{"id":90011,"date":"2025-01-21T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-21T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/?p=90011"},"modified":"2026-10-10T15:24:26","modified_gmt":"2026-10-10T19:24:26","slug":"hold-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/hold-on\/","title":{"rendered":"Hold on."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Hold on<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Hold on. What are we even talking about here?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In two decades of my career, this question or some version of it has been my role in most rooms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve worked on everything from designing gelato stores, schools, colleges, and restaurants from scratch to creating corporate architectures for complex logistics companies and building strategies for sports teams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve sat side by side with the senior-most partners in consulting environments, solving complex, refuse-to-lose bids and winning over $2 billion in strategic deals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve worked with solo founders, entrepreneurs, and organizations at every scale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And yet, I keep finding myself asking:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAre we actually solving the right problem here?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s the real point we\u2019re trying to make?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDoes this even make sense to anyone?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Far too often, I walk into conversations where post-it notes from \u201cdesign-thinking\u201d workshops, frameworks, charts, and checklists dominate the walls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They look impressive: systematic and logical, even.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the outputs?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They\u2019re stored in digital Narnia and will never be implemented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because they\u2019re just a fa\u00e7ade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A way to say, \u201cLook, we followed the process; don\u2019t fire me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s what Chris Argyris calls single-loop learning: going through the motions without addressing the core problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reality is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

\n \n
\n \n

Subscribe to keep reading<\/h2>\n \n \n

\n Become a paid subscriber to get access to the rest of this post and other exclusive content.\n <\/p>\n \n \n

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\n Subscribe<\/a>\n <\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n \n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hold on Hold on. What are we even talking about here? In two decades of my career, this question or some version of it has been my role in most rooms. I\u2019ve worked on everything from designing gelato stores, schools, colleges, and restaurants from scratch to creating corporate architectures for complex logistics companies and building […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"paid_subscribers","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":true,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"rank_math_title":"","rank_math_description":"","rank_math_canonical_url":"","rank_math_focus_keyword":""},"categories":[91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-90011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-digest-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7CVvN-npN","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90011"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90011\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90256,"href":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90011\/revisions\/90256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}