Leadership and Work in Practice
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.
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.
I ask every workshop the same question: has anyone here ever sat in a truly effective meeting? The hands mostly stay down. On why meetings are ineffective by design, the few honest choices that fix them — and one meeting that ate a whole morning.
On why real change starts in conversations, coffees and shared frustrations long before it ever reaches the org chart.