Principles for Human Organizations

The term "principles" is often used to describe a wish-list of behaviors or ideals to which people are asked to aspire. That is not the way I want to use it to here.

Instead, I want to ask the question:

What works best when people are trying to get things done together?

Fortunately, it just so happens that the answers to this question, which is pragmatic to its core, turn out to have a lot of overlap with the more idealized question:

What does a community agree is principled behavior when they work together?

It is the intersection of these two questions that has the highest potential for organizational design. If such principles can be built into the "DNA" of an organization, it is almost certain to grow and prosper irrespective of its specific goals or objectives.