“Organizing without first capturing & clarifying what needs organizing is simply rearranging your angst.”

—  David Allen

31 January 2012 https://twitter.com/gtdguy/status/164480736064311296
Official Twitter profile (@gtdguy) https://twitter.com/gtdguy

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David Allen 119
American productivity consultant and author 1945

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“For an elementary illustration of tactics, take parts of your face as the point of reference; your eyes, your ears, and your nose. First the eyes; if you have organized a vast, mass-based people’s organization, you can parade it visibly before the enemy and openly show your power. Second the ears; if your organization is small in numbers, then do what Gideon did: conceal the members in the dark but raise a din and clamor that will make the listener believe that your organization numbers many more than it does. Third, the nose; if your organization is too tiny even for noise, stink up the place.”

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“Organization begins when people, even if they be only two or more, combine their efforts for a given purpose. We have shown this by the simple illustration of two people uniting their efforts to lift and move some weighty object. This combination, however, is not the first principle of organization. It is only an illustration of organization itself. To find the first principle, let us carry the illustration a step further. The efforts of these two lifters must be coordinated, which means that they must act together. If first one lifted, and then the other, there would be no unity of action, and hence no true organization of effort. Here then we find the first principles of organization.
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“Any form of organization that cuts across normal bureaucratic lines to capture opportunities, solve problems, and get results. In an era of accelerating change, organizations, and national economies, most likely to succeed are those with the ability to adjust and adapt. Robert H. Waterman Jr., … shows how and what this sort of innovation must become a way of life for business organizations across the board. What is needed is an environment that fosters the use of an ad-hoc problem-solving technique, in effect an -adhocracy- that functions outside the often initiative-stifling bureaucracy”

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“Great nations need organizing principles, and ‘Don’t do stupid stuff’ is not an organizing principle.”

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