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Practical reads on all things strategy, change, and leadership. 

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1 min read

Save your relationships with quality questions

Bad questions kill relationships. When we turn up to a meeting, conversation, or email powered by judgement and annoyance, our questions reflect...

2 min read

Big questions enable bold choices

Most meetings and workshops are a waste of time. They're full of people resolving trivial issues that could be handled by email or delegation with...

3 min read

How to stop AI from stealing your job

Have you been keeping up with new AI tools like MidJourney and ChatGPT?

2 min read

Master the world’s most valuable skill

Critical thinking is the world’s most valuable skill. Unfortunately, being overworked and overwhelmed keeps people from learning how to do it. They...

2 min read

Serve the room: questions to ask for leadership success

In local government, many elected members think they must be approachable and responsive to their constituents. They personally follow up on service...

2 min read

5 career mistakes everyone (from junior to executive) should avoid

A few years ago, I asked a group of public sector executives one simple question: “What are the biggest mistakes you've made in your career?”

2 min read

3 myths about decision-making

I've been interested in what it means to make good, long-term decisions for a long time. I entered a policy career fresh out of university, all fired...

2 min read

10 business and self-help books for your summer

Over the past 10 years, I reckon I've read over 500 self-development and business books. (That's why I instituted a three-month non-fiction ban in...

3 min read

Values-based living: The hardest and easiest path to peace

When I was 25, I left my job with two kids, a mortgage to pay, and a husband on apprentice wages. I'd left my policy job in frustration, looking for...

1 min read

The problem is never the problem

Picture this: you're frustrated with your partner. They've loaded the dishwasher wrong, again, and they've left the door wide open for you to knock...

4 min read

Business Planning in a Recession with Bright Spot Thinking

Earlier this week, I was working with leaders from a large corporate to set some strategic priorities. Talk quickly turned to how to survive the...

3 min read

Be Yourself to Beat Burnout

The Lion King was one of my favourite childhood movies. It was one of a few films that my cousins had on VHS and we would watch it on repeat, until...

3 min read

Work Towards The Grain

One of my coaching clients is an exceptional leader. She has a rare combination of strategic, systems-focused perspective along with a burning desire...

2 min read

Don't Be Afraid to Narrow Down

Little known fact: the more specific you are about what you want, what you'll do, and what you won't do, the more likely you are to get it. When you...

3 min read

Setting boundaries around bullsh*t

I've drawn a new boundary around my professional life: no more leadership team coaching.

2 min read

Create Systems Change

Ever started a job and had that new-starter clarity? You're baffled by all the things that don’t make sense and say annoying things in meetings like:...

3 min read

Strategists Get Whatever They Want

Here's something strategists know that not everyone else does: you can have literally anything you want, at work, home or in your life. Nothing is...

3 min read

How to Care About Your Job Again

If you've woken up today with a sense of dread about what awaits you at your desk, you're not alone. A 2019 Gallup poll found that out of the world's...

2 min read

Wear and Tear

I've had a hell of a time with my house lately. After an initial few years of mostly uneventful occupation, she's really turned on me in the last...

4 min read

WTF, Netflix? Teenage sex and entertainment

Child Pornography for the Masses At the time of writing, the Number 1 movie on NZ Netflix is Do Revenge. The plot centres on a victim of 'revenge...

3 min read

Own Your Outcast Status

How It Started In 2014, I left my job as a policy analyst and strategic planner. I'd been so excited by that job - for lots of reasons. I was the...

3 min read

Inciting Incidents

As I assume you've noticed, The Queen died last week after 70 years as the reigning monarch. In that time, she saw a lot, including:

6 min read

A Certain Type of Man: The Family Man

I’d like to introduce to you: the family man. Not the responsible, fatherly, working class man of popular culture, mind you. A hologram. A cultural...

2 min read

Use Your Big Voice

Last Tuesday, I took my children to see Clementine Ford at the Embassy Theatre here in Wellington. Of all the wonderful things she said, one...