Summer Reading 2026

Summer 2026 series conclusion

This season of the Circudyne Letter marked the beginning of what I intend to make an annual tradition: summer reading. A time to revisit books I haven't read in a while (this time through the lens of circularity transformation), or make time for books I should have read by now but haven't.

I was keen to get a broader understanding of some of the foundational works of circularity, and return to some familiar works that have influenced my thinking about how to advance the transformation. Writing this as I am during a September nor'easter, summer seems a long time ago. But the takeaways are still fresh.

🔜 Next week the Letter begins its sixth season, in which we will examine the nature of transformation architecture itself. Brace yourself for change.

Throughlines

There is no data from the future

One of the conceits of the present moment I'm keen to help moderate is the substitution of data for imagination. Data is a popular bet settler and argument ender, and has its place in guiding decisions. But what happens when data is not available — as is the case with the future?

Meadows, Forrester, Popper and Kuhn, and Fadell each arrived at this notion in their particular way. And of course, Martin has popularized the bifurcation of business knowledge based on the availability of data.

Known limits

Perhaps it's primacy bias, but one of the indelible remarks of the season came from Stahel in his introductory invocation of Saint-Exupéry's admonition: 

When you want to build a ship, do not begin by gathering wood, cutting boards and organising work gangs, but rather create the longing for the sea, awaken within men the desire for the vast and endless sea.

The founders of circularity, and the disciplines that precede and undergird it, can be well understood by the limits they saw in their project. Their list of known unknowns is long, and almost always revolves around the behavior of human beings, their understanding of complicated ideas, and their ability to change. 

Stahel saw the need to make men long for circularity, and then set out to persuade them of it instead. The desire for the vast and endless sea — as it were — beats in far too few hearts. That's our challenge.

The lineage of modern circularity

It's a straight line back from Stahel to Meadows to Forrester. Forrester is a curious node in the system map of intellectual history; not only can the Limits to Growth crowd trace back to him, but also today's move-fast-and-break-things algorithm builders.

Based on his book, I think Forrester would embrace the former but lament its villainization of growth, and be shocked by and possibly aghast at the chaos unleashed by the latter in the pursuit of growth. This may explain why circularity has not taken hold in the Silicon Valley culture to the degree one might have expected. 

Notable takeaways

Ohno's origin story of Lean exposed hard points upon which to extend its principles into the realm of circularity. 

Alexander, McLuhan, and Fadell showed how to make objects in the Circular Century beautiful, legible, and buildable. 

Chip and Dan Heath offered a digestif: how to wrap it all up into a story that sticks.

Quite by accident, the syllabus of this season exemplified the theory of art and science that Forrester put forth: that art comes first, science organizes and compresses it; and yields the foundation for new art. 

The Season at a glance

Circular foundations

The founders tackle questions of limits, waste, and time.

The Circular Economy: A User’s Guide

The summer reading season opens with Walter Stahel’s introductory text — a book that reaches for what’s still missing: a longing for the circular economy.

CircudyneChristian Rishel

Circularity Summer Camp: The Movement’s Founding Texts

The founding texts of circularity — Benyus, McDonough & Braungart, and Stahel — read together. Three merit badges earned, and one still on the table.

CircudyneChristian Rishel

Systems

A shared understanding and vocabulary of stocks, flows, and feedback; thoughts on paradigm shifts.

Thinking in Systems

Donella Meadows built an exquisite analytical toolkit, then told us exactly where its utility ends. The future can only be envisioned, not analyzed.

CircudyneChristian Rishel

Industrial Dynamics: The Wellspring of Circularity

The summer reading series arrives at the wellspring: Jay Wright Forrester’s 1961 book, the bedrock beneath circularity’s systems thinking.

CircudyneChristian Rishel

The Logic of Scientific Revolutions — The Circudyne Letter

Two esteemed points of view on the nature of progress, how it applies to strategy, and what it means for circularity transformation.

CircudyneChristian Rishel

Strategy

How to choose a future without perfect information; why it's risky not to choose; why good management, in the wrong circumstances, is often the culprit.

Playing to Win — The Circudyne Letter

Strategy is a choice, so you might as well choose to win. For circularity leaders, the framework offers an opportunity and a moment of truth.

CircudyneChristian Rishel

The Innovator’s Dilemma and Circularity Transformation

Clayton Christensen’s iconic analysis reveals why well-run companies at the peak of their powers are routinely vulnerable to disruption. We examine his thesis through the lens of circularity disruption.

CircudyneChristian Rishel

Lean

The celebrated efficiency revolution, and the seed of circularity that it contains.

Toyota Production System: Lean Was Born Circular

Lean’s founding text by Taiichi Ohno shows that the most celebrated efficiency revolution in business history was circular from the start — and hands circularity transformation its strongest precedent.

CircudyneChristian Rishel

Craft, media, build

Systems-level beauty; what McLuhan meant by media; and a repeatable method for making (and improving) new-to-world products.

A Pattern Language — making places that serve human needs

Christopher Alexander built a language for making places that serve human needs beautifully and economically. It doubles as a manual for choosing well where no data exists — the exact position circularity strategists occupy today.

CircudyneChristian Rishel

Understanding Media: Why Circularity Needs a Media Strategy

Marshall McLuhan is as pertinent today as he was in 1964, and the reason is his definition of media, which is broader than ours. Circularity transformation needs a media strategy in his sense of the word. Here is what he meant.

CircudyneChristian Rishel

Build: Fadell’s Repeatable Method for Disruptive Products

Circularity transformation needs a cornucopia of new-to-world products, made quickly and well. Tony Fadell’s method for making them is repeatable.

CircudyneChristian Rishel

A digestif

Turning all of the above into something people can swallow.

Made to Stick: Circularity Needs More Cannes, Less Davos

Circularity is a complicated idea that needs to be simplified to be remembered. The Heath brothers wrote the book on that, and it points to a story we should have been telling all along.

CircudyneChristian Rishel

Parting thought

The science of circularity is far ahead of its art. I think that's the problem. It's time to tell the story.

📬 Thank you for reading along this summer.

Next season we examine best practices in transformation architecture. Dynamo members support the mission and receive unabridged content. Join the Dynamos