Preparation is not protection
My work often puts me on a plane. Over the past year I have flown to a lot of different parts of Australia, and a pattern has shown up that…
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The message you didn’t know you sent
I have a Coke No Sugar habit, others might say addiction. The sort I keep meaning to deal with and do not. So you can usually find a box of…
The decision that turned out to be three
When I was working with an organisation building a new policy framework for how it enters into formal arrangements with partners and funders, the money turned out to be the…
The risk you can hear but can’t see
A large python turned up in the rafters outside our bedroom. It was close to winter, when snakes are supposed to be slowing down and out of sight. This one…
Your senior leaders may not lack drive
I have been working with a senior leader with deep technical expertise. The kind of person you want when the detail has to hold up. They wanted to move beyond…
When senior leadership scripts expire: how to spot the gap
An expired leadership script does not feel broken. That is what makes it dangerous. When a board, funder, regulator or executive team stops responding the way they used to, many…
When more spend buys less belief
After a long day of meetings and an evening still at the desk, I switched on a streaming platform on the tier with ads. What I didn’t expect was for…
The first call was right. The second one wasn’t.
Most leaders don’t get into trouble because of the first decision. They get into trouble because of the second one. My daughter and her partner are both football mad. They…
Hope is Not a Viability Strategy
There are lines I keep hearing in conversations with government, health and community service leaders. Each one sounds reasonable on its own. Together, they point to something more serious I…
How good leaders lose their line
Most leaders don’t wake up planning to betray their values. I finally finished watching The Man in the High Castle. It’s a dystopian alternate-history series: part espionage drama, part resistance…