Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg

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

Dec 28, 2022

01:09:15

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Episode notes

Introduction

2min

The Super Linear Acceleration of Organizations

2min

The N Squared Coordination Law

3min

The Fundamental Attribution Error in Trust

3min

The Importance of Trust in Large Organizations

2min

The Fundamental Attribution Error in Large Organizations

2min

The Role of Tribalism in Collaboration

2min

How to Combat Tribalism at the Extreme

2min

The Slime Mold: A Complex Adaptive System

2min

10.

The Evolution of Complex Adaptive Systems

2min

11.

The Trade-Off Between Top-Up and Bottom-Up Organizations

2min

12.

The Bottom-Up Dynamics of Organizations

2min

13.

The Power of 20% Time in a Large Organization

2min

14.

How to Accelerate Your Own Obsoleteness

3min

15.

How to Cap Downside to Avoid Risks

2min

16.

How to Foster a Serendipity Culture in an Organization

4min

17.

How to Increase Luck Surface Area

2min

18.

The Importance of Serendipity

2min

19.

How to Create a Doorbell in the Jungle

2min

20.

The Importance of Diversifying Your Approaches

3min

21.

The Importance of Mindset in Scaling

3min

22.

The Risk Aversion Crisis in Psychology

5min

23.

The Importance of Trusting Yourself

3min

24.

The Drawbacks of a Slime Mold Model

2min

25.

The Importance of Having a Smooth Path to Your North Star

2min

26.

The Importance of Incremental Actions

2min

27.

Why Organizations Slow Down as They Get Larger

4min

28.

How to Avoid Enemies

3min

Read the full transcript here.

Why do organizations get slower as they grow? What can organizations learn from slime molds? What are the advantages of top-down organization versus bottom-up organization, and vice versa? How can organizations encourage serendipity? What use are doorbells in jungles? Why is it so hard for organizations to set a "north star" that is at once plausible, coherent, and good?

Alex Komoroske has over a decade of experience in the tech industry as a product manager focusing on platform- and ecosystem-shaped problems. While at Google, he worked on Chrome's Web Platform PM team, Augmented Reality in Google Maps, and Ambient Computing. He's fascinated by how to navigate the emergent complexity within organizations to achieve great results. You can find some of his public writing at komoroske.com.

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