Do organizations have to get slower as they grow? (with Alex Komoroske)

Dec 28, 2022 1h 9m 20 insights Episode Page ↗
Spencer Greenberg speaks with Alex Komorosky about why organizations get slower, strategic empowerment, and optimizing for collaboration. They discuss challenges like N-squared scaling, the fundamental attribution error, and tribalism, proposing solutions like fostering serendipity and strategic empowerment.
Actionable Insights

1. Enable Bottom-Up Innovation

When facing high uncertainty, focus on creating conditions for bottom-up innovation by planting many diverse ‘seeds’ or ‘bets.’ Once an idea shows promise, invest energy to fan the flames and accelerate its growth.

2. Place “Doorbells in Jungle”

Instead of endless debate, deploy cheap, low-effort ‘doorbells’ (e.g., hidden features, signup forms for specific interests) in various directions to sense concrete user demand. This allows for reactive investment in ideas that show organic traction, rather than guessing perfectly ahead of time.

3. Allocate Autonomy for Serendipity

Create cultural space for autonomy, like Google’s 20% time, to allow individuals to pursue diverse interests and low-priority items. This fosters high-trust social networks and enables the planting of ‘seeds’ that may yield significant indirect value and innovation over time.

4. Cap Downside Risk

To enable decentralized autonomy, cap potential downside by maintaining a high hiring bar and designing infrastructure that inherently prevents catastrophic errors, especially with shared resources like brand or sensitive data.

5. Fan Intrinsic Motivation

Avoid relying on extrinsic motivation; instead, identify individuals whose intrinsic motivation aligns with interesting directions and provide encouragement to ‘fan the flames’ of their work. Facilitate connections and collaborations among them.

6. Stochastically Increase Luck

Actively build diverse networks across different levels, functions, and product areas within the company to stochastically increase your ’luck surface area’ and the likelihood of discovering high-impact ideas. Engage in novelty search and dabble in various interests.

7. Continuously Rebalance Trade-offs

Recognize that most organizational challenges involve fundamental trade-offs, not single right answers. Continuously assess if the current balance (e.g., top-down vs. bottom-up) is contextually appropriate and make small, continuous nudges to maintain equilibrium.

8. Foster “Us” Mentality

Actively shift language from ’they’ to ‘us’ when discussing inter-team issues to foster a unified mindset. Organize offsites with ample low-stakes social interaction time (hallway conversations, dinners) to build trust and shared identity.

9. Assume Good Faith & Constraints

Default to compassion and assume others act in good faith, recognizing they operate under unseen constraints. Being curious about these constraints can reveal the right solutions.

10. Maintain Positive Reputation

Always act in a way you’d be proud of and avoid treating others poorly, as your reputation precedes you and you’re likely to work with the same people again in large organizations.

11. Encourage Generalism & Mobility

Counter the liability of over-specialization by encouraging generalists and promoting internal mobility. Allow employees to switch projects or roles after a year or so to foster cross-pollination of ideas and adaptability.

12. Align North Star & Path

Ensure your organization has a plausible, coherent North Star that everyone aligns with. Balance this long-term vision with a clear understanding of the ‘adjacent possible’—the small, iterative actions that can realistically move you towards that North Star.

13. Practice Directed Incrementalism

Adopt a strategy of ‘directed incrementalism’ by taking small, intentional actions that explore new directions and plant ‘seeds’ for future growth. This approach, rather than large leaps, is how most significant innovations occur.

14. Mitigate Speculative Downside

Counter the default win of concrete downside arguments over speculative upside by setting checks or gates for new initiatives. This allows for small, experimental bets with potentially large upside, with a plan to re-evaluate only if they become significantly successful and threaten existing business.

15. Identify Supercritical States

Be aware of ‘supercritical states’ where individuals disagree with the overall organizational direction but the system continues. These states are ripe for massive upheaval following an inciting incident, presenting an opportunity to position yourself to guide the company toward a better outcome.

16. Cultivate Trusting Networks

Build a dense network of trusted individuals across the organization, as these ‘gossip networks’ are highly effective for efficient information transfer and pattern recognition.

17. Lean Into Positive Weirdness

Embrace and lean into your unique ‘weirdness’ or niche interests, as these often lead to innovative ideas and interesting combinations when connected with others. Don’t be ashamed of what makes you different in a positive way.

18. Engage in Self-Experimentation

Regularly conduct self-experiments by systematically trying new things to improve aspects of your life (e.g., sleep). Even with imperfections, this habit can lead to significant positive changes over time.

19. Monitor Social Influence

Pay close attention to how people around you influence your behavior. If they make you act less like the person you want to be, question whether those relationships are truly beneficial for you.

20. Avoid Creating Enemies

Actively avoid creating enemies unless absolutely necessary (e.g., combating evil or standing up for someone), as it leads to negative-sum activities, drama, and wasted time and energy.