Change efforts that feel unique from the inside often share recognizable patterns.
The Field Guide is an ongoing inquiry into institutional change and the people who lead it.
It began with a simple observation: many change efforts that appear unique from the inside often share recognizable patterns. The language differs. The sectors differ. The personalities differ. Yet the underlying dynamics recur with surprising consistency.
Through essays, conversations, and practitioner interviews, this project explores how institutional change is experienced in practice: in particular, how power circulates beneath formal authority and how people sustain meaningful work inside systems that often resist it.
The aim is to develop a practical field guide for change leaders — a way of recognizing patterns that are often difficult to see while living through them.
Decisions rarely get made where the org chart says they do. This essay is about the informal circles that hold varying degrees of influence, and what it means to navigate them.
Contribute
If these patterns sound familiar, I’d like to hear from you.
I am particularly interested in hearing from practitioners working in institutional reform, public sector modernization, digital transformation, organizational change, and adjacent fields.
Institutional reform
Public sector modernization
Digital transformation
Organizational change
If the essays resonate with your experience, if you have encountered similar patterns, or if you are interested in contributing observations to the development of the Field Guide, I would welcome a conversation.
