Leading Difficult People Is Easier When You're One of Them
9 October 2026
Leadership advice about difficult people is usually written by people who've never been one. Some reflections on autonomy, judgement, and knowing when someone doesn't fit.
Insights
Writing on growth, performance and adaptation.
Notes from the work: growth, performance, AI adaptation, the questions founders keep asking, and what actually happens when you build the thing instead of just talking about it.
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Capability Isn't Judgement
25 September 2026
AI is making us capable of doing things faster than ever. The harder question is whether it is making us any better at knowing what we should do.
You Can't Govern AI You're Not Really Using
11 September 2026
New Zealand businesses are adopting AI far faster than they are governing it: 83% use it, 13% have a policy. The usual conclusion is that governance needs to catch up. But governance built before real adoption tends to be governance of an organisation that doesn't exist yet, rules for behaviour nobody is exhibiting. Guardrails from day one, then use it in anger, then govern what you actually learn.
Your Best People Aren't the Product. What They Know Is.
4 September 2026
The traditional consulting deliverable is getting radically cheaper to produce, and most firms are responding by getting faster at making the same thing. That's not where growth comes from. It comes from refusing to keep reselling the same billable hour, and turning what your best people actually know into something repeatable, sellable, and yours.
AI, Cynefin and the Danger of Making Complex Problems Look Simple
28 August 2026
AI is remarkably good at turning difficult questions into convincing answers. But some problems don't have an answer waiting to be found. The Cynefin framework helps explain the difference, and why AI's fluency can tempt us into treating genuinely complex situations as problems that analysis alone can solve. The opportunity may be to use AI not as an oracle, but as a faster, cheaper way to experiment, learn and adapt.
CRM Has Been Slowly Dying. What's the Kiss of Life It's Getting?
21 August 2026
CRM was supposed to be how businesses grow. For most, it's mostly been overhead: hard to use, energy-sapping, a chore nobody quite trusts. AI, finally arriving inside the tools themselves, might be about to change that.
Does Your Agent Need a Performance Review?
14 August 2026
We routinely measure employee performance against role expectations and business outcomes. As AI agents take on more real work, and more real authority, we need to start asking the same question of them. Not because they're employees. Because anything wielding that much authority should be measured, reviewed and, where necessary, promoted, constrained or removed.
The Design Looked Convincing. That Was the Problem.
7 August 2026
We used AI to develop a detailed solution design for a client. It was fast, comprehensive and remarkably convincing. Just before we released it, instinct told me to challenge it. What we found changed the way we use AI in every design we produce.