Idea to Value (Physics)
Six meetings to buy broadband
Ten executives spent six meetings deciding a thousand-pound broadband upgrade. On why debate without evidence is cost — and the smallest test is the fastest path forward.
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Orientation & Direction (Map)
Remaining Relevant in a Changing Job Market
At a conference, a senior engineer told me he couldn't find a good job. Twenty minutes later, a hiring manager told me she couldn't find good people. They were both right, and they were describing the same problem from opposite sides.
Communication (Wiring)
Meet Dave - a response to the stick
A leader once ended a call saying she wanted "a stick to hit them with." On ranking teams, gaming the numbers, and why a team's metrics are a mirror — not a lever.
Idea to Value (Physics)
The four types of value
The question is not whether something is a cost. Everything requires investment. The question is whether that investment moves the organisation closer to creating something valuable.
Orientation & Direction (Map)
Turning around a struggling team — a six-stage approach
Most struggling teams are not suffering from a lack of activity. They are suffering from a lack of understanding. Before you change anything, you need to see it clearly. This is the approach I have used — and coached others in — for turning around struggling teams.
Creativity & Climate (Engine)
Mottainai - The most hopeful word I know
Usually read as the regret of waste, mottainai points somewhere more hopeful: the time, energy and attention we bring to work were never a cost — they're potential, backed.
Idea to Value (Physics)
The Subtotal Button — What a Supermarket Checkout Taught Me About Metrics
In the summer of 1996, I discovered a button that paused the performance clock. Within weeks I was the fastest checkout operator in the West of Sheffield, then the company. Productivity, according to the numbers, had exploded. Cash in the bank had not.
Creativity & Climate (Engine)
The new player at the table
Every new player slows the poker game while everyone re-explains the rules. Plenty of workplaces run the same way — on why stable teams compound, and why you flow work to teams, not teams to work.
Creativity & Climate (Engine)
Creativity Is a Climate Problem - Why Leadership Isn't About Ideas
Creativity isn't a talent problem. It's a climate problem. Five conditions consistently show up in environments where creativity actually flows — not as theory, but as reality.
solo creator
Everything between idea and value is cost — the solo creator's central problem
Most people aren't short of ideas — they run out of runway before the idea pays back. A canonical Cultivated essay for solo creators, makers, and independent builders on the gap between idea and value, and why everything inside it is cost.
Creativity & Climate (Engine)
Third of Three
Aged thirteen, I had NBA dreams and a basketball team that finished third of three. On the question everyone skips when chasing something ambitious — is this the team to get it done?
Idea to Value (Physics)
No More Cowboys
I spent the better part of a year planning "No More Cowboys" before Checkatrade beat me to it. On why planning feels safe, only doing reveals the truth, and the very good plan beats the best one.