first and point out who’s next. 4. Give your answer. (I tend to say something like, *“I noticed how everyone contributed in their own way and appreciated learning from each of you.”*) 5. Go around the room. Listen. Offer the kindest attention and warmest eye contact you can muster. If someone needs help, ask, *“What did you notice?”* or the more advanced form, *“What’s one thing you noticed?”* 6. When everyone has had a chance to speak, you’re done. 7. Close with your thanks. ## So, what do people say? Sometimes people share simple things: appreciations and gratitude. For one another. For time together. For kindness or collaboration that has occurred. People might say they noticed conflict, especially if they can point to a moment where it was identified or resolved. Then a transition happens. This is the magic trick. It happens in a group of 5 or a group of 50\. I don’t know why, but it does. I’ve done this a hundred times in dozens of different groups and each time I worry it won’t happen. It always does. The transition is: About halfway through, responses shift away from sensory observations and towards the retrospective. Reflection, decision, statements of purpose. The question hasn’t changed—*“What did you notice?”*—but the room has. Maybe some perspective-taking happens. Or someone reinforces shared purpose, especially where there has been disagreement. By the end, the answers to *“What did you notice?”* tend toward summary and action. What's next. What's the opportunity. Noticing consensus or its lack. The group has started with “what” and moved on to “so what” and then “now what.” All with a single question and the lightest structure. ## If you want a little more There are facilitation methods for doing this with a little more scaffolding. For example, the Institute of Cultural Affairs’ [Focused Conversation method](https://www.top-network.org/use-focused-conversation) is a facilitated discussion that leads a group through stages from Objective to Reflective to Interpretive to Decisional (ORID). Focused Conversations are lovely too, and I use them often. A simpler version is the [“What/So What/Now What” Liberating Structure](https://www.liberatingstructures.com/9-what-so-what-now-what-w/). Simpler still is the *“what did you notice?”* question. Try it sometime. It’s so simple, it’s magic. May 15, 2024: edited for length. ### 2 ways to get better at guessing URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/2-ways-to-get-better-at-guessing/ Last updated: 2026-01-09T17:18:26.000Z ## First way: try out guesses with small, reversible tests Try out changes on a small scale—involving a few people for a short period of time—and in a way that’s easy to bail on. Things tried out this way tend to be crappy or prototype-y. Good: - Use a piece of paper instead of a fancy app. - Make a spreadsheet instead of a report. - Draw a table and figures on the wall instead of a spreadsheet. - Do it manually today. Automate later. **Small:** you need only enough work to figure out if your guess was any good. Don’t dump resources or spend time rushing towards dead ends. **Reversible:** work this way to take the sting out of failure. Idea didn’t work? Stop and try the next one. **Test:** once you can point to an initial success, gather resources and proceed with something more elaborate. ## Second way: a logbook of guesses Once you start testing your guesses, you’ll find that you make a lot of guesses, and run a lot of little tests. So keep a log. Write down: - Your guess, - What you thought might happen, and - What actually happened. - Was your test bigger or smaller than it needed to be? Practice this and your guesses will improve over time. Don’t take my word for it—try it in a small, reversible way, and see. July 16, 2024: edited for length. ### Some things (like pancakes) you should finish once you start URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/some-things-like-pancakes-you-should-finish/ Last updated: 2026-01-09T17:17:39.000Z Do this with me: 1. Griddle up a pancake on one side. 2. **Do not** flip it. Instead, remove from heat and set on a plate. 3. Immediately start the first half of another pancake. 4. Continue until you have a stack of five half-cooked pancakes. They should be crispy and fluffy on one side, oozing and dripping raw batter on the other. Oops. We didn't make a meal—we made a disaster. ## **The 10x pancake-maker** I’ve met busy, expert-level cooks who spend a great deal of time making *only* the first sides of pancakes. Everyone is hungry, the food goes to waste, but you gotta see how *fast* they move. Their bias towards action. Velocity. Look at them: a “flow state.” There is always something cooking, so they must be great at this. And the incredible variety of pancakes their menu offers. What remarkable flavors their breakfasts must have, if they ever manage to finish a single god damned flapjack. ## **The best pancake** 1. **The best pancake** is cooked perfectly, ready for someone to enjoy. 2. **A strongly OK pancake** might be a bowl of batter next to a hot griddle. 3. **The very worst is** a pancake-in-progress, one that's started cooking, and then a doorbell rings a few rooms away. It’s easily interruptible, delicate, a liability if the mind or body wanders. ## Started but not finished Put on your continuous improvement goggles, go look for work that has been started but not finished. You’ll find it *everywhere*. Gross. Let it be as much cause for concern as that stack of half-cooked pancakes. - **Given a pancake-in-progress**, you can guess how far along it is. Pour, one side, flip, the other, serve. You can even check the batter and guess how many more you can cook. - **But given a basket of nuanced, exploratory projects**, everyone believes & reports each activity to be 85% complete… but the reality can be obscure. Plus, everybody is too busy starting all these other projects to *quite* finish any of them. It’s enough to put you off your breakfast. August 5, 2024: Edited for length. ### Open space technology, principle 1: “Whoever comes is the right people” URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/open-space-technology-principle-1-whoever-comes-is-the-right-people/ Last updated: 2026-05-22T21:39:06.000Z > "Whoever comes is the right people." I love the slight awkwardness of this sentence as it describes what happens when people (plural) become a people (singular). A people as a process, not as a shuffling, muttering crowd of individuals. I can think of only two contexts where I’ve experienced this “peopleing”— 1. **Open space technology.** This is a lightly facilitated, carefully organized format for a gathering. Open space is convened on a challenge so puzzling that people are compelled to show up to work and listen. It is the most direct, accessible format for group self-organization I’ve ever encountered: both a chapel and a chainsaw. 2. **The Buddhist *sangha***, in its various permutations. I keep a mailing list of 75 of us who sat weekly for some years in a frigid room before COVID sent everybody home. Over time, I learned some incidental details (occupation, class, family composition, neighborhood, etc.) about maybe 1 out of 8 of those people. But in terms of the topic at hand—styles of meditation, preferred traditions, favorite teachers, etc.—I still recall where each person was and where they were headed, even though we haven’t met since early 2020\. Similarly, I sat on a week-length retreat with 50 people and felt like I came to know them so deeply, and shared something so precious, even though what we shared together was silence. These groups—this *sangha*—is vital, even though it is transient or ‘incomplete’ in a conventional sense. We’d all benefit from more spaces where two people, or two hundred, could gather and say—“I don’t know anything about you, and you don’t know anything about me, but we have what we need to get this sorted.” It is an antidote to the social atomization inhibiting our lives under capital. And until we get there, it’s a hell of a way to organize a meeting. --- Open space technology series: - Whoever comes is the right people. → now reading - [Whatever happens is the only thing that could have](https://www.improvesomething.today/open-space-technology-principle-2-whatever-happens-is-the-only-thing-that-could-have/). - [Whenever it starts is the right time](https://www.improvesomething.today/open-space-technology-principle-3-whenever-it-starts-is-the-right-time/). - [When it is over, it is over](https://www.improvesomething.today/open-space-technology-principle-4/). August 30, 2024: Edited for length. --- ### A lousy time to be a good idea URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/its-a-lousy-time-to-be-a-good-idea/ Last updated: 2026-03-31T17:30:53.000Z ![audio-thumbnail](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/media/2026/03/40_thumb.png) Podcast episode 0040: A lousy time to be a good idea 0:00 /402.432 1× *More podcast episodes* [*online*](https://www.improvesomething.today/tag/podcast/) *or in* [](https://www.improvesomething.today/podcast/)[*your favorite app*](https://pod.link/1413904169)*.* In 1992, Oxford English prof Andrew Nuttall [wrote the following](https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v14/n11/a.d.-nuttall/the-game-of-death): > The human capacity to think provisionally, to do thought experiments, to form hypotheses, to imagine what may happen before it happens, is fundamental to our nature and to our spectacular biological success ... The cleverest thing Sir Karl Popper ever said was his remark that our hypotheses ‘die in our stead’. The human race has found a way, if not to abolish, then to defer and diminish the Darwinian treadmill of death. We send our hypotheses ahead, an expendable army, and watch them fall. That’s the tidiest explanation I’ve seen of our infinite appetites for catastrophe in media and in the imagination. There’s much to gain from the activity of worrying about responses to some imagined, awful event. Mental rehearsal prepares us. We imagine. We plan. We ruminate. And as the expendable armies fall, over and over, the mind is cluttered. All this automatically, unwillingly, exhaustively. We might also stop and turn the armies back and inhabit the silence. (But that’s for another day.) ## This is hard 1. We’re born experts at doing thought experiments automatically, intuitively, and individually. 2. But we’re **terrible** at doing thought experiments deliberately, or being able to speak or write about them. 3. Even worse, we believe we’re equally great at both kinds of thinking. ## The bad news Think of the containers we’re meant to pour our great ideas into: - Suggestion boxes where ideas go not merely to die but to be forgotten “even by God.” - Big-design-up-front schemes that admit only a single hypothesis. Hope you picked the right idea at the outset of that multiyear effort. - Asinine standards for projects like ‘6x return on investment’, which serve only to preclude experimentation and prohibit critical thinking. - Initiatives where everyone is discouraged by an early failure and gives up, with the cry of: “we tried that and it didn’t work!” These containers are bad, and you can find them *everywhere*. ## The good news The good news is: there are better ways of working and deciding, together. - Instead of suggestion boxes, create listening systems. - [Do set-based design](https://www.improvesomething.today/options-set-based-design/) and allow for new trade-offs and discoveries without blowing the budget. - Validate ideas through rigorous PDSA, with [small, reversible changes](https://www.improvesomething.today/the-pdsa-bucket/). - Celebrate failure as the thing one can learn from. All those continuous improvement methods, all the great facilitation approaches, the techniques for self-organization? That’s what they’re for. They’re here, they’re tested, and they’re effective—and they are not easy. From where I sit, this is the job. Let’s get to it. October 7, 2024: Edited for length. ### How I learned to speak about changes when 19 out of 20 people would rather I shut the hell up URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/heres-how-i-learned-to-communicate-about-changes-when-19-out-of-20-people-would-rather-i-shut-the-hell-up/ Last updated: 2026-01-09T17:17:26.000Z Imagine this. A big, important change is happening: reorg, strategic shift, start or stoppage of significant work. How do folks across the organization want to learn about these changes? Here’s the breakdown from the change management boffins at Prosci: - 73% of people surveyed want to hear about the scope and importance of big changes from their executive leadership. - 67% want to hear about the impact of changes from their direct supervisor. - And only 4% want to hear ANYTHING from the change management team (hey, that’s me!). When I first saw this data, my reaction to that 4% figure was a big old “eep” as I thought back to the times I’d communicated change messages myself. Although it wasn’t something I did often, it was clearly something I should do… never. Instead, it was time to get good at creating space for the right people to send the right messages. To learn how they talk and give them their talking points. To schedule the sessions, invite the people, buy the food, and get the heck out of the way. This is where I learned the importance of visible, participatory, energetic sponsorship for change efforts. Sponsors need to show up, over and over, and speak to the change and why it’s happening now. This is one of a million (approx) things I’ve learned from Prosci, the outfit behind the figures I mentioned above. Prosci researches change management, then pours what they learn directly into a container of excellent, thoughtful change management tools + methods. I now believe that, in the same way that every project can be a lean project, every project can be a change management project. None too big, none too small. Maybe the strategy is simple, but it’s still worth thinking it through. And if you ever find a project where the sponsor won’t speak up, RUN! Life’s too short to try to talk one’s way out of that dismal 4% figure. ## **TL;DR:** - Communications about big changes should come from the right people: - Those in exec/leadership roles… - …And the managers of everybody affected by the change. - Prosci has super great methods to help. - Don’t waste time on projects without active sponsorship. ### 3-step method for learning anything URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/three-step-method-for-learning-anything/ Last updated: 2026-05-29T05:55:50.000Z ## First: See one Watch how the task is done. Have somebody who knows what they’re doing show you how. Take notes. Ask questions. Notice the materials, tools, techniques used. ## Second: Do one Get some first-hand experience. Bring your expert along. They’ll speak up with encouragement or suggestions. Take your time and do it right. Figure out what makes it complicated—there’s always some damn thing. ## Third: Teach one Show somebody else how to do the task. You know how, and you know all the little things they’ll need to know or have on hand to get the job done. They’ll learn just by seeing you work. ## You’re done! This learning model originated 130 years ago, usually attributed to William Stewart Halsted’s surgery dept. at Johns Hopkins University. ‘See one, do one, teach one’ is still used in medical training. It works. In more recent decades, because we can’t have med students slinging a knife and ‘doing one’ on patients anymore, the model has been updated a bit. What happens in medicine today is more like ‘see many, do many with supervision, teach many.’ In other words, they’ve slowed the learning method down for patient safety, but not changed the progression in any basic way. ## For knowledge work Guess what? ‘See one, do one, teach one’ is a **great** fit for knowledge and service work, because there is so much tacit knowledge embedded within… all that little, vitally important stuff like (these are real examples): > It won’t let you pull the report unless you sort data by these headings, for some reason. > Even though form A is first, it’s easier to start with form C since that asks the same questions in a better order. > The Spanish language brochures are out of date, make sure you update this part first if you hand them out. > The position of the ‘save’ and ‘cancel’ buttons are reversed on this screen. Try ‘see one, do one, teach one’ sometime. It’s so much better than sending everyone to training (boring) or throwing a grossly outdated playbook at new hires (inhumane, although you should still write a playbook and update it). Apprenticeship is the method, and one’s peers are the experts. The trainer’s role then becomes that of matchmaker—finding a person ready to teach for each person ready to learn—and of opening a little space and time for learning to arise. ## TL;DR: - See one, do one, teach one is a method to teach and learn complicated tasks. - It matches how people learn (by doing)… - …and transmits what’s important for doing the work (tacit knowledge). - You don’t need an elaborate training function to do it. January 28, 2026: updated formatting & photo. ### Dust off those awful process maps. Add these 3 things to them to get people thinking URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/dust-off-those-awful-process-maps-add-these-three-things-to-them-to-get-people-thinking/ Last updated: 2026-05-01T19:01:01.000Z Process maps are the worst. I hate getting paid to make something that immediately goes onto the shelf, never to be looked at again. And you know what every organization’s shelf is full of? PROCESS MAPS. People love to make these damn things, or hire consultants to make them, and then bask in the sensation of accomplishment. Of having “documented”—or even worse, “understood”—the current state. What a waste of everybody's attention! Next time somebody gives you a process map and shrugs, saying, “well here it is, although it’s a little out of date,” here are three things you can quickly add to it. ## One: Clearly identified wiggle room Even in the most dialed-in, locked-down business process there is some wiggle room. Find it. Circle it. Shade it in on the diagram. If 90% of the process is utterly inflexible due to agreements, requirements, contracts, deals, budgets, SLAs, suppliers, etc., there are still some things that can be changed. Find that 10% and make sure everybody else can see it too. ## Two: Controls and why they’re there Controls exist to mitigate risks. Identify the controls built in to this process, and draw them into the process map if they’re not already there. For each control, write down how often it happens, whether it’s automated or manual, what risk it’s there to guard against. Sometimes processes have too many controls built in. Sometimes, not enough. How are you going to tell unless you map them out? ## Three: Process behavior stats For each step in the process, get some baselines. It’s OK to guess. Build a wee little table with these elements: How often does this happen? How long does this step take? What’s the percentage of time work enters into this process step 100% complete and accurate (%C/A)? Now you know where the constraints or bottlenecks are. And you know where things break down. Remove constraints as best you can, build in quality where it’s needed. (Easier to not make mistakes in the first place than to have to sort them out later.) ## TL;DR: Process maps gather dust since they don't explain much on their own. Improve them by... - Identifying wiggle room or degrees of freedom, so people can see opportunities. - Listing controls, so people can argue about risks and mitigation. - Measuring process behavior, so people can see where work breaks down. ### Credit for success belongs to my clients. Blame failures on me URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/what-ive-learned-in-15-years-of-consulting-credit-for-success-belongs-to-my-clients-and-blame-for-failures-belongs-to-me/ Last updated: 2025-10-22T21:16:23.000Z Doesn’t it feel great to take credit for a job well done? Consulting is a job where that never happens. An effective consultant: - helps a client identify problems in their business, - helps a client remove or route around those problems, and - (the important part) helps a client take credit for any/all success. ## 3 ways to produce conditions for success 1. Use this perspective to inspire bravery, saying to a client: *“Let’s try this together. If it works, you get the credit. If it doesn’t work, I’ll take the blame.*” 2. Or you might keep this to yourself, and be the one unworried person in the room. A common cause of project failure is that everyone is fixated on whether or not it will succeed. 3. Often in a consulting arrangement, I have budget to try several approaches with a client—and those will fail. Great! If I’ve done my job, the client will have the next couple approaches lined up, along with the skills to give them a try without me around. They’ll succeed after the I’m gone. ## Remaining unmoved This is not new a new perspective. It’s not specific to consulting. Instead, it comes from being the kind of person who is attentive to the situation and the people in it, rather than being the kind of person who’s worried about the past (with stories of how things got broken in the first place) or the future (and terrors or failures it may entail). By being—and here’s the cliche, but this is what cliches are *for*—being in the moment. I give you [Upaya Zen Center’s *samu gatha*](https://www.upaya.org/teachings/liturgy/samu-gatha/). It is a brief chant shared before starting work practice. You’ll find me reciting it before joining your meeting, and, when I have the presence of mind, before washing the dishes: > May this work be done in a spirit of generosity, > Not driven by ego, greed, or delusion. > May kindness sustain us and prevail in conflict. > And compassion guide us and lead us to understanding. > May we rejoice in the successes of others. > And remain unmoved by praise or blame. ## TL;DR: - Always take the blame, share the credit. - This spares you from worry about outcomes or future activities… - …Which helps you pay attention to what's happening today. - *“Remain unmoved by praise or blame.”* April 16, 2024: edited for length. ### Options & set-based design URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/options-set-based-design/ Last updated: 2026-01-09T17:17:16.000Z It’s hard to know when to keep your options open and when to commit. Hang onto too many options for too long and you’ll spread yourself thin. But you might regret committing too early—what if the grass really *was* greener on the other side? This is hard to do as an individual. It’s nearly impossible within a group. That’s one reason why groups spend so much time examining and choosing between alternatives. But this eventually gets in the way of doing good, and being good. As the Liverpudlian philosopher said: > Life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans. When a group is facing a big decision about what to do next, the game is to *preserve and explore* options, without letting the upkeep of options get distracting or expensive. ## Introducing set-based design Set-based design is a method that’s worked for me and my clients. It’s a key lean method that often goes unused for weird historical reasons. Here’s how it works: 1. A group starts with a broad, unproven set of options. These might range from the status quo to the wildest alternatives. 2. Then they will experiment, quickly kicking out ideas that won’t work. 3. Feasibility is evaluated in the open using simple, shared criteria. No one should be surprised by the results, even if their own idea is eliminated. 4. Eventually, the set of options narrows to one everybody can live with. 5. Take that one option (and maybe one backup) into development. ## Benefits of set-based design I’ve used set-based design to get groups through decision-making and evaluation processes, with some surprising benefits: - The method has helped risk-averse teams explore long-shot ideas. - Similarly, it has helped rambunctious teams commit to a single, sometimes boring, idea. - Set-based design is very fair about letting all stakeholders have their say and seeing their ideas given a fair shake. - The conversations about quality, cost, and value that are important for creating evaluation criteria have outlasted the design process. The local answer to *“what good means”* for a particular design activity can point to a larger answer about *“what good is”* for a team. ## Starting points **Book—for theory and history:** read Lean Product and Process Development by Ward and Sobek. Make sure you get the second edition. It’ll give you everything you need to get started. [Lean Product and Process Development, 2nd Edition - Lean Enterprise InstituteIn Lean Product and Process Development, Ward presented a basic learning model for development. He not only described the technical tools needed to make lean product and process development actually work, but also delineated the management system, management behaviors, and mental models needed.![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/icon/favicon.svg)Lean Enterprise InstituteAuthor(s)![](https://www.improvesomething.today/content/images/thumbnail/lean-product-and-process-development-2nd-edition-cover.png)](https://www.lean.org/bookstore/ProductDetails.cfm?SelectedProductId=383) Just want the overview? The authors published a [decent intro](https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/toyotas-principles-of-setbased-concurrent-engineering/) back in 1999. **Paper—for trying it out:** This [2016 CIRP paper](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212827116305790) lays out the exact approach that I’ve successfully used to plan set-based design activities for my clients. April 16, 2024: edited for length. ### Splitting your pants & losing your head: an introvert’s guide to facilitation URL: https://www.improvesomething.today/splitting-your-pants-and-losing-your-head-an-introverts-guide-to-facilitation/ Last updated: 2025-12-05T18:50:42.000Z Have you heard the one about how I split my pants while facilitating in a room of 75 people? [Well, I did](https://anchor.fm/improve-something-today/episodes/0010-In-which-I-split-my-pants-e1uffl)! And, for me at least, splitting my pants was the way to uncover, in addition to my boxers, a critical realization about facilitation—that it is solely focused on finding and solving problems in the moment. Now if you’re the facilitator, this takes the pressure off. Nobody cares about you. It’s all about the people in the room and the problems, interests, and opportunities they share. I facilitated with that mindset for a while. Then came a day a few years ago when I travelled to put on a continuous improvement workshop, by myself, in a place I didn’t want to go to, in a situation I felt was unfair. Something had failed with my rental car reservation, so I was riding cabs around this Blade Runner style pre-apocalyptic urban sprawl. Each cab ride was three miles and 30 minutes long. I had a lot to feel grumpy about. I knew I was being grumpy, but this flickering self-awareness didn’t actually improve the situation. While on a long, expensive cab ride to the morning’s workshop, I realized that while all those feelings were relevant to me, they didn’t mean a damn thing to the people I meeting with—the people who’d set time aside from the demands of their regular work to try to design some meaningful improvements for the clients they serve. I had to figure how to honor that. When I arrived at the building, I stopped by the restroom. Over the sink, I saw my face in the mirror. And I decided to—for the next few hours, for the rest of that day’s workshop—to leave my face over there, out there, in the mirror, with all of its grievances and worries and causes for grumpiness. And it worked! I was able to waltz into the room and listen to each person, learning from them individually and as a somewhat newly formed group. They ended up breaking through an annoying performance problem in a way that made work flow better for themselves and marked a substantial improvement for their clients. It was a good day. And all because I was able to leave my head out there, where it belonged. ## On losing your head More recently, I discovered Douglas Harding’s 1961 book, [On Having No Head](https://bookshop.org/a/56572/9781914316258), where he describes the insight succinctly: > It took me no time at all to notice that this nothing, this hole where a head should have been was no ordinary vacancy, no mere nothing. On the contrary, it was very much occupied. It was a vast emptiness vastly filled, a nothing that found room for everything—room for grass, trees, shadowy distant hills, and far above them snowpeaks like a row of angular clouds riding the blue sky. I had lost a head and gained a world. While I don’t claim to spend much time in this state, I find it to be an accessible way for me to find an undecorated, participatory awareness. I know [Harding’s headless way](http://www.headless.org) has worked for many others as well, and I encourage you to read his short, engaging book if you’re interested. All this is why, a few minutes before the beginning of a day of training or facilitation, I’ll find my way to a restroom and spend a minute fixing my face in the mirror. It can hang out there until I’m ready to find it again.