Cultivated

A reflection on Britain's postboxes, Anthony Trollope, and the remarkable act of trusting an invisible system for almost 175 years. And what we might learn about work.

Every presentation is an exchange. The audience gives us their finite resources, and the speaker gives value, perspective, meaning and something worth paying attention to.

A brilliant, vastly interesting man, a telegraph pole, and half of Sheffield's phones. On the strange gift of fast feedback — and how much better work gets the moment the signal comes back quickly.

A wall in Winchester bearing initials dating back to 1772 offers a reminder that every organisation is built on decisions made by people who came before us.

The telescope didn't improve the view at all. It just magnified the murk.

Dame Judi Dench, Louis Theroux and feeling alive on stage. The power of public speaking.

A lot of what underpins a business goes unnamed precisely because it often works. An episode of The Word at Work on gratitude as a form of seeing — and the question it leaves behind about what's carrying your work this week that you've stopped noticing.

A product team had twenty million pounds and until year-end to turn it into something people would pay for. Then two other teams' good work landed on top of theirs — and someone had to choose which value moved first.

There's no perfect notebook — only the right container, with the right rules, for how long a note needs to live. Here's the method, and the six on my desk.