Midpoint.
What we're learning from decentralized leadership in action.
Before we begin…
Josh Allan Dykstra, Nicole Ayres, and I have proposed a session for SXSW called “A World Without Bosses: It’s Possible, Here’s How”. Voting is underway, and I’d be grateful for your vote here.
I’m sharing as much as I can here, but if you lead a business and know you need to evolve, we’d love to talk with you. We have several ways to help, and I’d enjoy sharing what we’ve learned with you and your company. Hit “reply” or see the end of this piece for ways to get started.
Most organizations are solving yesterday's problems with yesterday's tools while tomorrow accelerates past them.
Leaders feel the pressure mounting—from markets shifting faster, communities demanding authentic engagement, teams craving meaningful work. AI too. Yet traditional organizational structures buckle under this velocity. Command-and-control hierarchies create bottlenecks where speed matters most.
Three weeks into a decentralized leadership pilot with a 20-year-old company, we're witnessing something different emerge.
Creating containers for emergence
We created a "container": minimal structure designed to hold space for a group experiencing its own lifecycle of discovery. Structures loose enough for innovation, tight enough for momentum.
The pilot pod began by examining their founder's workload (with full consent), then proposing redistributions that would free visionary time. They gathered clear signals from their community about priorities, wish lists, unmet needs. Three high-priority mini-experiments emerged—all originating from community voices rather than executive mandates.
By the way, those three experiments rose to the top from dozens of viable proposals, all of them candidates for future experimentation and offerings to the market.
Something profound happens when diverse groups receive proper conditions for collective intelligence. They often outperform even expert individuals.
Week 3: the “pop”
Like a surfer catching a wave—there's that moment when you stop paddling frantically and suddenly you're riding energy larger than yourself.
What emerged:
Ideas began flowing from multiple directions simultaneously—different pod members channeled similar insights independently
Each person's unique energy and diverse thinking patterns became visible, valuable
The company's relationship with its community transformed from viewing customers as recipients to seeing them as collaborators in co-creation
Brand signals clarified, resonated more deeply with lived community experience
Boundaries blurred purposefully—the edges became where energy concentrated, innovation sparked
Learning through iteration
Not everything flowed smoothly.
What we learned:
Our first communication platform created friction instead of flow—we adapted quickly, found better tools. Different teams need different solutions.
Volume can overwhelm when a team unlocks creative potential. Expect exponential output. Information aggregation becomes critical—success creates its own challenges.
Early onboarding velocity took a minute. Learning new approaches requires adjustment time, though less than traditional change management suggests. People adapt faster when change feels generative rather than imposed.
Multiple channels, platforms, tools scattered our signal initially. We're learning to direct collaborative energy more effectively by noticing where it flows smoothly.
First answers weren't final answers. Deeper knowing requires patient cultivation. We alternate between speeds—sometimes moving fast to capture momentum, sometimes slowing to allow wisdom to surface.
Building adaptive capacity
Small shifts in structure can produce profound behavioral changes. By adjusting information flows, decision rights, feedback loops, we're seeing organizational DNA evolve in real time.
This isn't just organization development—it's organizational evolution.
The pressure for adaptive capacity has reached critical mass. Organizations that develop these capabilities now will lead their industries. Those clinging to industrial-age structures will fall behind.
Decentralization doesn't mean chaos. It means distributing intelligence throughout the system, creating multiple centers of insight, innovation. It means trusting that when you create proper conditions, groups naturally organize around shared purpose.
Three weeks in, results remain emergent. We're not measuring traditional metrics yet—we're watching for patterns, sensing shifts in energy, relationship, possibility.
The real test isn't whether this approach works in principle. It's whether busy leaders facing real pressures can implement these ideas to create organizations that thrive in uncertainty.
Early indicators suggest they can.
But we're only halfway through this particular experiment. The container we created has its own lifecycle, its own lessons still unfolding.
I can’t wait to share the whole story with you.
At Jumpsuit, we’re offering a half-day immersion to learn the principles of adaptive strategy. Hit “reply” and we’ll give you all the details.
Also, I have two openings right now for new clients—people like the leader in this company. These are rare, and I’m excited to meet people who’ve already succeeded but suspect there’s another level of effectiveness, ease, and flow. The right person will have a spiritual practice and be actively engaged in doing their inner work. If that’s you, hit “reply” and let’s see what wants to happen. And if I’m not what you need, I will help you find the partner who is.
This is good Joseph, there’s some juicy meat on the bones here!