Top Posts of 2025
When Benoit Mandelbrot first started out as a young researcher at IBM, one of the first problems he was asked to tackle was noise in communication lines. What he noticed was a strange pattern: There would be long periods of continuity, punctuated by periods of discontinuity that persisted until a dominant pattern could establish itself again.
Mandelbrot called these forces of continuity and discontinuity Noah Effects and Joseph Effects. “Joseph effects,” after the biblical story about seven good years and seven bad years, was continuous and predictable. The second, which he termed “Noah effects,” was like the famous storm that wiped everything clean.
Clearly, we’re in a period of discontinuity and things will continue to be chaotic until a new set of paradigms care establish themselves. When I look back on my writing over the past year it’s clear that two things were on my mind: How to adapt to this period of realignment and how best to create new paradigms. Let me know what you think in the comments.
3 Stupid Things Leaders Often Think
Nobody sets out to be a bad leader, but certain myths creep in over time and shape decision-making in ways that undermine everything you’re trying to accomplish. It’s not uncommon for leaders to say things like, “We need better people,”We need to create a sense of urgency” and, “We had a great strategy, but couldn’t execute it.”
Notice the shift in accountability. Who recruited, hired, trained and managed all of those “not good enough people?” Why do you think the same process will result in better hires? If something is important, why don’t people already feel a sense of urgency? If it was such a good strategy, taking into account capabilities and market realities, why couldn’t you execute it?
To be an effective leader, you have to learn to ask yourself the hard questions: Why are we failing our people? Why don’t key stakeholders feel invested in our outcomes? Why can’t we execute on opportunities we’ve identified?
Disruption Doesn’t Drive Innovation—Safety Does
In March 2024, Bayer’s CEO Bill Anderson published a manifesto in Fortune vowing to “bust bureaucracy” and “radically reinvent” the company. More than a year later, Bayer’s stock remains near all-time lows. He went into an organization that was already reeling and introduced even more stress and disruption, with predictable results.
Here’s what the disruption gurus don’t tell you: fear inhibits learning, stress drains cognitive capacity, and instability rattles exactly the people you can least afford to lose. When Lou Gerstner took over IBM on the verge of collapse, he didn’t demand results—he reassured scientists he’d support their work. When Paul O’Neill transformed Alcoa, he focused on safety, not profits. Both achieved record-setting profitability by making their organizations feel safe enough to embrace change.
The seductive appeal of “disruption” has become a personal brand for leaders who want to feel bold and visionary, but the safer you make your organization, the more you empower people to think boldly and take risks. If you want genuine transformation, stop disrupting your people and start building the trust where bold action can actually thrive.
This Is How You Bring Down A Dictator
Gene Sharp spent most of his life as an obscure academic with a seemingly quixotic idea: that nonviolence could prevail over brutal dictators. Then a group of young activists used his methods to overthrow Slobodan Milošević in Serbia, inspiring the Rose Revolution in Georgia and the Orange Revolution in Ukraine. Today, his methods have been successfully applied in more than 50 countries.
Sharp’s key insight is deceptively simple: power is never monolithic but distributed across institutions. Even an all-powerful dictator like Putin or Xi can’t pick up the trash if all the janitors refuse to work. Every regime depends on “Pillars of Support”—legislative systems, police, media, commercial institutions. If you are to create genuine transformation it is those pillars you need to influence.
I saw the power of these methods firsthand in Ukraine, and it inspired me to write Cascades, showing how the same principles work for organizational transformation. Whether you’re fighting authoritarianism or driving change in your company, the playbook is the same: identify the institutions that matter, find their vulnerabilities, and strengthen the norms and values that create lasting change. This post will show you how to do that.
The End of History All Over Again…
In 2003, while living in Moscow, I couldn’t shake the feeling: “This must be what Weimar Germany felt like.” Russians didn’t think they lost the Cold War—they thought their leaders betrayed them and surrendered. Russia would try to dominate again. At the time, I worried I was being alarmist. Today, it’s clear I was not.
The neoliberal Washington Consensus that emerged after the Berlin Wall fell has been found grossly inadequate. From the steppes of Eastern Ukraine to the steps of the U.S. Capitol, rational economic systems have given way to battles over identity and recognition. New ideological movements are emerging and it’s not clear where we go next.
We’re undergoing a fundamental realignment driven by four major shifts in demography, technology, resources, and migration. The main debate now is whether the current system needs to be completely torn down or redesigned and strengthened. Our fundamental mistake over the past half century was believing we could transcend human nature. Whatever comes next will have to begin by acknowledging the visceral human yearning for dignity and meaning.
Why We Fail to Adapt — And The 3 Hidden Forces Holding You Back
Max Planck once said that scientific truth doesn’t triumph by convincing opponents, but because opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up familiar with it. That may be extreme, but the point stands: the status quo never yields its power gracefully. To create genuine change, you need to overcome three hidden forces that keep people stuck.
The synaptic effect makes our brains wire around familiar patterns. The culture effect means those around us reinforce common beliefs, extending out to three degrees of separation. The cost effect triggers our bias for loss aversion, making the comfort of the status quo more powerful than the uncertain promise of transformation.
Once you understand these forces, you can address them directly instead of just pushing harder against resistance. This article shows you how to help people unlearn entrenched assumptions, shift cultural norms, and overcome the switching costs that keep organizations stuck. If you truly believe in change, passion and good intentions aren’t enough. You need to understand why we fail to adapt.
How To Design A Keystone Change In 4 (Not So Easy) Steps
One of the most common mistakes change leaders make is to start with a bang—a huge launch event designed to build momentum and create a sense of urgency. But that approach rarely works and often backfires, triggering resistance before the initiative has any chance to gain traction.
The smarter approach is to start with a Keystone Change: a clear, tangible goal involving multiple stakeholders that paves the way for future transformation. Your initial idea is always wrong, so you need to iterate with allies who are already enthusiastic. Once you’ve got it right, you can scale with tools that help people spread the idea through peer networks.
This article walks you through the four steps to make it happen—from defining an aspirational vision to designing resources that empower others to champion your cause.
The Experts Aren’t the Problem. It’s How You’re Listening to Them
Even a teenager today can access more information in minutes than experts at major institutions once could in weeks—but that hasn’t made us better at understanding it. This article explains why expertise is deeply contextual and far more specialized than it seems.
From misconceptions about Ukraine to exaggerated claims about AI’s economic impact, the piece shows how easily data misleads without the right background. Technologists and economists look at the same trends and reach different conclusions—not because one is wrong, but because each sees only part of the picture.
Real insight comes from integrating multiple perspectives, not picking a single authority. Whether interpreting world events or solving complex problems (sometimes with clams), better decisions depend on understanding what experts actually know—and where their limits are. This article shows how to do that.
How To Navigate Power, Build Influence, And Finally Get Your Ideas Heard
Everyone thinks good ideas rise on their merits—but they rarely do. Whether you’re a young professional or a senior leader, the biggest barrier isn’t the quality of your ideas, it’s the power dynamics around them. This article breaks down why even breakthrough innovations face resistance and why influence—not brilliance—is what determines whether your ideas get heard.
You’ll learn the three types of power—hard, soft, and network power—and how they actually work inside organizations. Using examples from Steve Jobs to Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and insights from network analysis, the article shows how influence flows, who really holds power, and how you can position yourself to gain traction without needing a big title.
Most of all, it explains how to build genuine influence by attracting allies, creating psychological safety, and expanding your network strategically. Power isn’t bestowed by hierarchy—it’s something you create. If you want your ideas to shape decisions rather than die in meetings, this post will show you how to make that happen.
How Tribal Instincts Drive Change
We’ve all seen the S-curve of adoption, but few people ever ask why change spreads the way it does. This article connects Everett Rogers’ foundational research to new insights from Michael Morris’s book Tribal, showing that human instincts—not technology—drive how ideas catch on. Smart leaders stop fighting human nature and learn to work with it.
You’ll discover how three core instincts shape every change effort: the peer instinct that helps early adopters explore beyond their immediate community, the hero instinct that accelerates adoption through admired role models, and the ancestor instinct that helps new ideas feel familiar and safe. These forces explain why some innovations scale quickly while others stall for decades.
Most of all, the piece shows how to harness these instincts intentionally—by shaping networks, celebrating early success, and grounding new ideas in respected traditions. If you want your ideas to spread faster and stick longer, understanding tribal signals isn’t optional. It’s the key to driving change that lasts.
When You Feel The Urge To Create A Conflict, Create A Dilemma Instead
When we face opposition, our instinct is to push back—to argue, confront, and overpower. But as history shows, direct conflict almost always triggers an equally forceful counterreaction. This article reveals a smarter path: instead of fighting your opponents, create a dilemma that forces them to undermine their own position.
From Gavin Newsom’s Winter of Love to Alice Paul’s Silent Sentinels and even a toy protest that embarrassed Vladimir Putin, the examples all show the same thing: well-designed dilemmas shift the burden of action to the opposition. Rather than engaging in a messy fight, you create a situation where any response they choose strengthens your cause.
The piece also applies this strategy to everyday leadership, illustrating how dilemmas can break internal logjams without escalating tension. If you want to advance your ideas without creating unnecessary enemies, this article shows how to reframe the struggle, change the incentives, and make progress with far less conflict.
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So those are my top posts for 2025. Thanks to everybody for all your support over the years. I’m taking the next few weeks off, but will be back on Sunday, January 4th with my future trend for 2026.
Have a safe and happy New Year!
– Greg
