Originally written in 2023, never published, see Note below. I was sitting in a room with about forty people. A large organisation, several hundred developers across multiple teams, running a Scrum of Scrums-style event to surface their biggest impediments. The usual suspects came up — dependencies, unclear requirements, technical debt. But the issue that kept … Read more
Two days ago at Davos, Canada’s Prime Minister delivered a blunt diagnosis. The “rules-based international order” is over. It’s now a “pleasant fiction.” Middle powers can no longer assume the old architecture will hold. “If you are not at the table,” he warned, “you are on the menu.” His prescription: stop relying on what worked … Read more
The question isn’t whether you’re changing. It’s whether you’re changing fast enough. The manuscript hit 150,000 words before I stopped counting. Too big. A motivated leader doesn’t have time for a 600-page read. They need something they can finish in a single sitting and apply on Monday. So I cut it. Ruthlessly. Down to around … Read more
Your work spans three spaces—doing deep design, leading design teams, and amplifying design thinking. But they all collide on the same problem: the system around you is becoming more turbulent, not less capable. You’re being asked to hold outcomes steady while the organisation becomes more political, more interdependent, more contradictory. Priorities that contradict each other … Read more
Why This Framework Works the Way It Does Most business books assume you’ll read Chapter 1, then Chapter 2, holding concepts in memory as you build toward mastery. They assume sustained attention. Linear progression. Quiet focus. That’s not how transformation leaders actually work. You’re grabbing ten minutes between crisis meetings. Scanning for something applicable to … Read more
What 15 years of ground-level observation reveals about DSO’s real trajectory BOTTOM LINE Published metrics tell one story. Ground-level observation tells another. I’ve watched Bayer’s evolution for over 15 years—close enough to see patterns that analyst reports miss. The signals that predict transformation success or failure aren’t in quarterly earnings. They’re in who stays, who … Read more