The Field Manual: Thirteen Weeks

Abstract

Everything in the earlier chapters can be done in any order, and most leaders who read them will be tempted to start with the part that interests them most: a new recognition scheme, a pay review, a conversation with the team. This chapter argues for an order, and the order matters for a reason the evidence has already given. A gift economy is easily damaged by clumsy intervention. The Haifa fine, the bonus that teaches people to wait for a bonus, the sanction that falls on the generous: each was an intervention made before anyone had looked at what was already moving. The sequence below is built so that nothing is changed until it has been seen, nothing is designed until the people who give most have been heard, and nothing is measured in a way that tells people they are not trusted. It takes thirteen weeks, a quarter, because a reciprocal system is read over seasons and not rounds, and a quarter is the shortest season most organisations keep.