Many organizational problems aren't people problems. They're systems problems. The challenge is that "systems problem" isn't a diagnosis. So where do you start? When I'm trying to understand why a process isn't working, I don't start with solutions. I start with questions. Who owns the process? Can anyone see where work is sitting? Where does work change hands? Is the process documented? How do people report problems, and what happens after they do? None of those questions

I accidentally made my best friend move to Columbus, OH. Not directly. She had narrowed her list to Philadelphia, Denver, and Portland. She had good reasons for all three, but I wasn’t convinced she was evaluating the places themselves. I thought she was weighing the idea of these places too heavily. I don’t mind being wrong. I mind making big decisions for reasons that weren’t fully examined. So I built a spreadsheet. Because of course. I researched ~50 cities that seemed to