Alright I've had two Actually Sunny days on my three (count 'em) old cheap secondhand solar panels that I raccooned off facebook marketplace and this coincided with hearing politicians argue about solar on the radio so I now have a Political Opinion About Solar Panels

It is this

Solar panels. Solar panels everywhere. Solar panels EVERYWHERE, on EVERY roof, Right The Fuck Now, every single doubt or worry I ever had about these things has been completely resolved just by holding panels in my hands and watching the power move silently into my battery to watch telly with tonight. House in cloudsville? Solar panels. House under the biggest densest tree in the world? Solar panels. Even in the shade they're still putting out power. Even fifteen years old they're still putting out power. Every worry I had was based on lies. My only regret is that I didn't start sooner. Solar panels everywhere right the fuck now.

Organisational Dysfunction of the Day

Outsourcing the future

Context: The organisation wants a new strategy. Leadership does not have the bandwidth, or perhaps the confidence, to lead the process internally. A consulting firm is brought in. They are smart, experienced, and methodologically rigorous. They interview the leadership team, benchmark against competitors, analyse market trends, and run workshops with selected stakeholders. A few months later, a strategy document arrives. It is well-structured and credible. The organisation begins implementing it. Some things work. Others do not land the way the consultants predicted. The people doing the implementation have questions that the document does not answer. The consultants are gone. Two years later, a new consulting firm is brought in to develop the next strategy.

OST explains: Strategy is not a document. It is a shared understanding of where a system is, where it needs to go, and why. That understanding cannot be imported from outside because it depends on knowledge that only exists inside the system, distributed across the people who operate it, the relationships they hold, and the environment they transact with daily. A consulting firm can bring analytical frameworks, comparative data, and an external perspective. What they cannot do is replace the participative process through which an organisation develops genuine strategic ownership. The Search Conference exists because Emery understood this. An effective strategy requires the whole system in the room, not a representative sample interviewed by outsiders. A strategy people helped build is one they will adapt when reality diverges from the plan. A strategy handed down, however well-researched, will be executed literally until it fails and then replaced by the next one. The cycle is not a strategy problem. It is a participation problem.

#OpenSystemsTheory #SocioTechnical #OrgDesign #strategy