Structuration Theory

Good theories are like good chai — strong, simple, and best shared. Structuration Theory qualifies.

The theory's gift is vocabulary. Once you have the word, you can see the thing — in your office, in your family, in the news. Before the word, it was only a vague discomfort after dinner.

What this concept offers is a pause — one extra beat between what happens and what you do about it. Civilisation, someone said, is measured in that beat.

Watch two shopkeepers in the same lane during a lean month. One cuts quality, the other cuts margin. In a year, one has customers and the other has stock.

Money is a good clerk and a terrible master; the arrangement is entirely up to us. Tomorrow will provide the test. It always does.