Category: Conversations

  • Clear Language is the Basis of Strategy – Talk

    I recently gave a talk about the connection between language and strategy – effectively, how language is the technology that enables humans to strategise, and here are the slides.

  • Inefficiency, optimization & timelessness

    I sent a question out to Tobias Mayer and he kindly responded: Q. The best things in life are all inefficient. How do you reconcile inefficiency and ‘optimization / lean / agile’ in your life and maybe even commercial work? And to what end? I haven’t really figured it out but found a clue in…

  • Burnout Trumps Agility

    Do you remember that odd tale of a how a Ladies Hairdresser from Bradford discovered a formula for heatproof paint (probably a mixture made with children’s PVA glue whilst he was attempting to make his own shampoo). The paint could withstand the heat of 1500C (the heat of a nuclear bomb). The product was demonstrated…

  • Antifragility and Social Complexity

    Ari-Pekka Skarp and I had a wonderful conversation about #antifragility , #agility and #socialcomplexity and one interesting reflection, for me at least, was still on the topic of burnout (a sort of fragility localised at the individual level) and how it’s a lagging indicator – once it’s happened, it’s basically already too late – but how…

  • OKR Meet up: One Good OKR and a Small Bet

    I was recently invited by Natalija Helscoe (author of book ‘OKRs at the Centre‘) to give an online talk about our Saltwood start-up and how we were able to use one good OKR to get our business started. Here are the slides: After the talk a few of us ‘hung around’ online and chatted further.…