Working with process gets a bad press in many creative businesses. Process work is stereotyped as stifling creativity and restricting individual autonomy. Laying out processes that surface how things are done in a business right now can be a helpful thing to do. It helps set boundaries for people in…

I worked out that this is my 41st consecutive set of monthnotes. Sometimes when I first sit at the keyboard to start writing it’s hard to find a distinct theme that sums up the past month adequately. February was just one of those months. …

Chefs know a lot goes into making consistently good restaurant food. Each dish is a detailed, time-critical project with high quality thresholds. Dishes need to be synched with the rest of the food for the same table. …

A colleague recently told me I was obsessed with lenses. Apparently I say a lot of things like: “let’s look at this through a client lens” “if we look at this through the lens of a user then…” “if I use a shareholder lens…” Ignoring my clumsy verbal constructs, I…

A conversation with Joel got me thinking last week. We talked about the need for leaders to grow professionally faster than their business grows. But that’s easier said than done. Finding space for personal development is tough when grappling with scaling challenges. Roles and accountabilities shift at pace. The skills…

A lot’s talked in business about accountability, yet few people think about what it means. And plenty of people tie themselves in metaphorical knots. They wrestle with the concepts of accountability and responsibility at work. Yet accountability is deeply important in running and scaling businesses. So what is accountability? It’s…

This month marked a new chapter for me at work. On 3rd January I opened my laptop and began work as an independent consultant — after spending all 24 years of my career so far as an employee. I made the move because I wanted to have more flexibility and…

Last weekend I entered my first running race in 13 years. I was curious what the passage of time had done to my race speed over ten miles and my resilience when running at pace. I remember the 2010 race well. I started the race running as fast as I…

If you leave a boat in seawater for too long, barnacles will start attaching and growing. They glue themselves to the hull of your boat with a glue six times stronger than any human-made adhesive. As those barnacles accumulate they start to have an effect. …