Strategies for Organization Design

13Where Should You Start?

“Organizing is what you do before you do something, so that when you do it, it is not all mixed up.”

—A.A. Milne

I am obsessed with HGTV. For those not familiar, this is an entire TV network dedicated to watching others shop for, design, renovate, and sell homes. I allow myself to watch it only when on the treadmill or during takeoff and landing on the plane before you are allowed to get your laptop out and start working.

I particularly love the renovation shows. The hosts walk through a dark, messy, overcrowded space and reimagine it with their modern design apps on their tablets, showing the owners (and the viewers) their amazing visions. Then they dismantle the place and rebuild it into a perfect future. We viewers have all laughed at what seemed like a good idea at the time—the 1960s wet bar in the front hall, the 1970s lava rock fireplace, the 1980s roosters on kitchen tiles, and the 1990s giant fiberglass bathtubs.

But in the end, everything is so perfect, organized, clean, and bright that the owners cry at the transformation. In the closing scene, you see them all living happily ever after with friends and family enjoying wine and cheese in the new kitchen or kids and parents going down the slide into their new pool in their resort‐style backyards.

There is something incredibly appealing to me (and to many others, it seems, given the success of the network) about rebuilding a space to make it more suitable for the life we live today. Open ...