Build #47 - place, governance and the ego toll

Hey there,

It’s Wednesday which means a quick canter through three interesting things I spotted this week:

1. We are shaped by place

Jindy Mann explores how place shapes who we become on our journey through life. Through the lens of his own experience, he considers how the contexts in which he has worked and travelled might have shaped the people he met along the way.

My take: I love Jindy’s writing. It's beautiful. It never fails to transport me outside my normal worldview and see something from a new perspective. As I reflect on this piece and my work, I consider how in the era of homeworking and RTO mandates we need to consider the spaces where people work more deeply. We don’t think enough about the environment people work in and how it affects them.

2. Governance in beta

Scott Sherbin has written about governance, exploring what life might look like if we challenged the unwritten, deeply embedded norms about what it’s like to be part of an organisation. He looks at the relationship between governance and trust, recognising most governance starts from a place of distrust.

My take: This really got me thinking. In growth businesses very few people get excited about governance. And if they do, it often ends up being boiled down to a few meetings or a board terms of reference document. By doing that we miss the opportunity to consider governance as a set of guardrails to enable people to exercise greater autonomy in their work.

3. The ego toll on change

An article by John Cutler about the relationship between change in businesses and individual identity. He asks why what look like easy fixes are rarely as easy as they appear on the surface. He suggests framing as growth vs rigid mindset as a way of unlocking the potential for change.

My take: This stood out to me as it made me think about the stories we tell at work - the way we thread together narratives in everyday conversations and the set piece moments. We need to be mindful of the need to save face and protect identity, combined with an awareness that our understanding of the identity of others is limited by our own self.

Phew, that felt like quite a deep dive for a Wednesday morning.

Over the past few years I’ve become increasingly convinced that it’s the hidden, under the surface stuff about us as humans really differentiates the businesses we create. These three articles play nicely into that belief.

I’ll be back in your inbox next Wednesday with a look at what a business operating system is and why you need one.

best regards,

-sw