Insights

Last week I attended a pre-summit event with the Advisory Board Centre, a professional body for people who sit on advisory Boards that also helps private and family businesses set these Boards up.

An AI can't starve, can't be sacked, can't be ashamed. Accountability needs something that can be hurt.

AI will soon write a polished strategy. Boards need to bring more than rationality to assess and approve.

Boards run on processes and rationales. Six weeks into yoga, I’m finding better questions to ask.

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.

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.

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.

In the last two months, I have spoken to three different directors about strategy execution failing.

Last week I ran a session on failure at Leanne Hughes ‘s Con Con – a conference of 50 solo consultants and entrepreneurs.

Doing beats thinking: notes mean nothing until they're turned into actions

Augusto Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed and the NFP Stack

Slowing the cadence is essential as decisions get bigger

Data crosses boundaries easily. The story that makes it meaningful doesn’t.

When the new CEO is having Board conversations that all agree are “… full of sound and fury, signifying nothing…”

With no top-level Strategy to rule the road, every leader's so-called strategies faced different directions, and got in each others' way.

The risk register feels like control. But it's useless unless it's woven through the organisation.

The new strategy was launched six months ago with a CEO roadshow and big A2 posters in the break room.

The NFP map is a tool to help Boards and Management understand the full system they’re operating inside - purpose, hierarchy, rhythm and ownership

KPI is an overextended and anxiety-inducing term, sowing more confusion than clarity

Be alert for 'thought-terminating cliches', and facilitate like Henry Fonda

I'd been seeking a metaphor to describe what consulting feels like - and found it in Chloe Zhao's Hamnet

At the UK's Science Museum Group in 2010, I encountered the best annual performance setting/review system I've ever seen. They strip-mined Jack Welch's system for the useful bits.

Leaving an interim CEO role after 15 weeks and handing over to the permanent CEO yields lessons on the differences between permanent and interim roles.

Reflections on being six weeks into an interim CEO role. Crucial differences between consulting from the outside and leading from the inside

How i built a ‘future me’ AI to coach me.

Most people haven’t heard of Béla Barényi. I’m going to nerd out on his influential automotive safety innovation, why it matters for strategy development, and then why i’ve moved my newsletters to be substack-first.

How do you go about solving a problem? We're taught to first define the problem fully. But we should spend more time on how we are describing the problem in the first place - because the metaphor shapes our thinking, unconsciously. Framing matters.

You spend months crafting a 'Strategic Plan', and everyone works to it diligently. Yet in every Board meeting, questions pop up, like: But are we really focusing on the right things?, or How do we know our strategy is working?

I am currently doing my Organisational Coaching certification, and the face-to-face cohort training last week offered great lessons for strategy consultancy and strategy generally.

At the weekend I experienced the sheer joy of a Flaming Lips performance. With a few days of distance from the exuberance, and a newsletter deadline approaching, I’ve been drawing strategy lessons.