We weren't lost. We just hadn't found this river yet.
A field note on exploration, uncertainty, and finding unexpected things.
Latest
An old photograph and the stories we tell
I don't know where my father took this photograph or who the figures are. But it taught me something important about storytelling, memory and the way we make meaning.
A big collective experience of trust
A reflection on Britain's postboxes, Anthony Trollope, and the remarkable act of trusting an invisible system for almost 175 years. And what we might learn about work.
Every Presentation Is an Exchange
Every presentation is an exchange. The audience gives us their finite resources, and the speaker gives value, perspective, meaning and something worth paying attention to.
The man who took out half of Sheffield
A brilliant, vastly interesting man, a telegraph pole, and half of Sheffield's phones. On the strange gift of fast feedback — and how much better work gets the moment the signal comes back quickly.
Every Organisation Has Someone's Initials On It
A wall in Winchester bearing initials dating back to 1772 offers a reminder that every organisation is built on decisions made by people who came before us.
Magnifying the Murk
The telescope didn't improve the view at all. It just magnified the murk.
Public speaking and the power of the stage
Dame Judi Dench, Louis Theroux and feeling alive on stage. The power of public speaking.
Gratitude — a way of seeing what often remains invisible
A lot of what underpins a business goes unnamed precisely because it often works. An episode of The Word at Work on gratitude as a form of seeing — and the question it leaves behind about what's carrying your work this week that you've stopped noticing.
Everyone is trying to release value
A product team had twenty million pounds and until year-end to turn it into something people would pay for. Then two other teams' good work landed on top of theirs — and someone had to choose which value moved first.
There Is No Perfect Notebook
There's no perfect notebook — only the right container, with the right rules, for how long a note needs to live. Here's the method, and the six on my desk.
When a Meeting Isn't a Meeting
Most meetings that fail aren't badly run. They produce agreement instead of alignment — and the difference between the two is what people do on Thursday.
Communication (Wiring)
The Circles of Contribution
A model of how contribution actually travels across a working life. Four concentric modes — Practitioner, Multiplier, Reader, Author — communication as the carrier, and the practice underneath that keeps good ideas moving through work rather than dying on a Thursday afternoon.
Creativity & Climate (Engine)
What writers know about keeping an idea alive
Most organisations say they want to turn ideas into value and rarely manage it. Writers do it for a living. Here's what their craft teaches us about keeping an idea's meaning alive, from seed to shipped work.
Idea to Value (Physics)
A podcast is the whole system in miniature
I was in a room of small business owners when one of them asked me to explain how ideas become value.
Orientation & Direction (Map)
The case for a Chief Curation Officer
On a family trip round Europe's museums, a pattern kept surfacing: the best ones curate your attention as carefully as their objects. Here's what that has to teach the places we work — and why the most useful skill might be learning to see the room you're already in.
The Word at Work
Craft is power — and where your power at work really lives
We've made the word craft soft — craft beer, craft fairs, hand-crafted. Underneath sits an older meaning worth recovering: craft meant power. Here's where yours lives at work.
Communication (Wiring)
Speaking as Sense-Making: Why Public Speaking Shapes Leadership
Being good at the work isn't the same as being good at explaining it. Public speaking is how ideas move through an organisation — and how to make yours travel.
Communication (Wiring)
The Architecture of Clarity
I thought I was researching old printing presses. Instead I found myself studying operating systems. A journey through the archives of the GPO, Braun, Lufthansa and the BBC — and what they were really building beneath the surface.
Communication (Wiring)
Is the CV Still the Best Way to Represent Professional Value?
The CV has survived decades of reinvention around it — and viewed as a communication tool with a purpose, an audience and a context, that survival makes sense. What's missing is something else entirely.
Idea to Value (Physics)
Portfolio — a declaration of what deserves your attention
Portfolio began as a leather case for carrying papers. Where the word came from, how its meaning changed — and what a portfolio really is at work.
Learning & Practice (Flywheel)
The three areas of learning — and the one very few people invest in
When I first started out, I did the obvious thing. I got good at the work in front of me. It didn't take long to notice that being good wasn't enough.
Creativity & Climate (Engine)
Putting the human back into the work
Last night I was at a new community event called The Something More Club. Three talks on running a small business, and beneath all three, the same two themes kept surfacing: human connection, and community.
Idea to Value (Physics)
The three ways ideas change (or don't)
Progress isn't movement — it's seeing. What stop-motion animation reveals about how your ideas actually become valuable.