"Change must not be thought of as a property of organisation. Rather, organisation must be understood as an emergent property of change.”
Nayak & Chia, 2011
We are living in a time when many of our inherited ways no longer serve. We were taught to plan, to predict, to control. To measure twice, cut once, and follow the map. But what happens when the path disappears? When the map runs out, and the systems around us feel too rigid, extractive, or soul-dulling to hold the complexity of what we’re facing, or all we’re becoming?
In a world increasingly reshaped by artificial intelligence, ecological fragility, and social complexity, one thing is becoming clear: we are no longer merely managing organisations. We are participating in ongoing processes of organising.To organise is no longer just about designing perfect structures and scaling them. It is to stay in motion, to listen, to adapt. It is a relational act, a weaving. There are many words for how we move through the world: wayfinding, waymaking, wayfaring, wayshowing, wayshaping.
Each evokes a different nuance, but none are quite enough. Because life, and our human relationship with ways, isn’t linear or singular. It spirals, shifts, meanders, and disappears.
We need a new way of speaking, sensing, and being in motion.This is why I created the word Waycraft.
Sometimes, we need new words not to define things too tightly, but to keep their meaning moving. Language, too, can become a map. Waycraft resists that gravitational pull; it’s a word that invites motion and evolution.
What is Waycraft?
Waycraft is a practice of navigating complexity through attunement, presence, and responsiveness-a craft of reading patterns, managing constraints, participating in emergence, and responding in real-time.
It is a way of working that honours both structure and flow, planning and improvisation.
Waycraft isn’t a method or a map. It’s a lived, relational practice.
It’s what we do when we can no longer rely on established routes and must instead read the terrain as we move through it. In the words of poet Antonio Machado, we must make paths by walking.
The Paradox of Work: Why Meaning Still Matters
Even before the rise of generative AI, the world of work was fraying.
While many people say they would still choose to work even if they were financially independent, levels of disengagement in the global workforce remain staggeringly high.
As the late anthropologist David Graeber observed, the crisis in work is not only structural, but also existential. He coined the term “bullshit jobs” to describe roles so devoid of purpose that even those doing them believe they shouldn’t exist. These roles create not just boredom, but deep psychological distress, because they are hollow.
When work feels hollow, it’s often because we’ve prioritised predictable outcomes over responsive relationships, efficiency over emergence, and control over care.
Recent research indicates that meaningfulness matters more to people than anything else at work, even pay, promotions, or working conditions. Yet few organisations have restructured themselves around this insight. One notable exception is Patagonia, an outdoor clothing company that has built its business model around environmental activism and ‘responsible capitalism’.
At Patagonia, this challenge is met not with a motivational campaign, but with structural decisions that honour dignity, purpose, and rhythm. From “Let My People Go Surfing” policies that support autonomy, to on-site childcare and values-driven leadership practices, the culture is designed not for compliance, but for coherence. The result? Deep commitment and astonishingly low turnover.
Leadership is Cracking: What Now?
The crisis of meaninglessness not only impacts team performance, but it also wears down those trying to lead through it.
Leaders are cracking under the pressure of relentless transformation, conflicting priorities, and the impossible task of performing certainty in uncertain times.
In one organisation I worked with, we experimented in a strategy workshop by not starting with frameworks and tools, but with stillness. We invited leaders to pause in stillness for an extended period, tune into what their bodies were telling them, and sense what was actually needed. It was uncomfortable. But that discomfort created the space for honesty. Leaders admitted they were exhausted, disoriented, and yearning for genuine connection.
Certainty has become a performance, not a reality. And pretending exhausts more than uncertainty itself.
Waycraft invites a shift from heroic leadership to collaborative wayfinding. From control to presence, from performance to attunement.
Waycraft is Not a Map: Cultivating Adaptive Rhythms
Too often, we try to escape failing maps by designing new ones that are equally rigid.
Waycraft offers an alternative: not a map, but a rhythm. Not a recipe, but a relationship.
Instead of blueprints, Waycraft invites us into recurring patterns of movement, ways of relating to uncertainty that emerge through practice. Some examples include:
Way-Dowsing: Sensing beneath surface patterns to uncover underlying currents (tuning into team dynamics, client shifts, or market signals before they become obvious)
Way-Weaving: Connecting perspectives, possibilities, and people (bringing together insights across functions, stakeholders, or data)
Way-Ceding: Knowing when to pause or pass the baton (releasing what no longer serves, making space for others to lead)
Way-Fermenting: Allowing time for slow emergence (protecting exploratory time, or allowing a business model to evolve rather than forcing premature scaling)
These rhythms act as expanded sensing and responding, helping leaders attune to subtle shifts and emerging patterns. Three simple frameworks support the work:
COOL: The stance or posture we adopt while practising Waycraft – Courage, Openness, Observing, Lightness
Waysfinder: A scaffolding framework that enables continuous orientation and movement in the unknown. While simple, it is deeply rooted in theoretical principles, particularly the relationship between constraints and affordances. By orienting to the current state, clarifying intent or direction, and acknowledging guardrails, we create a contained option field within which we take experimental steps, attune to the rhythms explored above, and learn through feedback.
STAR: An attunement mechanism to enable movement in dynamic contexts – Sense, Tune In, Awareness, Respond”
At its heart, Waycraft is not about following maps or instructions, but cultivating sensitivity to the work, the people, the timing, and the field.
This is what we see at Patagonia, and in ecosystems like Haier, where the Rendanheyi model dissolves traditional boundaries and encourages organising as an open, participatory process. Meaning and innovation emerge not in silos, but in the field between.
The future doesn’t emerge solely through scale or speed; it emerges through relationship, reflection, and a willingness to compost what no longer serves. Waycraft encourages us to make necessary endings, remain responsive, and use what we’ve learned as nutrients for what comes next.
Failure becomes fertile when we trust the field enough to stay with the discomfort.
Waycraft on a Monday Morning
Waycraft is a living rhythm, a practice, not a concept. It shows up in how we begin the week, how we conduct our meetings, how we decide on our next strategic actions, and how we relate to others. Here’s how it might look in everyday work:
Way-Dowsing: Open team meetings with, “What is alive here now? What are we sensing that hasn’t been named yet?”
Way-Weaving: In reviews, ask “What perspectives might we be missing? How do we invite in different views?”
Way-Ceding: Ask “What could we pause or release? What might we need to surrender or allow?”
Way-Fermenting: Protect unstructured time and ask, “What’s emerging that isn’t ready yet? What needs more time?”
These questions aren’t checklists. They’re invitations to remain in motion, in conversation, and in coherence.
Final Thread: Weaving the Future Together
The organisation of the future will not be built once.
It will be continuously woven through presence, purpose, and relational rhythm.
And as structures become more permeable, organising extends beyond organisational boundaries, into ecosystems of care, partners, communities, and even future generations.
Let us become skillful navigators, not certainty merchants.
Let us design for aliveness, not just efficiency.
Let us reclaim the full range of our humanity – body, mind, and spirit – and co-create systems that can hold all of it.
