The oversized crisp
The summer I worked in a snack packing factory, the hopper filtered out everything that didn't fit — without once checking who'd dropped it in. On why most organisations can't.
Idea & Value
How ideas move to value — the gap, the cost, the runway, and the learning. Essays in this layer explore the forces that determine whether our investments of money, time, energy and attention produces outcomes.
Editorial Space vs Attention Space: Why Less Communication Is More Effective
Editorial space is infinite. Attention space is scarce. Most organisations get this backwards — publishing more content and creating less understanding. A practical case for designing communication for human attention rather than organisational efficiency.
Competing Priorities: The Hidden Cost of Misalignment at Work
When everything is urgent, urgency loses meaning. A practical exploration of the hidden human cost of competing priorities — how misalignment converts effort into exhaustion, and why clarity is an act of care rather than a management technique.
Objects and Models: Why Work Never Matches the Diagram
Plans, roadmaps, org charts — these are necessary objects. But the object is not the work. A thoughtful exploration of why leadership means staying close to reality rather than defending the model.
Problems as Moments of Trust — How Organisations Build Loyalty When Things Go Wrong
Customers whose complaints are resolved well often become more loyal than those who never had a problem. A short reflection on why problems are investments — and why trust is built not by perfection but by behaviour when things go wrong.
The Rule of 150: Why Growing Organisations Lose Their Story
The Rule of 150 is not really about headcount. It is about the moment when shared meaning stops travelling naturally — when the story that once held everything together begins to thin. A practical exploration of what organisations lose as they grow, and how to protect it.
How Ideas Spread
Ideas don't create value on their own. Artefacts do. A podcast became a poem became a zine.
Mechanisms Exist to Support Outcomes
We are drawn to mechanisms. Frameworks. Methods. Processes. But mechanisms are internal cost. Outcomes are external value. A short, sharp essay on why clarity of purpose must come before any debate about method.
The Ministry of Detail
Rory Sutherland has a rare gift for saying uncomfortable truths with warmth and humour. One observation landed hard: creativity is scarce in organisations not because people lack imagination, but because systems quietly discourage it.
Learning as a Career System
We often talk about learning as something we consume. But learning only becomes meaningful when it changes behaviour.
Agile PMO — seven principles for clarity and value flow
I rarely use the word "Agile." It carries too much baggage. And yet, not a month goes by without someone asking about an "Agile PMO."
How Ideas Become Knowledge, and Knowledge Becomes Value
Idea to Value is often mistaken for a delivery model. It is not. It does not prescribe agile, waterfall, or portfolio mechanics. It is a way of seeing.