The Zombie Cure

February 25, 2019

So, pretend for a minute that you’ve been asked to consult for a company. You do a little research on them: they’re a name brand, their products have names your parents might recognize, and there are a bunch of hot startups providing the same service for free. Basically, they have a distinguished history and a lot of resources, but they are already on the wrong side of the disruption wave. In short, they’re getting their butts kicked in the market.

These companies are sort of the corporate equivalent of zombies. They still stumble about making product, and occasionally eating the brains of another company (and a consultant or two), but they really haven’t realized that they are dead yet. From an outsider’s perspective though, it’s pretty clear from the moaning noises coming from within, that the undead are indeed walking the earth.

Oh…and did I mention that they want you to help them transition to agile?


So what do you do? I’ve watched enough zombie movies that I know what the high survival strategy is: pound some nails in a baseball bat to defend yourself with and…run away (rule #1: Cardio). However, I’m told that’s not a very dignified look for a management consultant. That’s a pity. I think the Mad Max Consultant look just might work for me. So what are we to do for these zombie companies?

Well, first, the wrong answer to the agile transition question is “Yes.” You see, agile isn’t really their problem. In fact, I’m fairly certain there is no compelling evidence that agile cures zombies (or helps with zombies in any useful fashion). If the market has left you in the dust, because you have been outmaneuvered by faster, more nimble companies, then making your teams fast and nimble after the fact is too little, too late. Besides, everyone knows making zombies faster is a really stupid idea. You’ve already lost the product battle. No amount of prioritization, estimation, or retrospectives will restore life to a dead product.

The fact is, that with the increasing pace of change and disruption, if you wait to change until after the wave has passed, there is no catching up. You really only have two options:

  1. Pivot: Go back to whatever pale shadow of a customer base that remains after your zombie apocalypse and see if there is a peripheral, closely related market that contains a significant opportunity to capitalize on. I remember doing this when the printing software business was nearly wiped out by the introduction of the web. Everyone saw that train coming. We did a pivot and tried to move into packaging software. It was a good idea: the web couldn’t replace the need for packaging and it was a big business. Unfortunately, we didn’t quite do it fast enough, and a bigger company ate us. That company? Kodak. Welcome to Zombieville. (Mmmm…brains!)
  2. Prioritize innovation over everything: Give up notions of productivity and efficiency, those ideas are for healthy companies with viable products. You’re basically a startup again, and you need to find another market – FAST! It won’t be pretty and it won’t be easy. People need to be rummaging through garbage bins looking for the next product. Anything goes. It’s risky taking a bet like this, but keep in mind what the alternative is – an unquenchable thirst for brains. You decide.

Now I confess that I’ve had a lot of fun writing much of this with my tongue firmly planted in my cheek. However, I believe that the question is a serious one: How do we answer a struggling company that from all appearances is doomed? As consultants we are faced with this question from time to time. I know that some would run away from a company like that. There are those in our business that just want to work with winners. I can’t disagree that working with successful companies is rewarding. However, if I’m honest, I also don’t think it’s very impressive.

I must have a thing for the underdog. My motto should probably be, “If your company doesn’t suck, I’m not interested.” Or, according to Google translate, “Si lac filio societas non est: Ego non quaero.” You see, if your company is awesome, you really don’t need me. There are a host of mediocre consultants who I’m sure are eager to help. However, if your company sucks, then there is the real possibility that together we can make a significant difference, and save the world (OK, I got a little excited there, just your company). That’s what I find exciting. That means I’m probably either a really good consultant or an ambulance chaser.

Phew, time to watch some zombie movies and brush up on my technique. I’d like to thank: the Academy, George Romero, the entire cast of The Walking Dead, and those strange people lingering at the Hotcake House after 3:00 AM.

Does Your Company Suck?

Then we should definitely talk. I provide innovative agile coaching, training, and facilitation to help organizations transform to deliver breakthrough products and performance. I do this by achieving a deep understanding of the business and by enabling the emergence of self-organizing teams and unleashing individual passion.

To learn more about the services that I offer or to arrange for an initial consultation, please see thomasperryllc.com

The Living Organization

November 19, 2018


I should begin this with a brief explanation: I read a book recently called “Design in Nature” by Adrian Bejan. It’s a physics book – he’s a thermodynamics guy. I don’t know much about physics, but one of the things that intrigued me about this book, was that it started with a definition of what life is from a pure physics perspective. That beginning, starting from first principles, was enough to get me thinking. I started to wonder, what would it be like to start with a definition of organizational life? Would that uncover some interesting insights into how organizations work? So I took Adrian’s definition of life and I hacked it a bit to work for organizations. Something like this:

For an organization to live, its structure must evolve so that it provides easier access to the work/ideas that flow through it.
-Derived from Adrian Bejan’s Constructal Law, Design in Nature [1]

Let’s take that statement and break it down step by step. First, all organizations are living systems. Living elements, namely people, make up organizations and they have some sort of discernible life-cycle of birth, life, and death [2]. For example, most organizations have some sort of entrepreneurial origins or birth. Some never get any further than that. They never find a foothold in the business ecosystem and as a result, they never reach a viable, sustainable state. A lucky few find their way to reach a profitable niche. These businesses are able to form a stable enterprise that capitalizes on this success. These businesses often optimize for their domain, transforming from groping for opportunity to maximizing the profit they can make from that opportunity. In essence, they evolve to maximize the benefit they receive from the success they have found. However, markets, like any living ecosystem, are subject to change and disruption. As these changes take place, the profit that once made the company thrive may disappear. At this point, to survive, the organization needs to evolve again. It needs to find a new niche in its ecosystem where it can thrive. Otherwise, the only alternative is death.

So, every organization is a living system that is changing or evolving to survive within an ecosystem [3]. It follows that the organizations that are fastest to evolve are most likely the organizations that survive in any ecosystem that is subject to ongoing change and disruption. All living systems require the capacity to change, potentially very rapidly, in the face of new threats. If we change too slowly, we can’t keep up with disruptions in our environment and subsequently die. So the advantage goes to the swift when it comes to change.

This brings us to the third and final attribute of living systems: flow [4]. The thing that all living systems have in common is flow. It is the flow of water, or blood, or even information. In its most abstract sense, flow is the fundamental characteristic of any living system. Systems with better flow change faster than systems with poorer flow. So the ability to change or evolve is directly dependent on the efficiency of the organization’s flow.

So if organizations are living systems, and living systems have flow, and the system that evolves to the best flow wins, how we structure our organizations to optimize flow is the most important question we can ask.


[1]”For a finite-size flow system to persist in time (to live), its configuration must evolve in such a way that provides easier access to the currents that flow through it.” Adrian Bejan, Design in Nature
[2]Koshland, Jr., Daniel E. (22 March 2002). “The Seven Pillars of Life”. Science. 295 (5563): 2215–16. doi:10.1126/science.1068489. PMID 11910092. Archived from the original on 28 February 2009. Retrieved 25 May 2009.
[3]Futuyma, Douglas J.; Kirkpatrick, Mark (2017). “Mutation and variation”. Evolution (Fourth ed.). Sunderland, Massachusetts: Sinauer Associates, Inc. pp. 79–102. ISBN 160-5-35605-0.


October 23, 2016







Still no lake.






















