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Unfolding Designs

About
Hi, I'm Sylvia
Offerings
Stay Connected
Insights
Blog
Long Form
Multi Media
What I'm Reading
Creative Tools
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  • Insights
  • Blog
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Featured
How Patagonia Uses Organizational Design to Catalyze Systems Transformation
Jan 1, 2021
How Patagonia Uses Organizational Design to Catalyze Systems Transformation
Jan 1, 2021

Organizational design has enabled Patagonia to envision transformation at the systems-level and live out their mission to “use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.”

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Jan 1, 2021
Practice is Progress: Moving to Strengths-Based Goals
Jun 28, 2020
Practice is Progress: Moving to Strengths-Based Goals
Jun 28, 2020

Most traditional goal setting methods, such as SMART goals, overvalue the importance of setting goals without offering a reliable process to make progress. These tools or programs tend to overemphasize goal-achievement as the ultimate marker of success. Strengths-based goals replaces a static timeline of action steps and due dates, with real-time adjustments and iterative planning.

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Jun 28, 2020
Co-op Curricula: From Management to Collaboration
May 10, 2020
Co-op Curricula: From Management to Collaboration
May 10, 2020

Five teaching modules designed to help cooperative organizations train new worker-owners to cultivate a culture of mutual learning and collaboration.

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May 10, 2020
A Worker Co-op Bill of Rights
May 9, 2020
A Worker Co-op Bill of Rights
May 9, 2020

When workers and cooperative businesses recognize, advocate, and design mechanisms to fulfill human, worker, and cooperative rights, it creates ideal conditions for workers to choose to live into their social interconnectedness.

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May 9, 2020
We don’t know the ending. Isn’t that grand?
Apr 26, 2020
We don’t know the ending. Isn’t that grand?
Apr 26, 2020

When my planning mind demands to know and be certain, I can remind myself of the wisdom of taking one small step at a time.

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Apr 26, 2020
Why I’d Rather Design Than Debate
Apr 20, 2020
Why I’d Rather Design Than Debate
Apr 20, 2020

Design is a creative process that produces ideas that haven’t existed before. Going beyond a win-win to a win-surprise. By sharing what we know in the research stage, to prioritizing outcomes rather than winners, we can create something of meaning and value.

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Apr 20, 2020
We are all designers
Nov 10, 2019
We are all designers
Nov 10, 2019

Just sharing your experience and giving feedback to researchers is not itself a creative act. Designers must not fall into the trap of separating experiences from the people who lived them.

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Nov 10, 2019
Powerful Knowledge Goes Beyond the Individual
Oct 16, 2019
Powerful Knowledge Goes Beyond the Individual
Oct 16, 2019

A knowledge intervention often assumes a lack or deficit in people, which is to be conveniently filled by another individual who “knows more.” We fall into the trap of judging individuals for “not knowing” or blaming them for “not knowing better.”

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Oct 16, 2019
The Movement Needed to Lead Change
Jul 24, 2019
The Movement Needed to Lead Change
Jul 24, 2019

My insights from skateboarding suggest balancing is not static, rather it is a series of responsive movements. Leaders seeking balance are better served by moving with a changing environment rather than attempting to arrive at a steady state.

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Jul 24, 2019
Un-canceled: Getting Over My Fear of Feedback
Jul 24, 2019
Un-canceled: Getting Over My Fear of Feedback
Jul 24, 2019

When feedback can throw basic elements of our self, relationships, and understanding into question, it is no wonder that many people are terrified of feedback. If a strategy of radical avoidance isn’t desirable, what other choices do we have?

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Jul 24, 2019
Getting Comfortable with Ambiguity
Jul 23, 2019
Getting Comfortable with Ambiguity
Jul 23, 2019

It is impossible to know everything. But, if I can learn to listen and collaborate, I can know anything.

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Jul 23, 2019

 

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