Leadership and Work in Practice
What trade skills, commercial awareness and practical judgement can teach us about turning ideas into value.
Most organisations think they're managing projects, products or people. But what if the thing being managed is the idea — and everything else is infrastructure?
A model of how contribution actually travels across a working life. Four concentric modes — Practitioner, Multiplier, Reader, Author — communication as the carrier, and the practice underneath that keeps good ideas moving through work rather than dying on a Thursday afternoon.
Being good at the work isn't the same as being good at explaining it. Public speaking is how ideas move through an organisation — and how to make yours travel.
A practical breakdown of the Lion, T-Rex, Mouse and Monkey communication styles—and how to adapt your behaviour for clearer, more effective communication at work.
Ten executives spent six meetings deciding a thousand-pound broadband upgrade. On why debate without evidence is cost — and the smallest test is the fastest path forward.
A leader once ended a call saying she wanted "a stick to hit them with." On ranking teams, gaming the numbers, and why a team's metrics are a mirror — not a lever.
Most struggling teams are not suffering from a lack of activity. They are suffering from a lack of understanding. Before you change anything, you need to see it clearly. This is the approach I have used — and coached others in — for turning around struggling teams.
In the summer of 1996, I discovered a button that paused the performance clock. Within weeks I was the fastest checkout operator in the West of Sheffield, then the company. Productivity, according to the numbers, had exploded. Cash in the bank had not.