Latest Posts


  • How To Keep Focussed (And Remain Sane) In A World Of Complex Problems

    In our heart, we know the solution does not lie in reforming silo by silo but in organizing our silos the way people organize their lives, so that the neighbourhood becomes our primary unit of analysis and change – Cormac… Continue reading

    How To Keep Focussed (And Remain Sane) In A World Of Complex Problems
  • An A-Z of Office Jargon

    Apparently – ‘Touch Base” is the most-hated office phrase for a second year in a row. Certainly – it’s a mainstay of contact requests I get from Linkedin. And if I fail to touch base I usually get someone ‘circling… Continue reading

    An A-Z of Office Jargon
  • How Technology Can Increase Collaboration And Build Trust

    This post is an shortened version of a plenary talk delivered in Cardiff for the Wales Audit Office  Depending on your age it’s likely that the two things you were not taught in school were: a) how to collaborate effectively… Continue reading

    How Technology Can Increase Collaboration And Build Trust
  • The Smartest People Will Never Work For You

    Joy’s law is the principle that “no matter who you are, most of the smartest people work for someone else”. Bill Joy, the computer engineer to whom it’s attributed argued that if you rely solely on your own employees, you’ll… Continue reading

    The Smartest People Will Never Work For You
  • a short post about death

    Even during the most pivotal moments of our lives we are only a few minutes away from being digitally distracted. Twelve to be precise. We check our phones for new messages every 12 minutes.  Four weeks ago today we were… Continue reading

    a short post about death
  • Why Do We Hate Our Offices?

    If you are working in an office today you will be interrupted – or you will interrupt yourself – every 3 minutes. And what’s worse is it will take most of us up to 23 minutes to recover from that distraction. If… Continue reading

    Why Do We Hate Our Offices?
  • What If We Replaced All Our Managers With Robots? 

    Most of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to get their work done Peter Drucker Management is the greatest inefficiency in any organisation. Many of you will be familiar with the work of Gary Hamel , but his… Continue reading

    What If We Replaced All Our Managers With Robots? 
  • How To Kill Doomed Projects

    The challenge for managers in the “can-do” culture of business is to distinguish between belief as a key driver of success—and belief as something that can blind managers to a project’s ultimate failure – Isabelle Royer  It’s always easier to… Continue reading

    How To Kill Doomed Projects
  • Why We Are So Bad At Defining Problems

    If I had an hour to solve a problem I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and five minutes thinking about solutions. – Albert Einstein I don’t know whether Einstein ever used those words. It may be just like… Continue reading

    Why We Are So Bad At Defining Problems
  • Does Regulation Really Stifle Innovation?

    Last week I did a presentation to a group of managers when the issue of governance and regulation ‘getting in the way’ of innovation came up. People often think regulations stifle innovation, new business and services. They assume that regulators… Continue reading

    Does Regulation Really Stifle Innovation?