A recent experience got me thinking about how inconsistent delivery of unheroic stuff is a surefire way to lose customers and erode the value stored in the brand. The story began when I opened my 2024 car insurance policy. My jaw dropped. After ten years with the same insurer, I’m used...
Accepting her Grammy for album of the year, and becoming the first person to win the award four times, Taylor Swift’s speech was a love letter to the unheroic work it takes to succeed. What is unheroic work? It’s a term that first landed in my language via a quote by...
I first encountered renowned Canadian designer Bruce Mau's Incomplete Manifesto for Growth decades ago. And one of the points he made stuck with me. He said, "AVOID FIELDS, JUMP FENCES. Disciplinary boundaries and regulatory regimes are attempts to control the wilding of creative life. They are often understandable efforts to order...
When organisations think about capital, two dominate. Financial and human. Both are crucial, and abusing them will collapse value and drive you out of business. Yet, you accumulate value across more than those two. But don't necessarily consider those things as capitals when making decisions. As a result, choices erode rather...
"Instead of bringing back 1600 plants, we might return from our journeys with a collection of small unfêted but life-enhancing thoughts." Alain de Botton Travel always reveals… something. A recent trip reminded me of the importance of getting the essential things right. No matter what your business does. There is one thing that is...
You know the power of compounding. When you reinvest the interest on your investment, your return grows over time. Atomic Habits author James Clear discussed compound return of 1% habits at his Growth Faculty event in Melbourne this week. Describing how a daily 1% improvement in a habit will compound to...
Failing to communicate isn't entirely accurate. What mostly happens are well-intentioned if clumsy attempts that land as overly wordy, inadvertently patronising and jargon-filled information. And over and again, those efforts routinely fail to get any message across. Which is ironic given the roots of the word. Communicate emerged in the 1500s...
Do this.Start that.Add another idea.Layer a different process.All around is the quest for more. Bigger, different, shiny things to transport whatever you're doing to the next level or a new place.But is more the answer?Try this.Do less. Scale back and instead inspect what's happening now for places you can stop...
Reading a favourite newsletter last week, I stumbled on a quote from an interview with comedian Jerry Seinfeld, questioning the idea of "quality time" with his kids. He says, "I'm a believer in the ordinary and the mundane. These guys that talk about "quality time"—I always find that a little sad...
Hands up if you have a ‘to-do’ list. I suspect nearly everyone does. Now hands up if you have a ‘done’ list. Fewer if any, hands in the air. Me among you. I stumbled upon the idea last week from Oliver Burkeman, a favourite thinker about how to use our...