322 LEADINGORGANIZATIONALLEARNING
Exhibit 29.1 How Pine Street Works- We work very hard to practice what we teach. In particular,
we seek to operate smoothly across boundaries (divisional,
regional, business unit, firm, client) and in a nonhierarchical
manner. - We never slow a project down. If our client wants to do some-
thing tomorrow, that’s when we do it. We regularly seek input
from one another to improve the quality of our work, but we
make every effort to avoid excessive meetings, postings, and
consensus building. (We keep in mind that sometimes reach-
ing consensus means disagree and commit.) - We always say yes to requests for our help. If we can’t do some-
thing ourselves, we help identify someone who can do the job. - Since we are a small team, our preference regarding impor-
tant projects outside Pine Street’s core activities is that some-
one else in the firm does them but does them well. Our third
choice is that they are done poorly or aren’t done at all. Our
second choice is that we do them. (Some portion of our
workload derives from the fact that we hate to settle for our
third choice.) - We search for opportunities to work with individuals from other
parts of the firm. Sometimes this takes the form of a formal part-
nership, but we also benefit from “resources in place,” people
whose primary responsibilities are outside Pine Street but care
enough about some Pine Street project to work with us on it.
We also welcome opportunities to run pilot sessions of our pro-
grams within one division before rolling them out firmwide. - Each of us spends nearly all his or her time working on proj-
ects and programs. None of us is a “manager.” We have a
very flat organization and strongly believe in empowering
people—giving them considerable operating freedom and
expecting them to ask for help when they need it. All of our
team members lead projects. Senior people regularly work for,
and report to, more junior team members.