Your AI will never have a mandate
An AI can't starve, can't be sacked, can't be ashamed. Accountability needs something that can be hurt.
Directors, put your body on the line
AI will soon write a polished strategy. Boards need to bring more than rationality to assess and approve.
Trust the feeling over the shape
Boards run on processes and rationales. Six weeks into yoga, I’m finding better questions to ask.
Chekhovian strategy misfires
Last weekend, I saw the Melbourne Theatre Company’s production of Uncle Vanya. The set design is the stand-out: there are no wings, lighting and spare chairs are stacked up and trucked flats stand ready upstage.
Talking to tape on a stick
I was lucky: my kids’ teenage years fell in the golden age of Marvel films. Up to Avengers: Endgame in 2019, every film was a family event.
What NFPs can learn from F1
I spent a weekend painting a room, which is a great excuse for a four hour podcast (on someone’s recommendation; whose?). Acquired’s Formula 1 episode is a wild ride.
Diagnosing initiative failure via dada and a break-up text to the Board
In the last two months, I have spoken to three different directors about strategy execution failing.
You can’t process shame alone. Compete to be the biggest failure instead.
Last week I ran a session on failure at Leanne Hughes ‘s Con Con – a conference of 50 solo consultants and entrepreneurs.
How I reflect - action planning from Leanne Hughes' ConCon.
Doing beats thinking: notes mean nothing until they're turned into actions
Organisation stuck? Wiggle your elbow
Augusto Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed and the NFP Stack
Reframe at every boundary
Data crosses boundaries easily. The story that makes it meaningful doesn’t.
Going nowhere - blame the hamster or the wheel?
When the new CEO is having Board conversations that all agree are “… full of sound and fury, signifying nothing…”
‘I don’t want to argue about whose dad has the toughest strategy’
With no top-level Strategy to rule the road, every leader's so-called strategies faced different directions, and got in each others' way.
Does your risk management connect to anything?
The risk register feels like control. But it's useless unless it's woven through the organisation.
When reality at the bottom looks like failure from the top
The new strategy was launched six months ago with a CEO roadshow and big A2 posters in the break room.
The map most boards are missing (or, the conversations no-one is having)
The NFP map is a tool to help Boards and Management understand the full system they’re operating inside - purpose, hierarchy, rhythm and ownership
Key Performance Insecurity
KPI is an overextended and anxiety-inducing term, sowing more confusion than clarity
'What's the solution?' is the last question you should ask
Be alert for 'thought-terminating cliches', and facilitate like Henry Fonda
On viewing Zhao's masterpiece: consultant as filmmaker
I'd been seeking a metaphor to describe what consulting feels like - and found it in Chloe Zhao's Hamnet