Concepts
The irreducible epistemic atoms underlying the curriculum. 4,828 atoms across 8 types
If shallow work exceeds 50%, the problem is structural…
Track your shallow-to-deep work ratio weekly and treat ratios exceeding 50% shallow as signals of structural calendar problems requiring role negotiation rather than personal discipline improvement.
Map the incentive structure before blaming individuals…
When encountering a frustrating recurring behavior in your organization, map the actual incentive structure (what gets rewarded, punished, and measured) before attributing the behavior to individual character, because most problematic behaviors are rational responses to system design.
Audit the training data before trusting AI decisions about…
When an AI system makes consequential decisions about people (hiring, performance evaluation, resource allocation), audit what organizational context and metrics trained the system before evaluating algorithm quality, because AI inherits and amplifies the biases of the measurement system.
Chesterton's Fence
Before removing any inherited system, process, or organizational structure, document why it was originally created and what problem it solved—if this context cannot be reconstructed, you lack sufficient information to safely remove it.
Reporting hierarchy does not make priorities transitive…
Before assuming organizational hierarchy makes strategic priorities transitive, verify alignment at each reporting level independently, as 'reports to' relationships do not make 'shares priorities with' transitive.
Before changing a team schema, map what it supports…
Before attempting to change a shared team schema, map what the current schema supports—which decisions it enables, what coordination it simplifies, and what would break if it disappeared—to understand its load-bearing function.
Schema change scales with group size
Scale your timeline expectations for schema change with group size—weeks for pairs, quarters for 50-person orgs, years for industries—and measure progress in behavioral change rather than stated agreement.
Design early warning indicators for polarity drift…
Design early warning indicators for polarity drift by identifying the characteristic downsides of each pole, then monitor for those downsides to trigger course-correction before crisis.
Apply the problem-vs-polarity test — if new information…
Before attempting to resolve any persistent organizational tension, apply the problem-vs-polarity test: can new information or analysis make one side permanently win? If no, design oscillation management rather than searching for resolution.
Consensus is for existential decisions only — founding…
Reserve consensus decision-making exclusively for existential decisions where the group cannot survive executing an outcome some members fundamentally oppose—founding documents, core values, irreversible strategic pivots—because consensus is the slowest inclusive framework and should match its cost to decision stakes.
Before modifying processes, surface their embedded schemas…
When modifying organizational processes, surface embedded schemas first to distinguish processes encoding hard-won lessons (whose removal reintroduces risk) from processes encoding obsolete assumptions (whose removal reduces waste).