Free team reading guide

One law.
A room full of possibility.

A 45-minute conversation about one chapter, six questions and one change you can try together.

Before you meet

Read Chapter 2: The Law of the Operating System. Ask each person to bring one everyday example of a process that makes good service easier or harder. Use situations, not colleagues’ names. No one needs to defend a department.

The law to bring into the room

Every organisation produces the behaviour its conditions make easiest.

The Law of the Operating System, Law 1, Chapter 2.

Your 45 minutes

1. First 5 minutes: the story. Retell the anniversary incident in the chapter. Where did the information stop moving?
2. Next 15 minutes: your workplace. Discuss the first three questions below. Choose one specific situation rather than a general complaint.
3. Next 15 minutes: a small redesign. Use questions four to six to decide what you could change within your own authority.
4. Final 10 minutes: agree the next step. Name one owner, one action and one date to return to the discussion. Keep the experiment small enough to finish.

Six questions

1. Where have you seen a good intention lose to a target, handover or approval?
2. What is the person in that situation being asked to do, and what does the system make easiest?
3. What information is being noticed but has nowhere useful to go?
4. Which one condition could your team change without waiting for a new programme?
5. How will the people affected tell you whether the change helps?
6. What will you protect when next week becomes busy?

Try it for seven days

Choose one handover, meeting or decision boundary. Write down what happens now, what you will change and who will notice the difference. After seven days, ask the people doing the work what became easier and what became harder. Keep, adjust or stop the change on the strength of that conversation.

Our chosen situation: ____________________________________

The condition we will change: _____________________________

Owner and review date: __________________________________

What we learned: ______________________________________