Innovation usually happens when things are used in ways we didn't intend.It rarely happens on command and flourishes when people at all levels find new uses for things. Don't limit innovation to isolated R&D; encourage creativity to flourish across the entire organization as people actively sense and seize opportunities.

Bottom-Up Innovation

Structure workflow loosely coupled but still strategically aligned, like a regatta of speedboats heading generally in the same direction. Avoid imposing rigid, interdependent cross-functional processes that cause bottlenecks. Prioritize small autonomous teams that can work independently without bureaucracy.

Streamlined Workflows

Compensation should be fair and generous enough to not matter and to support motivation, keep the focus on autonomy, mastery, and purpose.

Escape the constraints of traditional annual budget cycles that lock in resources based on backwards-looking assumptions and politics. Instead, allocate financial resources based on real-time market data, emerging opportunities, and initiatives that serve the organization's purpose. Minimize long-term spending commitments in favor of discretionary resources.

Budget Dynamically

Centralized authority structures are too slow and bureaucratic to respond effectively in rapidly changing business environments. Pushing authority to the edges of an organization where access to real-time market information resides allows much faster responses. People also need the autonomy to experiment, fail, and learn rather than just follow orders. Freedom enables innovation.

Distribute Authority  

<ul><li>Proactively make information accessible to everyone instead of hoarding it as power. </li><li>Work in public with early drafts instead of waiting for perfection. </li><li>Information is meant to flow freely across an organization, not create power fiefdoms. </li><li>Transparency builds trust and collective wisdom.</li></ul>

Radical Transparency

<ul><li>Organizations need a compelling purpose that goes beyond profits to inspire people. </li><li>This higher collective purpose should directly inform decision-making at every level. </li><li>It provides meaning and guidance beyond top-line financial metrics.</li></ul>

The Need for Purpose

<ul><li>Organizations should create flexible networks of small, autonomous teams that can self-organize around projects and programs in agile ways. </li><li>Allow people the flexibility to go where their passions, energy and skills take them within the organization. </li><li>Drive the organization through customer-focused product teams rather than centralized bureaucracies.</li></ul>

Dynamic Team Structures


In fast-changing fields, even the best strategic plan quickly becomes outdated. The strategy is only as good as the ability to continuously adjust course based on real-time learning and market feedback. Scenario planning is more effective than fixed, long-term strategic plans. Strategies must evolve.

Flexible Strategies

Reduce unnecessary status updates and other time-wasting meetings that suck precious time and resources from an organization. Instead, hold occasional but meaningful governance meetings for voicing concerns and proposing changes. Also conduct periodic retrospective meetings to share perspectives and capture learnings.

Rethink Meetings

Any organization or team needs a purpose. A mission statement that defines success as making a profit lacks an inspiring purpose.

"Brave New Work" is a book written by Aaron Dignan, the founder of The Ready, an organization design and transformation firm that helps institutions like Johnson & Johnson, Charles Schwab, Kaplan, and more.  In the book, Dignan helps teams around the world completely reinvent their operating systems—the fundamental principles and practices that shape their culture—with extraordinary success. He helps them see that organizations aren't machines to be predicted and controlled. They're complex human systems full of potential waiting to be released. 

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