Most gates open
A story about an old gate in Lancashire, workplace assumptions, and how easily we accept rules, norms and ways of working without checking whether they're actually locked.
Climate & Creativity
Climate & Creativity — the conditions that allow good work to happen. Essays here explore environment, energy, creative practice, and the climate that surrounds our work.
Nobody warns you about life after the startup : startup is a story
I left a company I'd helped carry from barely making payroll to an exit — and standing at the bus stop in the rain, I felt strangely bereft. This is about the emotional arc of a startup, the messy middle that turns out to matter most, and why so many founders feel restless and lost after the exit.
An old photograph and the stories we tell
I don't know where my father took this photograph or who the figures are. But it taught me something important about storytelling, memory and the way we make meaning.
A big collective experience of trust
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 Organisation Has Someone's Initials On It
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.
Magnifying the Murk
The telescope didn't improve the view at all. It just magnified the murk.
Public speaking and the power of the stage
Dame Judi Dench, Louis Theroux and feeling alive on stage. The power of public speaking.
Gratitude — a way of seeing what often remains invisible
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.
There Is No Perfect Notebook
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.
What writers know about keeping an idea alive
Most organisations say they want to turn ideas into value and rarely manage it. Writers do it for a living. Here's what their craft teaches us about keeping an idea's meaning alive, from seed to shipped work.
The case for a Chief Curation Officer
On a family trip round Europe's museums, a pattern kept surfacing: the best ones curate your attention as carefully as their objects. Here's what that has to teach the places we work — and why the most useful skill might be learning to see the room you're already in.
Putting the human back into the work
Last night I was at a new community event called The Something More Club. Three talks on running a small business, and beneath all three, the same two themes kept surfacing: human connection, and community.