Dear Line and Middle Managers: I’m a Big Fan

I’m a huge fan.
There is no limit to the admiration I have for the life you lead and the work you do.
You are the heart of an organization.

The things you do and say—
And the things you choose not to do,
And not to say—
Have significant, direct, and immediate impact.

On the lives of your team members.
On the lives of their families.
On the communities they belong to.

Teachers of the Workplace

In my simple mind, I equate your impact to that of teachers.
I’ve been a professor in the classroom.
A program manager outside it.
A dean sitting in an office.

And I know this:
The immediate—unmediated—impact of a teacher
On the life of their students is immeasurable.

The further you are from the classroom,
The more mediated the impact.

So it is with managers:
C-level executives,
VPs of every sort—
They get the attention.

But your type of impact?
Immediate. Real.
Life-changing.

The Challenge of Being in the Middle

You are a manager.
You also have a manager.

Sandwiched between them, you create an environment
Where your people can get their work done,
Even while living in the environment
That your manager builds for you.

And we all know:
These do not necessarily align.

The devastating impact of a micromanager—
Could anything make it clearer?

You rely on your team’s talents,
On their readiness—
That mix of ability and willingness
You know so well.

And yet,
There they are,
In all the splendor of their self-importance,
Barking orders from above,
Sweeping in over your head,
Into the lives of your team members.

The Transition Paradox

What makes us successful at one level
Does not guarantee success at the next.

Being an excellent individual contributor
Does not make you an excellent manager
Of individual contributors.

It’s not automatic.
It requires different skills.
Different types of experience.

And yet, how often do we believe
That others will succeed
Simply by doing what we say?

The same is true for you.
What made you successful as a manager of individual contributors
Isn’t necessarily what will make you successful
As a manager of managers.

Different skills.
Different experiences.
More politics.
More complexity.

What I See in You

I see you.
I hear you.

In our coaching conversations,
I admire you.

Resilience.
That’s the word that comes to mind.

And wisdom—
That ability to separate wheat from chaff,
Day in and day out.

In the mix, I see those
Who truly care for their team members
And those who are focused on their own promotion.

These need not be mutually exclusive.
But sometimes, they are.

A Glass Office

Your team members see you.
They see everything about you.

Even if you’re not on site,
You’re in a glass office.

They see what you do.
They hear what you say.

And they notice—
What you choose not to do.
What you choose not to say.

They see your efforts to connect.
And the times you don’t.

They see the priorities you make:
Your promotion—or theirs.

Your success—or their success.

These need not be mutually exclusive.
But sometimes, they are.

An Ode to You

It’s a complex, layered, multi-faceted existence you lead.
And I applaud you for it.

I see you.
I admire you.
And I’m a big fan.

photo by Mel Poole

You’re Indispensable: That Sucks for All of Us

Protecting Our People’s Right to a Full Life – a policy

Core Purpose

Every person has the right to a full, rich life outside of work. It is fundamental to who we are as an organization. No one should sacrifice their personal life, family time, or wellbeing because they’ve become “indispensable” to our operations.

Why This Matters

1. Life Comes First

People deserve to be fully present for their children’s birthdays
Vacations should be times of real relaxation, not constant check-ins
Family events, holidays, and personal milestones should be celebrated without work interruption
Weekends belong to our people, not to our company
Sick days are for getting better, not answering urgent calls

2. Protecting Personal Time

No one should miss their child’s school play because “only they know how to fix it”
No one should have their vacation interrupted because “we can’t do this without them”
No one should lose sleep because they’re the “only one who can handle this client”
No one should miss family dinner because they’re the “only one who knows the system”

Our Stand

If anyone becomes “indispensable,” we have failed as an organization. We have failed to:

Respect their right to a life outside work
Build proper systems and processes
Foster true teamwork and knowledge sharing
Live up to our values

Corrective Action

When someone becomes indispensable:

Recognize this as an organizational failure – specifically, a leadership failure
Immediately redistribute knowledge and responsibilities to protect the person
Fix the systemic issues that allowed this to happen
Hold the responsible manager accountable through performance management
If a manager persistently creates conditions where people become indispensable or overworks people despite intervention, termination may be necessary because they have demonstrated inability to lead in ways that honor human dignity

Prevention

We protect our people’s right to a life by:

Building redundancy into all critical functions
Ensuring knowledge is shared across teams
Creating clear documentation
Cross-training as a standard practice
Planning for absences and transitions
Celebrating time off and work-life boundaries

Leadership Commitment

Leaders are responsible for:

Protecting everyone’s right to disconnect from work
Building systems that don’t depend on individual heroes
Creating a culture where taking time off is celebrated
Ensuring no one becomes a single point of failure

Remember: If someone can demonstrate they’ve become indispensable, we have failed organizationally and we’ve failed them as human beings. We’ve allowed a situation where their personal life can be held hostage by work demands. That sucks for all of us.

photo by Rahul Saraf

Tools Are Never Just Tools. That Includes AI.

The tech industry isn’t just providing solutions in search of problems. It’s reshaping our understanding of what a problem is—and what it means to solve one—in ways that fit the tools it can profitably offer.

We often stop at the surface: the belief that every human challenge has a technological fix. But that belief is only the entry point.

First, there’s the quiet assumption that Silicon Valley not only has the means to solve problems, but the right to define them for the rest of us. Whose definition of “problem” are we working with?

Then, deeper still, there’s the logic of the market: the need to create new problems in order to justify new tools. Innovation, under this view, is less about discovery and more about manufacturing demand.

And at the heart of it all: the reshaping of human experience itself. A world where our ways of thinking, working, and relating must adjust to the logic of the tools—rather than the other way around.

This isn’t new.

Echoes from the Past

Fifty years ago, well-meaning American volunteers traveled to rural Mexico to “help.”

They brought ideas, energy, and middle-class assumptions. They believed they were modernizing communities, solving problems. But they imposed values that didn’t fit, created dependencies they didn’t see, and failed to listen to the people they came to serve.

The parallels now:

Tech workers building AI systems they believe will help humanity.
Imposing Silicon Valley values—efficiency, scale, optimization—on complex human problems.
Creating new dependencies in the name of progress.
Operating at a distance from the people most affected by their tools.

The logic hasn’t changed. Just the scale, the speed, and the rhetoric.

No Tool Is Neutral

You hear it often: “But they’re just tools.”

A casual shrug. As if that settles the matter.

But tools are never just tools.

Every tool carries assumptions—about the world, about what matters, about what needs fixing. A hammer assumes something needs hitting. A spreadsheet assumes life can be modeled in rows and columns. An AI system assumes something should be predicted, optimized, or automated.

These aren’t neutral starting points. They’re embedded ways of seeing.

Tools reflect choices—often invisible—about what counts as intelligence, which outcomes are desirable, whose data is worth collecting, whose voice gets heard.

And once introduced, tools don’t just sit there waiting to be used. They reshape the environment they enter.

Workflows bend to fit the tool. Expectations shift. Entire job roles get redefined. Soon, the way things could be is forgotten—because the tool has made a particular way of working feel inevitable.

Think of the smartphone. Not because the phone itself was some flawless leap forward—but because the world reorganized itself around its presence.

The pattern:
A tool arrives.
We adjust.
The adjustment creates new expectations.
Those expectations drive the need for more tools.
The room for real choice shrinks.

McLuhan, Revisited

Marshall McLuhan: “We shape our tools, and thereafter our tools shape us.”

But it’s not just a one-time shaping. It’s recursive:

We build tools that reflect our worldview.
These tools reshape how we behave, work, and relate.
Our new behaviors lead us to build more tools.
Which shape us further.

Each loop tightens the fit. Each cycle reduces friction—until the tool feels natural and the world it creates feels inevitable.

What changes everything now is speed. McLuhan observed cultural shifts over generations. Today, our behaviors are reshaped in months. Ecosystems, industries, even our attention—redesigned in real time.

The Pattern

When power wears the face of help, when solutions are offered without asking the right questions, when tools redefine what it means to be human—that’s when we need to pause.

Not to reject the tool outright.

But to ask: What values does this tool assume? What kind of person does it reward? What ways of being does it make harder?

Tools shape us. But we get to notice. We still have that responsibility.

Even—especially—when the tool says it’s here to help.

AI as the Latest Iteration

If this pattern has played out before, AI may be its most potent form yet. Not because it’s evil, but because it’s persuasive. And fast. And everywhere.

AI isn’t one thing. Large language models train us to think in particular linguistic patterns. Recommendation algorithms shape what we see and therefore what we think about. Computer vision systems define what counts as recognizable. Predictive systems encode assumptions about risk and value into consequential decisions.

Each operates differently, each shapes us differently. But they share something crucial: they all arrive with embedded assumptions about what matters, how intelligence works, and what constitutes progress.

AI doesn’t just offer answers. It frames the questions. It encodes definitions of intelligence, appropriateness, value, truth. And then it trains us—subtly, constantly—to match those definitions.

It’s easy to mistake AI for a neutral force. But AI systems are trained on data that reflect specific histories, specific cultures, specific blind spots. They’re designed to optimize, predict, and automate—as if those are self-evidently desirable things.

They aren’t.

And like the missionaries of progress before them, AI tools arrive not just with solutions, but with assumptions about what needs solving, how it should be solved, and who gets to decide.

The risk isn’t just bad code. It’s that we begin to see ourselves—our choices, our relationships, even our thinking—through the lens of what the system can recognize. And in doing so, we shrink ourselves to fit.

photo by Doug Vos

A Quiet Recognition

That day, reflecting on how my simple gesture toward the staff was read as a tactical maneuver, I realized something more profound was at stake. It wasn’t about strategy but about bond—the quiet recognition of our shared humanity, too often hidden beneath layers of hierarchy and suspicion. When respect becomes rare enough to seem like a tactic, we lose sight of something fundamental: the dignity we hold simply by being human.

Their assumption revealed the narrow frame through which many now view relationships at work—a transactional mindset that mistakes genuine recognition for calculated gain. But respect isn’t something earned or used. It’s the baseline of connection, quietly present before roles, titles, or behavior.

The poem below tries to name that respect in its purest form—a recognition that neither waits for permission nor demands reward. It’s a reminder of what we often forget but need most.

A Quiet Recognition

Every person
carries inherent dignity—
not earned through good behavior,
forfeited by mistakes,
or shaped by circumstance.

It’s simply there,
by virtue of being human.

Respect
is the quiet recognition
of that dignity.

Kindness is different.
It’s something we offer
freely, personally.

Kindness flows from your generosity;
respect,
from their humanity.

photo “Migrant mother”, Dorothea Lange, 1936.

The necessary chaos of management

Between theory and practice lies a daily reality most management literature refuses to acknowledge: fragmentation as the default state.

Watch any manager work. You’ll see someone navigating constant disruption: fifteen conversations at once, problems arriving faster than solutions, priorities shifting before the last shift ends.

We tend to treat these interruptions as failures of process. “If only I could get more focused time,” managers lament. But when such patterns persist across roles, industries, and decades, it’s worth asking: what if this disjointed rhythm isn’t a failure at all? What if it’s simply what management is?

The core competency, then, becomes learning to work within disruption—to maintain coherence across fragmented time, to build context that survives interruption, to create meaning amid discontinuity.

Many managers live with a quiet dissonance. The way they speak about management rarely matches how their days actually unfold. The result is a nagging sense of inadequacy, a quiet suspicion that real management is happening elsewhere, in places where the systems work and people follow them.

But what if this is it? What if the real work happens right here, in the mess?

What might shift if we treated the scattered, nonlinear, interrupted nature of managerial life not as a flaw to fix but as a fact to work with?

How might we learn to inhabit the chaos, fully and skillfully, rather than trying to conquer it?

Photo by Soheb Zaidi on Unsplash

A Series of Sorts

Patterns emerge in retrospect. Looking back over these past pieces, I see a thread I never planned—each idea flowing naturally into the next, forming an unintended sequence.

It began with seeing management as craft—not a science to master, but a practice to hone. This view led organically to understanding leadership as poetry, shaped more by rhythm and flow than rigid structure. From there, I explored chaos, both external and internal, not as a force to control but as waters to navigate. And then I questioned movement itself—what truly propels people forward? Not external motivation, but the intricate web of motives already at play within us.

And then came time.

Perhaps time was always the underlying current. Clock Time versus Craft Time wasn’t just about scheduling—it was about how we inhabit time itself. Do we push against its flow, or work within its rhythms? Does quality emerge through control, or through finding our natural cadence?

But these explorations reveal something deeper—they haven’t just been about work, leadership, or time. They’ve been about learning to work with my own mind.

Two worlds shaped my thinking, each pulling in its own direction. Business and finance taught me to extract value swiftly, to cut to the essence without hesitation. Academia taught me another way—to build ideas methodically, to ground every insight in what came before, to let understanding unfold at its own pace. For years, I felt torn between these approaches, as if my writing had to choose: be swift and incisive, or thorough and precise. As if clarity could only come through efficiency or exhaustiveness, but never both.

Only recently have I understood that my mind charts its own course. My writing, always an attempt to clarify thought, is more art than method. I show up, engage with ideas, and hope inspiration joins me. Above all, I seek to connect, to offer something meaningful to others.

These days, I find myself in a fertile middle ground. I want my writing to be friendly, open, welcoming—to feel like an invitation into a conversation. And yet, it still feels linear, formal, maybe even too academic. I don’t think that tension will disappear overnight, but I wonder if this—pausing now, pulling back the curtain, sharing the process itself—might be the way forward. Maybe by weaving moments of reflection into the fabric of ideas, I can make room for deeper connection while honoring the complexity of thought.

My mind doesn’t follow linear outlines or neat frameworks. Instead, ideas coalesce as connections form, each emerging as another settles into place. At their best, they build upon each other, creating depth—I hope—rather than mere accumulation. Often, the pattern only becomes clear in retrospect—when I pause to see what has been forming all along.

If there’s a unifying thread here, it’s about working with rather than against—with craft, with chaos, with human nature, with time itself. This realization opens new questions:

If time shapes craft, what shapes mastery?

If experience alone isn’t enough, what transforms doing into knowing?

The answer, I suspect, lies in the spaces between action—in what we discover when we pause.

In reflection.

And that’s where I go next.

So, I invite you to pause here with me. To step back, trace the thread, and see where it leads you. Because perhaps, in reflection, we find not just clarity—but connection.

Go HERE for more Essays.

Clock Time or Craft Time? How Quality Finds Its Own Pace

With each step, this has become a series of sorts. Our journey through management has revealed it as craft rather than science, poetry rather than prose. We’ve explored how true leadership means working with rather than against natural forces, how chaos holds creative potential, and how understanding others’ motives is more powerful than trying to motivate them. Now, we turn to another dimension of this organic approach—our relationship with time. Perhaps here too, mastery lies not in control, but in attuning ourselves to deeper rhythms.

The meeting is moving fast—updates ticked off, tasks assigned, deadlines locked in. The team is ahead of schedule. A success. And yet, someone hesitates. A half-formed thought, an insight not yet articulated. The clock says move on. The work itself suggests otherwise.

In an age obsessed with optimization, we face a paradox: Our drive for efficiency often undermines the very quality we seek to create.

Yet beneath this mechanical parceling of time, something essential stirs. The same manager who speaks of efficiency feels a quiet unease when work comes back too quickly, sensing something has been left behind in the rush. Team members celebrate completing tasks ahead of schedule while wondering why their best work often emerges in those rare moments when time seems to flow differently.

This tension reveals a deeper truth about our relationship with time – one that connects directly to our understanding of motivation and human nature. We’ve discovered that true motivation springs not from external pressures but from the complex interplay of personal, professional, and transcendent motives. Perhaps time itself requires a similar shift in perspective.

Kipling wrote of filling “the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds’ worth of distance run.” But what exactly constitutes “distance run”? Is it the ground we cover, or the depth we reach? Like our earlier exploration of prose versus poetry in leadership, this question invites us to examine whether we’ve been measuring the wrong things, optimizing for speed when we should be making room for quality to emerge.

The sailor understands something about time that the engine operator may miss. Where the engine pushes against time in steady, mechanical increments, the sailor works with time’s currents, recognizing that the shortest distance between two points isn’t always the straightest line. In this distinction lies a crucial insight about the nature of quality itself – one that challenges our fundamental assumptions about how time shapes our work.

Clock Time vs. Craft Time: Two Ways of Being with Work

Time shapes not only when we work, but how we work – perhaps even who we are as we work. In exploring human motivation, we discovered that what moves us forward isn’t simple mechanics but complex currents of personal meaning and shared purpose. Now we encounter a similar truth: our relationship with time reveals our deeper relationship with work itself.

Consider two moments:

In the first, a team races to complete tasks before their deadline, checking items off a list, measuring progress in minutes saved. Their primary relationship is with the clock, their attention split between the work and the passing of time.

In the second, researchers gather around early findings from a study, their scheduled hour forgotten as they follow threads of insight, letting understanding emerge through unhurried exploration. Their relationship is primarily with the work, time becoming not a constraint but a medium through which understanding develops. Same sixty minutes. Entirely different ways of being with the work.

This distinction reveals itself everywhere once we learn to see it. I’ve come to call these different qualities “Clock Time” and “Craft Time.” Not just techniques for managing time, but fundamentally different ways of relating to both time and work itself.

Clock Time embodies our mechanical approach—measuring, dividing, controlling. It assumes work can be contained within precise boundaries, that faster completion always means greater efficiency. Under Clock Time, we experience moments as resources to be spent or saved, measured always against the ticking hand of the clock.

Like an engine pushing against ocean waves, Clock Time powers through resistance. It serves us well when the path is clear and speed itself creates value. But it can blind us to other possibilities, other qualities of time that might better serve the work at hand.

Craft Time flows differently. Like water finding its course, it follows the natural rhythm of the work itself. Not boundless or unstructured, but attentive to what each moment might reveal. Under Craft Time, we experience duration not as a constraint but as a dimension of the work, each moment holding potential for deeper understanding or unexpected discovery.

This isn’t about working slowly. Sometimes Craft Time moves with swift precision, other times with patient attention. The difference lies not in speed but in relationship—whether we’re pushing against time or working within it, whether we’re measuring progress by minutes saved or by understanding gained.

What changes when we view time not as a resource to control but as a medium through which quality emerges? What becomes possible when we learn to recognize which quality of time might best serve the work at hand?

When Time Takes Different Shapes

Consider three moments from a typical organization:

In a product development meeting, Elena presents wireframes for a new feature. She’s proud of completing the work a day ahead of schedule. The screens are clean, functional, following all standard patterns. Yet something nags at her colleague David. He’s noticed that users struggle with similar interfaces in other parts of the product, but raising this now feels like questioning Elena’s efficiency. The team moves on, celebrating quick delivery. Three months later, they’ll spend weeks redesigning the same feature.

Across the building, Marcus sits with a complex customer analysis. The report is due tomorrow, and he has a serviceable draft. But he senses patterns in the data he hasn’t quite grasped, connections hovering just beyond reach. His calendar shows two open hours. Should he submit what he has, or stay with the discomfort of partial understanding? In this moment, he faces not a time management decision but a question of how quality emerges.

Meanwhile, Lee’s team is working through a strategic challenge. They’ve spent forty minutes of their one-hour meeting efficiently covering agenda items. As they approach what seems like a natural conclusion, someone asks a question that shifts the perspective entirely. The energy in the room changes. Do they honor the scheduled end time, or stay with this emerging understanding? The clock on the wall suggests one answer. The potential in the room suggests another.

These moments reveal something subtle about our relationship with time. Notice how Clock Time presents itself as the responsible choice, the professional approach. Meeting deadlines, delivering early, honoring schedules – these feel like unquestionable virtues. Craft Time often appears as doubt, delay, or inefficiency.

Yet look closer at what each approach serves. Clock Time and Craft Time aren’t enemies. They’re different ways of relating to work—and knowing when to use each is an essential skill. Clock Time gives us structure, ensuring coordination and efficiency. But without Craft Time, we risk mistaking speed for progress, output for insight. The art isn’t choosing one over the other; it’s knowing when to shift between them.

A software team recently experimented with removing time estimates from certain complex tasks. Instead of asking “How long will this take?” they began asking “What needs to emerge from this?” The shift felt uncomfortable, even irresponsible. Yet they noticed their solutions became more robust, requiring fewer revisions. They weren’t working more hours; they were working differently within the hours they had.

Or consider two architects discussing a design challenge. Under Clock Time, the conversation moves efficiently through options toward a decision. Under Craft Time, they might sketch as they talk, let ideas incubate, challenge assumptions. The first approach produces a quicker answer. The second might produce an insight that transforms the entire project.

These aren’t just different ways of working – they reveal different relationships with quality itself. Clock Time assumes quality can be planned and executed. Craft Time suggests quality sometimes needs to be discovered, allowed to emerge through engagement with the work.

A senior designer put it this way: “Sometimes I know exactly what needs to be done, and speed serves the work. Other times, I can feel something trying to emerge. Rushing then isn’t efficiency – it’s avoidance. The art is learning to tell the difference.”

What would change if we viewed these not as competing approaches but as different qualities of time itself? What becomes possible when we learn to read which quality serves the moment at hand?

Perhaps the best way to explore these questions is to turn from observing others to examining our own experience with time. How do these different qualities of time show up in our own work? What do they reveal about our deeper assumptions about quality, efficiency, and the nature of work itself?

Living in the Tension

Consider a moment you might have experienced: A colleague returns from a thirty-minute task after just fifteen minutes, proud of their efficiency. What stirs in you when you witness this? Perhaps a quiet unease, a sense that something has been left behind in that saved time. Or maybe admiration for their speed, their ability to compress work into smaller spaces.

What if both responses reveal something about our relationship with time?

You might recall that my response to “Is this your best work?”: “It’s my best work in the time you gave me.” But those words raise a question: What does it mean to give our best within a timeframe versus giving work the time it needs?

We speak of “time management” as if time were a resource to control, to bend to our will. Yet sailors know something different about working with forces larger than ourselves. They understand that speed and progress aren’t always the same thing. A skilled sailor might tack away from their destination to catch a favorable wind. To an observer, they appear to be going the wrong way. To the sailor, they’re working with forces that will ultimately carry them further.

What if we held our relationship with time more like that sailor? Not seeking to master it, but to understand its currents?

Here’s an unsettling thought: What if our drive for efficiency sometimes masks a deeper fear – the fear of fully engaging with our work? When we rush through tasks, are we truly being efficient, or are we avoiding the discomfort of dwelling in uncertainty? Of letting work reveal its true complexity?

A team recently shared with me their experiment with time. They began asking each other: “What’s trying to emerge here?” Sometimes this question led to deeper work. Sometimes it revealed that speed was exactly what the moment required. The interesting part wasn’t the answers – it was how the question itself changed their relationship with time.

Think about the last significant piece of work you rushed to complete. Now imagine you had twice as much time. What makes you uncomfortable about that thought? What possibilities does it open?

Or consider this: When was the last time you felt fully present with your work, where time seemed to take on a different quality? What were the conditions that allowed for that experience? What prevented you from staying there?

These questions don’t resolve neatly into best practices or implementation steps. They’re invitations to examine our assumptions about time, efficiency, and quality. They’re provocations to consider whether our relationship with time serves our deepest intentions for our work.

What might change if we viewed time not as a resource to be managed, but as a medium through which quality emerges? What if we treated time less like a constraint to push against and more like a dimension to work within?

Perhaps the art lies not in finding the right answers, but in learning to live in the questions. In becoming comfortable with the tension between Clock Time’s push for completion and Craft Time’s pull toward depth. In developing the wisdom to know when to move swiftly and when to allow work to unfold at its own pace.

The invitation isn’t to abandon Clock Time – urgency and deadlines have their place. Rather, it’s to expand our relationship with time itself. To question whether efficiency always serves quality. To explore what becomes possible when we allow for work to reveal its true nature.

Try this: The next time you feel the urge to push through a task for the sake of efficiency, pause. Ask yourself—not just “How long will this take?” but “What needs to emerge here?” See what shifts. See what time reveals when you listen differently.

Perhaps the art isn’t in controlling time, but in learning to recognize how it wants to move through our work.

Go HERE for more Essays.

Embracing Chaos: A Leadership Evolution

In my previous articles, I explored management as craft—an artisan’s practice requiring a deep understanding of human nature, a sharp eye for patterns, and the development of one’s own voice. I then turned to the poetic dimensions of leadership, contrasting the mechanical precision of management with leadership’s fluid adaptability.

Now, I find myself drawn to something even more fundamental: if management is craft and leadership is poetry, then the reality we navigate is not fixed or orderly. Perhaps, at its core, it is chaotic. But what if chaos is not an external force to resist, but something intrinsic to leadership itself? What if the challenge is not to impose order, but to learn how to live—and lead—within uncertainty? In this essay, I explore how embracing, rather than resisting, chaos might transform our approach to leadership.

Those moments when our familiar approaches fall short—when neither the structured steps of management nor the fluid movements of leadership seem quite enough—reveal something fundamental about our relationship with uncertainty. We often view chaos as something to avoid, control, and eradicate. In our management and leadership frameworks, chaos is seen as an external threat—something disruptive, a force we must master to maintain stability and order.

What if, instead of an external force to subdue, chaos is intrinsic to our very nature? In this light, leadership is not simply about managing external chaos, it is also about grappling with our internal chaos—the uncertainties, contradictions, and complexities that define the human experience.

There’s an ancient insight that suggests the order we crave might be nothing more than an illusion—a construct we impose to make sense of a world that is, at its core, deeply chaotic. This is where the concept of the “wild God” can be useful.

In some traditions, the wild God represents the uncontrollable forces of nature as well as the raw, untamed parts of ourselves—those elements that break free from our control and remind us that we are not as neat and orderly as we would like to believe.

If we allow ourselves to see chaos as an essential part of life, our understanding of leadership shifts. We begin to see that the chaos we fear in the world is not so different from the chaos within us. It is not something “out there” to be mastered; it is a reflection of our own internal unpredictability, vulnerability, and potential for disruption.

This realization reframes leadership. Rather than a constant battle to impose order on the world, leadership becomes about acknowledging the chaos—within and without—and learning how to live with it. To embrace chaos is to acknowledge the inherent messiness of life and leadership. In this, we find strength—the strength to navigate uncertainty, the resilience to thrive within disorder, and the clarity that emerges when we stop trying to force everything into a predetermined pattern.

When we recognize that chaos is not a flaw to be fixed but a fundamental reality to be embraced, we see management and leadership as a dynamic dance of awareness and adaptation. The order we seek may always be elusive, but in its place, we find something more profound: a deeper understanding of ourselves and the systems we lead. Perhaps this understanding begins with seeing people not as pieces to be moved, but as sources of energy to be understood.

Go HERE for more Essays.

Managing in Prose, Leading in Poetry: A Shift in Perspective

Even in our most pragmatic moments, something elusive tugs at the edges of management. We create schedules, set metrics, establish procedures—all necessary elements of organizational life. Yet in the spaces between these structured elements, we sense something more fluid, less containable.

This tension shows up in our language: we speak of management as something mechanical—an engine pushing forward in a predetermined direction, fueled by clear objectives, hard facts, and deadlines. The manager, like the operator of an engine, exerts control over the process, ensuring that things run efficiently and according to plan. In this view, managing is often described in prose—straightforward, functional, and to the point.

But what if we reframed this? What if we began to see leadership as something more poetic—a sail catching the wind, letting the currents of the moment shape our path rather than forcing an outcome through sheer willpower? Leadership, in this sense, becomes more about flow and responsiveness than control and direction. Instead of controlling, we guide. Instead of dictating, we harness.

Imagine, for a moment, seeing the people in your organization as the wind. They bring energy, motion, and power—but they are not entirely predictable. You cannot control the wind, but you can learn to harness it. This raises an essential question: How do we discern when to push forward with steady effort and when to let the current carry us? What happens when the winds of a team’s energy blow in unexpected directions?

The metaphor is simple: An engine pushes forward, controlled by its operator; a sail catches the wind, responding to forces outside of our control. Managing fuels the engine with resources and intentions, pushing it forward with determination and precision. But leadership, like a sail, requires a different kind of wisdom: a willingness to surrender a bit of control, to work with the unpredictable elements of human nature, to read the shifting winds and adjust our course as necessary.

In this model, management doesn’t lose its value—it simply evolves. The prose of management, with its structure, deadlines, and frameworks, remains essential. It ensures stability and creates the conditions for progress. But leadership, like poetry, calls us to think beyond the mechanical. It invites us into the realm of possibility, emotion, and instinct. It asks us to listen deeply to the voices within our teams, to feel into the currents that are already there, and to find ways to move with them rather than against them.

To manage in poetry is not to abandon logic or structure—it is to invite something more fluid into our practice. It is to learn the art of collaboration with the unpredictable forces of human potential, to steer not by brute force but by understanding, respect, and adaptability.

And yet, there are moments when even this dance feels insufficient—when the currents shift in ways we never anticipated, or when the wind dies altogether. What then? Perhaps this is the true invitation of leadership: to accept that there will be times of stillness, turbulence, or storms. The challenge lies not in controlling these forces but in navigating them with curiosity, humility, and a willingness to learn as we go.

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Photo by Steve Johnson on Unsplash

The Craft of Management: Beyond Metrics and Methods

In an age of data and algorithms, we face a surprising truth: the fundamental act of managing people remains more craft than science. Consider a scene that plays out in organizations daily: A manager notices subtle shifts in team dynamics during a meeting, reads growing tension in body language and tone, and must decide—in the moment—whether to address it directly, have private conversations later, or let the team work it out. No algorithm can make this decision. No dashboard can tell you the right moment to intervene.

This reality challenges our contemporary desire to reduce management to metrics and best practices. While tools and frameworks multiply, the essential challenge remains unchanged: understanding people and helping them collaborate effectively. It’s not that data and methods don’t matter—they do—but they serve the craft rather than define it.

The Nature of Craft Management

At its core, craft involves working with materials that have their own nature—wood, metal, clay, or in management’s case, human nature. The craftsperson must understand this nature deeply, work with it rather than against it, and respond to how it presents itself in each unique situation.

Think of jazz musicians; they know music theory, understand harmony and rhythm, but what creates excellence isn’t their theoretical knowledge—it’s their ability to listen, respond, and work together in real time. Theory provides structure, but the music happens in the moment, in the interplay between musicians.

So too with management. Frameworks and theories provide valuable structure, but effective management happens in the spaces between—in reading situations, sensing moments, and responding to what emerges. Like jazz, it requires both deep knowledge and the ability to act based on dynamic circumstances.

The Journey from Novice to Master

The path to management mastery follows patterns familiar to all crafts. It begins with apprenticeship—learning through observation, starting with basic techniques, and making mistakes in a supported environment. The novice manager seeks certainty, clear guidelines, and “best practices.”

The first crucial transition comes when we realize that rules alone aren’t enough. This often emerges as a crisis—when our carefully learned approaches fall short in a complex situation. Some retreat from this challenge, clinging more tightly to formulas. But those who grow learn to embrace the uncertainty and understand that management happens in the gaps between the rules.

With experience comes pattern recognition—not just seeing situations clearly, but understanding their dynamics. The developing manager learns to sense what’s brewing beneath the surface of interactions and to feel the currents of organizational life.

Finding Your Voice

The ultimate paradox of management craft is that mastery leads not to standardization but to individuation. Just as Miles Davis didn’t sound like John Coltrane, effective managers develop distinct voices while working within the same fundamental principles. Your effectiveness comes not from imitating others but from finding your own way of embodying the craft.

This journey often begins with imitation—learning from mentors and trying approaches we’ve seen work for others. But true development means moving beyond imitation. An introvert won’t manage like an extrovert and a natural analyst won’t lead like an intuitive. The key is not to fight these differences but to work with them, just as we work with human nature itself.

The Living Practice

Management craft survives and evolves through practice and transmission. While books and theories have their place, the deepest learning happens through direct experience and reflection. Modern organizations often overlook this essential truth in favor of standardized training programs. But true craft learning requires something more organic: the kind of apprenticeship where a developing manager can observe masters at work, seeing not just what they do but how they think, how they read situations, and how they make decisions in real time.

Like a master craftsperson’s tools, frameworks and models amplify capability but don’t create it. The art lies in knowing when and how to use them—and when to set them aside entirely.

I’ll be writing more about the craft of management in the coming weeks.

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