George Schuler

We call it choking. But if you watch closely, it doesn’t look like failure. It looks like something coming apart in real time. Early look: bit.ly/4s2eyPJ Full Substack essay next week.

A new note on Substack starts with something small and operational, a workshop design problem and a systems constraint, and slowly turns into questions about structure, friction, participation, or how people actually work together. bit.ly/4nlkfaG

Read here: Modern Love: How Forging Relationships in the Time of Information Isn’t What You Think It Is connectingforchangellc.com/insights/moder… #SystemsThinking #Networks #Communication #ModernLove

This essay started as a reflection on modern intimacy. It became a systems essay. “The scales differ. The structure does not.” 4/5

We are the most reachable generation in human history. And many people feel more disconnected than ever. I wrote an essay about that paradox, and why modern relationships increasingly resemble overloaded systems. 1/5

Out now!

Out now: Choke Job Why good teams go bad. Not just failure— what starts to break before it. Read on Substack: bit.ly/41I1oMS

It’s not that individuals stop performing. It’s that their actions stop fitting together.

We call it choking. But if you watch closely, it doesn’t look like failure. It looks like something coming apart in real time. Early look: bit.ly/4s2eyPJ Full Substack essay next week.

Most systems look decentralized. I’m starting to think they aren’t. Influence tends to concentrate in specific places—whether we see it or not. Kicking off a series: Field Notes on Power, Flow, and Failure Curious where this resonates (or doesn’t): lnkd.in/etmYvySE

Systems rarely collapse all at once. More often the structure remains while the motion disappears. This issue of The Network We Need explores what ecological migration systems can teach us about institutional momentum. 🔗 lnkd.in/eVvDrNUW

First they came for Orvis. Not with debt and leverage, but with taste, pricing, and a quiet narrowing of who belongs. “Private Equity Is Ruining a Beloved Fly-Fishing Brand, Retailers Say - Bloomberg Businessweek” apple.news/AJ0qr-oogTKKv_…

We talk a lot about alignment, coordination, and systems change. This month’s newsletter looks at something quieter and more consequential: the language, roles, and connective work that actually let systems function under load. bit.ly/3LULZEM

Across water, climate, and nearly every complex issue, we ask for collaboration in systems designed to prevent reciprocity — and then wonder why ground truth never reaches global priorities.

The places where systems actually work, from tribal salmon co-management to WASH systems to civic assemblies, share architecture: information moves without distortion, and authority returns without losing grounding. 🔗 Read the Connective Tissue essay: buff.ly/xT0fVJ9

Systems fail not due to apathy, but because the architecture between ground truth and global decisions loses meaning. The culvert in Maine is a diagnostic, not a metaphor. 🔗 Read the full essay: buff.ly/xT0fVJ9

2nd Edition of The Networks We Need is out! open.substack.com/pub/thenetwork…

I've spent years with one foot in the world of ground truth and the other in the realm of global ambition. Functioning systems can feel the signals from the ground; broken ones can't. Connective Tissue is about why that gap exists--and what it takes to rebuild coherence.

Today, we’re launching The Networks We Need, a monthly newsletter from Connecting for Change about the hidden architecture of collaboration, partnerships, systems, and collective action, I think you’ll find value in it. Subscribe to The Network We Need thenetworkweneed.substack.com/?utm_campaign=…