Welcome back to weekend reads! The place where I write myself into the realization that I may have sold out in the wrong way.
Several big events this week reminded me that contingency theory is a hell of a drug. Regular readers will know about my current micro-obsession with shifts to global political-economy. From the return of industrial strategy to major trade and defense pacts between the US and India, the system established largely over the last 40 years is being rewired. And with it, contingency is once again central to thinking about to get things done. There has never been a single best way to organize but against the backdrop of major change, that reality gets amplified. Watching different organizations engage in the complicated dance of accommodating themselves to shifts in their operating contexts is both personally fascinating and professionally satisfying. Will it stem the daily flow of requests for advice on “best practice” or “the” answer, no. But I at least have more explicit examples of C.R.E.A.M: Contingency Rules Everything Around Me.1
On to the reads.
Seeing like a Shoggoth
I always thought the biggest use case (threat?) of spicy autocomplete (large language models) would be their ability to clog up the works of existing systems. Overwhelming online consultations, gumming up petitions, and feeding the misinformation machine. But I clearly lacked imagination.
Artificial intelligence is a familiar-looking monster
Henry Farrell and Cosma Shalizi posit LLMs as new “cultural technologies”: ways of consolidating and managing information (knowledge, even) to create framework for action. Drawing parallels with the argument made by anthropologist James Scott in Seeing Like a State, they argue that LLMs may play any number of roles in our every day lives, but like Scott’s totalizing’s states, they will most likely offer new ways of translating informational richness into damagingly thin “general rules for specific cases” (see what I did there?).
New boss may not be the same as the old boss
From its humble beginnings as a monopolizer of legitimate violence, the state has grown to be one of the primary forces shaping human existence. Since the late 1970s, the orthodoxy (in the developed West, at least) has been that the state shouldn’t get too involved in markets. However, major changes from accelerating climate change to reconceptualized national interests are forcing a rethink of what it exactly the state does in relation to markets.
We must prepare — institutionally and politically — for the permanently higher state investments new times require
Building on arguments made by the always insightful Brad DeLong, this from the FT’s “Free Lunch” newsletters argues that states will have to get bigger and more involved in activities that some believe should be the exclusive domain of markets. And inevitably that’s going to be contentious. Again, it’s not that these fights are new, but mainly that the organizational logics that have shaped and channeled them are changing as the problems we collectively face amplify.
Time to get right with God: HBR on working with labor unions
Growing up in the sticks in the American south there was a rhythm to summers: heat; humidity; fresh produce; and tent revivals. These traveling preachers would show up in some farmer’s field to heal the lame, empower the weak, and save souls. And when I came across this in Harvard Business Review, I nearly bought a ticket home as it was clear evidence that I need to get right with God.
American hostility to organized labor is well-known. Despite steep membership declines since the Reagan revolution, there remains a pervasive sense in corporate circles that labor is something akin to the anti-Christ. So I was surprised when I came across this clear-eyed, rather dispassionate piece in HBR about how business should work with organized labor for everyone’s benefit.
The Labor-Savvy Leader
Arguing that changes to the economy make it the right time to treat organized labor as a equal partner, the piece highlights the pace and scale of change.
Potpourri
One final piece with a dash of shameless self-promotion
When I first read Max Weber as undergrad, I was immediately smitten. Discovering his concept of disenchantment felt like finally being understood - it’s not a phase mom, it’s who I am. As my career progressed through grad school, academic and corporate positions, the feelings only deepened.
Expertise Can Be a Buzzkill
So naturally, I was thrilled, in a disenchanted way, to read this piece from the archives at Kellogg Insight on why gaining expertise in a topic sucks the joy out of it.
<Shameless self-promotion>
I was quoted in Fast Company this week about the FTC’s action against Amazon for using “dark patterns” to ensnare customers in Prime.
It’s time for Amazon to pay for Prime’s crimes against design
Always happy to show up in the outside world (I’d attend the opening of an envelope) but wish I’d been able to add that while this particular lawsuit is about deliberately confusing CX, it makes more sense when viewed as a part of the Biden administration's efforts to shift commerce at home and abroad. From early in the administration, through a mix of policy and appointments, they have been using executive authority to make some big changes to the rules of the game to address the dual challenges of domestic inequality and international security.
May your weekend be contingent
That’s all for this week. Wishing you a conjunctural weekend!
With apologies to the Wu-Tang Clan.