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I had a beer with a friend whose company was rotten to the core. A month later he was a different man — one new leader had cancelled every change programme and simply held a line. On why culture is cultivated, not announced.

I joined a community group that met, discussed, minuted and solved precisely nothing. On the one question that fixed it — and the three that follow — none of which needs a single new tool.

I once worked with a man who was an expert at everything and had done none of it. On why most training leaves people knowing more and doing exactly the same — and what actually changes behaviour.

A specialist lost the whole room in seven Japanese words. On a plainer instruction: staple yourself to a piece of work, follow it through the building, and map what actually happens — not what's meant to.

Good note-taking is not about recording the past. It is a tool for thinking in the present — shaping attention, learning, and judgment as work unfolds.

Why every productivity system — a bullet journal, a to-do list, a huge platform — is just a container and rules.

In 2006 a stranger at a conference told me how much he hated his life — his job, his boss, probably the sandwiches. On the difference between succeeding and thriving, and why thriving is something you choose rather than something that accumulates.

Why real effectiveness lives in the tension between the value you create and the relationships you create it through.

Watch an adult listen to a small child — the turned body, the long pauses, the full attention — then watch the same adults listen to each other at work. We know how to do this. A guide to winning it back, and to the power of being fully heard.