esther derby associates, inc.

Do you need to clean out your organizational closets? Closets are where we store useful things. But they also tend to accumulate items that no longer provide value. I’m having new flooring put ...

https://estherderby.com/what-is-in-your-organizational-closet/

How do you create an environment for great work? Where healthy self-organization happens? You notice and shape patterns. Patterns are meaningful events that repeat over time—actions and interac...

https://estherderby.com/shaping-patterns/

When leaders make a change, they want buy-in. But they way they present a change may prevent that. I had a conversation with a manager who wanted to improve communication between teams in his org...

https://estherderby.com/the-fingerprint-principle/

In ecology, the process through which rocky ground becomes a forest is referred to as forest succession. I’m married to an ecologist, so I hear a lot about such things, and it occurred to me th...

https://estherderby.com/the-forest-succession-principle/

Many job descriptions focus on skills—usually technical skills. Interpersonal skills may get a passing mention—“strong communication skills,” “collaboration,” or “teamwork.”  Bu...

https://estherderby.com/filling-a-team-position/

In early 2020, we experienced one hell of a change when Covid-19 swept the planet.  On March 13, I flew home from a workshop on the west coast. For the next three months, I only left my house to...

https://estherderby.com/experiencing-change/

At one point in my life, I dreamed of owning a book store. I loved the idea of working in a book store, but the actual job was a poor fit. I had the skills to do the work. But it didn’t fulfill...

https://estherderby.com/for-happy-employees-explore-needs-fit/

In response to a tweet on the benefits of stable teams, someone asked whether I’m against changing teams (aka re-teaming) in response to business needs. I am not.  I’m against churn.  There...

https://estherderby.com/re-teaming/

When you try something new, when to you expect to see results? How do you evaluate an experiment decided on in a retro to know whether your hypothesis was correct? This week I read a post that de...

https://estherderby.com/4-questions-for-evaluating-experiments/

When making a change or fixing a problem, we consider the outcome we want to achieve—what will be different. People usually consider how to measure  those outcomes. Will cycle time go down? Re...

https://estherderby.com/steering-signals/

When there’s an issue in an organization, people have a tendency to focus on fixing the person(s). But there may be other—more effective—ways to fix the problem.  People are easy to see, a...

https://estherderby.com/where-to-fix-a-problem/

The idea that we must set personal goals and work relentlessly to achieve them, bothers me. There’s an implicit valuing of perseverance over flexibility, adaptability, ingenuity. Sort of like f...

https://estherderby.com/adapting-to-change/

We are all experiencing change right now. Minor blips and stunning upheavals. Routines at home and work. Expectations, assumptions, institutions—all are up for grabs. People ask, “As a leader...

https://estherderby.com/supporting-people-through-change/

Baking may not seem related to the work we do. However, my experience teaching a friend how to bake bread highlighted explicit and implicit knowledge. And that has everything thing to do with le...

https://estherderby.com/explicit-and-implicit-knowledge/

Sometimes I meet teams who’ve adjusted or even embraced a change initiated by company leadership. They tell me how much benefit they’ve experienced. But, then say, “We’ve made all these c...

https://estherderby.com/they-need-to-change-but-might-not-know-it/