Let’s not be too academic

Summary

A sharp LinkedIn polemic from Otti Vogt against change agents who wave theory away with “Let’s not be too academic.” Treat systems as neutral complexity rather than political arrangements, he argues, and pragmatism becomes “managerial choreography, arranging symptoms while ignoring structures”. Which means more pilots and frameworks, when “one cannot prototype one’s way out of political decay”.

Rationale

We agree theory isn’t a luxury, but he pulls against us on pilots: a portfolio of real-world experiments, closely attended to, is how we think this work learns.