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OKRs work brilliantly on complicated systems and fail on complex ones
Most organisations adopting OKRs today are using a tool built for engineering teams to solve problems that are not engineering problems. The framework works. It often works very well. It does not work everywhere. I spent the first part of my career as an internal auditor, and one of the
The hyperactive hive mind is an organisational design failure
A few years ago I wrote here that better leadership, on its own, will not save us. I was deep into Cal Newport's A World Without Email at the time, and the book had me convinced of one thing: most of what we treat as a leadership problem
The boxes nobody opens
In 2024 we spent over three weeks clearing out my father's house. My father was, at the end of his life, a hoarder. Every cupboard was full. Every drawer was full. The cellar was so full that we didn’t even start emptying it, leaving it all to
Who controls the AI initiative?
Most government AI programmes are designed to fail. Not by intent, but by instinct. When a public organisation decides to build an AI initiative, it does what public organisations always do with new things they do not fully understand: it builds controls around them. Governance committees. Approval gates. Reporting requirements.