People and Organisations
How people think, work and make decisions together. Essays about judgement, creativity, power, care and the organisations we create.
Essays in this collection
Human Systems
Where Possibility Survives
Most organisations say they want innovation. Structurally, emotionally, behaviourally, many reward predictability instead. And you can see it most clearly in the rooms where decisions quietly refuse to move.
Can you train creativity?
A friend asked me recently if creativity can be trained. The technical answer is yes. But the harder question is whether the people around a creative person are comfortable enough to let them keep doing it.
Human Systems
I Think We Know Enough
It’s a risk problem. Nobody wants to be the person who said yes, and was wrong
Human Systems
When You Get Promoted, It’s Easy to Think You Know What to Do
You don’t need to arrive with all the answers. In fact, that’s often the risk. Here's what to do when you move into a new leadership role.
Human Systems
A Hammer often finds a nail
We used to reach for the unconventional expert when the problem was genuinely new. Somewhere along the way, we started reaching for the person who had solved it before. A hammer often finds a nail. The question is whether you actually needed one.
Human Systems
Hypercuriosity and how lack of curiosity in work can actually feel like pain
Ever felt so stuck and bored doing something that it actually starts to feel like physical pain?
Human Systems
They've Never Said Hello. Why Does That Bother Me So Much?
They never say hello, but it's not intentional. They're just different to me.
Product Leadership
Care matters and here's why
Leadership is about care, it
Human Systems
On Clarity, And the Discomfort it Brings
The mess and ambiguity of creating clarity
Product Leadership
What's Passive Disrespect?
A strategy is agreed, and the meeting is meant to begin the work. Then one familiar question puts everything back on the table. A reflection on the quiet ways doubt can stall progress, and what changed when I stopped starting again.
Human Systems
On Being Taken Seriously
Why it can be hard to carry the weight of your own face
Product Leadership
The Supporting Character Problem
What happens when emotionally intelligent leaders hold everything together — but don’t get recognised for it? A quiet call to action
Product Leadership
The Genius Jerk and the Dam of Stuckness
Genius jerks Every company has one. The person who’s brilliant — but impossible.
Human Systems
The One Who Steps Outside First
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 isn’t the first...
Product Leadership
Where are the older people in technology?
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 ar
Human Systems
Fairness and financial literacy sitting oddly for me
A lot of the discussion around "fairness" seems to assume people began somewhere near the system in the first place. Near capital, safety and that the risk is survivable.
Human Systems
When Friendship Doesn't Feel Like Friendship
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 fits into the...
Product Leadership
What If Mental Fitness Was Our First Education?
What If Mental Fitness Was Our First Education? | Spark Space | Layla Foord
Product Leadership
Why a Social Media Ban Isn't Enough
My take on the social media ban for kids in Australia. A wake up call.