A bonus essay making number 11 out of 10! Every business has conversations. Some happen around boardroom tables. Others take place in corridors, over coffee or at the end of long days when the formal meeting has already finished. Some are carefully prepared with agendas and presentations. Others emerge unexpectedly because someone finally asks the […]

Most organisations spend enormous energy searching for better answers.
Few spend enough time improving the questions.
A poor question produces an elegant but ultimately unhelpful answer. A better question changes the direction of the conversation before anyone begins searching for solutions.

This essay (9 of 10) highlights the challenge for fast growing businesses who fail to build a strong foundations Growth enjoys an almost mythical status in business. We celebrate it enthusiastically. Investors pursue it relentlessly. Leadership teams build strategies around it. Newspapers rank it. Awards recognise it. For many organisations, growth becomes the unquestioned measure […]

In this 8th of 10 essay, we consider the strong link between leadership judgement and business growth. When people talk about business growth, they usually talk about numbers. Revenue, profit, market share and investment growth. The language of business has become the language of accumulation. We measure success by what grows because growth is visible. […]

Welcome to essay 7 of 10. Every board meeting is attended by the same familiar voices. Shareholders expect their return. Employees bring their concerns. Finance reports the numbers. Sales explains the pipeline. Operations discusses delivery. The latest problem demands immediate attention, while the loudest issue usually consumes the greatest amount of time. Every important stakeholder […]

This is essay 6 in the 10 essay series. There is an uncomfortable truth about leadership that few people acknowledge. The more successful you become, the less likely people are to challenge you. It rarely happens overnight. There is no memo circulated around the organisation instructing colleagues to become more agreeable. No conscious decision is […]

This is essay number 5 in the series. Confidence is often treated as something a leader needs to develop. I’ve come to think about it differently. The most convincing leaders I know don’t begin with certainty—they begin by trying to understand what is actually happening. They ask better questions, test their assumptions and reduce the […]

At some point, most founders have to confront a difficult distinction: the business they created is no longer simply an extension of themselves. As it grows, other people depend upon it, decisions become more consequential and personal instinct can start to get in the way of good judgement. I've been thinking about what changes in […]

This is the third essay in a series of 10. Most leadership teams have no shortage of opinions. The harder question is whether those opinions are being tested. I've become increasingly interested in what happens when leaders deliberately separate what they believe from what they actually know—and particularly in the simple question, "What evidence would […]