Field Notes

Most product organisations don’t struggle because their teams lack talent, frameworks, or motivation. They struggle because the environment around those teams is unclear. There’s usually a strategy somewhere. People broadly understand the ambition. The roadmap is full, everyone is working hard, and from the outside things look productive. And yet decisions keep drifting upward. Teams check things with leadership more than they expected. Priorities move around more often than

Why it can be hard to carry the weight of your own face

The mess and ambiguity of creating clarity

A practical guide for product and strategy leaders ready to rebuild with clarity, care, and systems that last. Introduction: The Courage to Pause If you’re struggling to get any meaningful new enhancements or features through to customers not because you lack ideas, but because the process is stuck, bloated, political, or brittle, then this guide may help. If your roadmap is full but your momentum is low, and you find yourself wondering why everything feels so hard now, this

Not because you’ve failed — but because the thing you’re building doesn’t quite match what you now know to be true. When Progress Starts to Feel Heavy There’s a point in every product’s life when it starts to feel harder to move.You’re still building. Still releasing. Still solving things, more or less.But if you’re honest, each new feature lands with less clarity than it used to.The impact gets muddier. The outcomes get harder to track.And somehow the whole thing starts to f

You are not the hero, but the subject of their fear. In the stories we admire, on screen, in books it is the leader steps outside first. Out of the shuttle. Into the smoke. Onto the alien surface with nothing but instinct and a crew watching from behind. Think Jean-Luc Picard, or Ripley, or Moana. Brave. Resolute and admired. But in real life, when a leader steps into something unknown, like a new technology, a new way of working, a future still taking shape, the admiration i

Some children come into your child’s life and take up all the space. They don’t shout or throw punches. Often, they’re liked, even admired. But slowly and almost imperceptibly, something changes. Your child begins to shrink. They start saying less, doubting more. Their world gets smaller. Their joy dulls at the edges. When you ask what’s wrong, the answers are fragmented, with a text, a shift in tone, a weird look after school. Nothing you can take to a teacher. Nothing that

They never say hello, but it's not intentional. They're just different to me.

Do you know the story of the hare and the tortoise? Most people think it's about speed. Really, it's about assumptions. One moves fast, burns out, and loses. The other moves with focus, consistency and wins. Not because it was faster. Because it never lost the plot. In investment, we often play the hare. You buy into a company once it’s attractive enough to justify your capital. And then, almost immediately, you start again. Tear it apart. Bring in your own brigade. Shift the

You know that feeling. You’ve just presented a strategy. It’s been shaped with care, aligned across teams, socialised with the CEO. People nod. You hit send. Then someone says “Seems like a good start — but have we all aligned on this?” And just like that, the room reopens. The thing you spent four months building is now back on the table. Not because it needs clarity — but because someone wants control. It’s subtle. Passive disrespect comes wrapped in curiosity. But it lands

A reflection on the quiet exit of experience, and what it costs us. In almost every job I’ve had over the last decade, I’ve been one of the only people my age. That hasn’t always bothered me. I’ve stayed curious. Learned fast. Led change. But lately, I’ve started noticing something. Older people in tech are quietly disappearing from meaningful roles. Taking positions beneath their capability. Taking significant pay cuts. Losing confidence. Leaving altogether. Not because they

Lyrics and background for layla foord's original song Keep Moving Fast from the EP Resonance.

This is a new song, written to help those of us who don't see things the way everyone else does. Spirals, patterns and colours, beautiful but sometimes overwhelming. If you've been told you're quirky, a bit weird, too loud, too quiet, smile more, too confident. This is for you. You were never weird, it's time to stop masking and be you. I See In Patterns - Song Cover [Verse 1] You move in straight lines, ticking off time While I’m tracing the rhythm beneath every sign You wan

Foresight isn’t rare. It’s just hard to absorb when it threatens what we’re invested in. There’s a pattern I’ve lived inside for years: You see something You speak it. You offer a way through. And people nod… and then wait. They wait for more evidence. They wait for someone else to say it louder. They wait for the risk of change to shrink or for the cost of not changing to rise. By the time they act, the moment has passed.The damage has begun. And the system quietly forgets w

Leadership is about care, it's not soft, its essential.

Genius jerks Every company has one. The person who’s brilliant — but impossible.

What happens when emotionally intelligent leaders hold everything together — but don’t get recognised for it? A quiet call to action