Writing

Here are links to articles and posts that Morgan has written over the years. Subscribe to the Business Casual newsletter below for updates about new work!

What's the matter with management? (Aug 2024)

Recently, I’ve started to see people give up. Founders who started their companies with grand aspirations of doing well while doing good are throwing in the towel. Doing good feels impossible. Doing better doesn’t even seem feasible. What’s the point of trying?

Business owners are losing hope.

And the result of all this burnout? Tons of businesses these days are running on empty. They’ve burned through all their human resources.

It’s time to help them refuel. We need to set up sustainable systems that recharge workers instead of draining them. We need to manage better.

Feedback Can be a Choking Hazard (May 2023)

These days I ask for feedback not because I’m super brave or bulletproof (if anything, the opposite is true). I do it because I want to avoid the feeling of being blindsided by something huge, or my own personal nightmare — never knowing what went wrong. It is daunting to walk into a conversation and acknowledge pain points out loud, or open yourself up to real-time reactions from others about something you’ve done, but it is always better out than in. Sunlight really is the best disinfectant. But even feedback pros like me constantly get caught in the weeds. That’s honestly what’s so fascinating about it – the field is forever leveled by the fact that we are only human, doing our best but fumbling nonetheless.

Infrastructures of Care (Nov 2022)

In the dwindling days of 2022, I can’t stop thinking about the concept of infrastructures of care. I first heard the phrase from Anne Helen Peterson and it gave shape to something I was struggling to articulate. On a grand scale, and on the most intimate levels in these post-peak-pandemic days, being held and holding others in ways that foreground intentional, structured care is more urgent than ever.

More Less in 2022 (Dec 2021)

This phrase is my answer to the ambient, protracted loss that we’ve been experiencing since the dawn of the pandemic, the grief that feels never-ending these days. On some level, it is my attempt to take ownership of some of this grief and become the author – intentionally releasing stuff rather than having it be taken away from me. So, as you enter this new year I invite you to practice “more less” with me. What this means is: more stillness, less vibrating. More presence, less future. More holding, less clinging. More being, less reaching. More thoughtfully saying no, less knee-jerk saying yes. More quitting, more walking away, more taking space. Less optimizing, less making it work, less fixating.

Want to Facilitate Online Meetings That Don't Suck?
Try the Nesting Doll Approach
(May 2021)

Ultimately, we are creating worlds with our words in every meeting. We have an incredible opportunity to leverage the features of virtual meetings in order to generate experiences that engage participants, instead of alienate them. And this is where the nesting dolls come in. The crucial point here is that you need to double down on providing structure in order to enable folks to feel safe being generative and vulnerable when meeting virtually. In person, such directives might feel static, or overly formal, but people can’t effectively participate in online discussions without them.

When You Can't Go Anywhere, There You Are (May 2020)

Stripping everything down and staying in one place, limiting all interactions with people and the outside world during quarantine has created a strange intimacy with myself — a space I was too busy and mobile to notice before.Since I can’t be physically present with most of my loved ones, I have become intimately acquainted with my feelings about everyone who matters. They have all become projections, a pixelated cast of characters in a weird new world. I am constantly exploring who I miss, what exactly I miss about them, and figuring out the shape of their absence within me. Each void has a texture and dimensions.

The Secret to Asking for Feedback (Feb 2020)

These days it’s hard to separate the good guys from the bad guys; the distinction no longer seems to hold water. Binary thinking has evolved from a simplistic survival mechanism into a rationale for lethal polarization. Toxic call-out culture has most of us paralyzed. We’re afraid to say the wrong thing for fear of getting canceled, so instead we say nothing at all.In a world that is becoming increasingly complex, we need simple tools to find our place in it, and to show up as human beings in the process. Feedback is one of these tools.

Growing Up Your Friendships (Nov 2019)

When we grow up, our friendships don’t naturally transition into adult friendships. It takes effort and intention to ensure that your friendships develop in step with you as you get older. And it’s a lot harder to make friends as adults than it was when we were children. The fact that we are taught to appear more sorted out and buttoned up as adults makes it harder to connect with people. In order to make friends, you need to be open to sharing yourself with others — there’s a vulnerability required that often feels at odds with what we are socialized to believe that a grown-up must continually project.

Building the Whole Landscape [PODCAST] (Jul 2019)

On Episode 326 of the Giant Robots Smashing into Other Giant Robots podcast, Morgan Evans, organizational designer and CEO & Founder of Business Casual, discusses developing systems to holistically design a company, building a culture that is receptive to feedback, conflict mediation, acknowledging emotions while at work, and early days at Etsy.

Feedback Can Save the World  (Dec 2018)

Feedback is a lever that increases the depth and quality of our relationships. Feedback is the signal we get back when we put something out in the world that lets us know how it was received. Feedback enables us to separate our selves and identities from our actions and work, which helps us learn, progress toward our goals and participate in one another’s growth. Feedback helps us bear witness to one another. Feedback lets us see, and be seen.

Six Tips to Facilitate Organizational Learning (Nov 2017)

Have you ever worked somewhere where something went wrong? Does it take you longer than you think it will to explain what you do in your job Chances are, you work at a complex organization and you’re probably an expert at what you do. In most organizations when an incident occurs, it’s common practice to call a meeting to discuss it. Generally called postmortems, retrospectives or after action reviews, the number of people in the room and the agendas of these gatherings vary. Sometimes new protocols are created, sometimes people get fired. The most important outcome from these meetings — and the only one that truly matters — is learning and good facilitation is crucial to making that happen.

Stop Blaming and Start Learning (May 2016)

Learning from failure is something we imagine to happen naturally — and sometimes it does. You will instinctively think twice before touching the stove top after getting burned. However, as work becomes more complex and involves more people and components, learning from failure becomes more daunting and uncomfortable.