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Leadership and Work in Practice

A photo of some cows with the words overlaid - Why Team Metrics Shouldn’t Be Used to Compare Teams

Why You Shouldn't Compare Teams Using Metrics

In the right hands, a team's metrics are a mirror. In the wrong hands, the same numbers become a lever. An essay on why team-level metrics should never be used to compare teams — and what actually goes wrong when leaders reach down for the numbers.

Turning around a struggling team — a six-stage approach

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.

A photo of a tape measure - Photo by Diana Polekhina / Unsplash

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.

A photo of Rob Lambert stood in a garden with the words overlaid - Why Improving Process Can Make Things Worse

Why Improving Process Can Make Things Worse

Better processes don’t guarantee better outcomes. This piece explores why improving the wrong system can accelerate failure — and why direction must come first.

The Thread From Investment to Value

How Work Connects to Value (From Investment to Outcome)

Work becomes heavy when it loses its reason. This piece explores why connecting investment to value — a core idea in portfolio thinking — brings clarity, learning, and better decisions.

A photo of an arch in Oslo with the words overlaid - Problems and Opportunities Are the Same Door

Why Problems and Opportunities Are the Same Thing

A tech company builds a new platform. The launch is a success. Three years later the operational cost has exceeded the original investment several times over.

A photo of a roller coaster with the words overlaid - Flow Beats Capacity — Every Time

Why Too Much Work Slows Everything Down

Overloaded systems are not capacity problems. They are flow problems. And the damage is almost always done upstream — in the rooms where leaders say yes to more than the funnel can finish.