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Orientation & Direction

Direction and orientation — where we're is going and where we are now. Essays in this layer explore vision, strategy, painted pictures, and the work of establishing a clear direction.

What do you want your chapter to say?

Orientation & Direction

What do you want your chapter to say?

Every organisation is a book, and right now — noticed or not — you're writing a chapter of it. On leadership, storytelling, and the difference between authoring your year and having it happen to you.

Solve fewer problems

Orientation & Direction

Solve fewer problems

It's one of the uncomfortable truths of being in business: you are always solving problems, and there are always more of them than you could realistically solve.

Humbled by fractional indices

Orientation & Direction

Humbled by fractional indices

I'm humbled by fractional indices and would make a poor engineer. But one thing I can do is decide — and I've learned that's rarer, and more useful, than it looks.

That which leads

Orientation & Direction

That which leads

On strategy as one of the most human words we have: 'that which leads', and the three quiet things a real sense of direction rests on.

Start at the end

Orientation & Direction

Start at the end

A practical guide to backcasting: mountains, waypoints, the grid, and the conversation everyone skips.

There Is No Waze for Creative Work - Clarity at Work

Orientation & Direction

There Is No Waze for Creative Work - Clarity at Work

Why clarity matters in messy creative work. We don't need to know every turn, but without a clear destination, good people can spend enormous effort going in the wrong direction.

The rages were less frequent

Orientation & Direction

The rages were less frequent

Time blocking looks like controlling time. Used well, it's the opposite: a way of seeing where your time actually goes

Nobody had an answer

Orientation & Direction

Nobody had an answer

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.

Be surprised less often

Orientation & Direction

Be surprised less often

Seasoned people aren't cleverer — they're better oriented. They see what's forming while others are still reacting. On awareness as a practice, weak signals, and why so much of experience is really just earlier sight.

Movements precede mandates

Climate & Creativity

Movements precede mandates

On why real change starts in conversations, coffees and shared frustrations long before it ever reaches the org chart.

Nice font. Bad coffee. Change is powered by meaning.

Orientation & Direction

Nice font. Bad coffee. Change is powered by meaning.

Why clarity comes before control, and how teams actually change.