Amazon has changed the way we behave, what we want and by when. What else might have the same kind of impact, and what does this mean for leaders?
For leaders who care deeply about their people the temptation to rescue can be strong. Seeing someone frustrated is uncomfortable. Taking over can feel helpful, efficient and the nice thing to do.
But what's the long term cost of your niceness?
There’s something slightly strange happening in our relationship with AI.
If someone uses it to solve a complicated problem, we applaud them. If AI analyses thousands of data points in seconds, we marvel at it. If a mundane process that used to take three hours suddenly takes ten minutes, we celebrate. But if someone writes something and we suspect AI has been involved? Suddenly we’re detectives.
Most organisations want people to experiment, challenge assumptions, respond to change and find better ways to create value. Yet many still measure performance through KPIs that reward predictability, individual delivery and the completion of business-as-usual tasks.
Few things drain energy from a team faster than decision fog…
“The ego mind says: I will be at peace when everything is done and in its place.
The spirit mind says: When I am at peace and calm, things will be in their right place and done.”
Has the world moved on from Design Thinking? Is it just a buzzword, or is their magic in its method?
What does it really take to build a culture of innovation (and what that actually means!)
We typically think of culture as either working or not, but in reality, most cultures have the features of a thriving culture within them - what matters is their ability to adapt to context.
A practical look at how innovation strategy helps organisations spot competitor weakness, identify market gaps and move with focus, without needing to be first.
An innovation strategy can be the difference between an organisation that peaks then flounders and an iconic organisation with sustained growth and longevity. To demonstrate, here’s a story of two candle-making companies, one with an innovation strategy and one without.
We’ve all seen what weak governance can do, but what about what overly zealous governance does to adaptability, change and innovation? Explore how to be both well-governed and innovative.
Everyone thinks performance is about people. But, what if it’s actually about the system?
What feels like a crisis is more often complexity at work.
Explore how to break free from a “house-on-fire” mentality to lead change effectively.
One of the risks of being a leader is letting perspective turn into superiority. It's easy to forget that what is obvious to you, is not always visible to your team.
The best leaders see this, own it and don't let it cloud their judgement.
We all got the memo that the world isn’t slowing down.
Automation. AI. Robotics. Machine learning. Biotech. Add to that hybrid work, portfolio careers, side hustles, global talent markets and multi-generational teams sitting in the same meeting.
The way we commute, shop, learn, holiday and work has fundamentally shifted.
But... So many of our systems haven't...
This week we explore they systems that need to shift to create the conditions for meaningful change...
Predictable leadership, it turns out, creates space for unpredictable ideas.
Leadership principles are the agreements that shape how leadership is practised day to day.
They guide how decisions get made, how conflict is handled, and how accountability shows up when pressure is high.
We keep trying to name the chaos of modern work.
The speed. The uncertainty. The messiness. The feeling that things don’t quite make sense anymore.
Some call it 'VUCA', others 'BANI', and the latest term is 'Polycrisis'...
But the real question isn’t what we call it.
It’s who we're being in inside it.
Every January, the return-to-office debate flares up again.
What strikes us is how often it gets framed as a binary choice: office or remote. Presence or performance. Control or chaos.
But that framing is deeply misleading.
The evidence simply does not support the idea that mandates magically lift performance. If anything, the data points to a series of trade-offs... Increased turnover risk. Slower hiring. A quiet but significant brain drain, particularly among highly skilled and more senior talent. In some cases, the impact is felt more acutely by women.
This is not a people problem. It is a thinking problem.
We are still designing work as if we are in the Industrial Revolution.
Let's explore some alternative tweaks that can increase performance far more effectively...