To kick off the month of June, we brought together a group of enterprise leaders from across sectors to explore a question that continues to dominate leadership conversations: How do we build a better system to deliver better outcomes? In the room, we had a group of leaders from across banking, insurance, retail, telecommunications, education, automotive, professional services and not-for-profit organisations. On the surface, these leaders appear to come from very different

Government operates within a uniquely complex system, where commitments are often locked in upfront and delivery is shaped by process adherence. This creates a tension between certainty and complexity, limiting the ability to respond. The opportunity is to shift from predefined solutions to outcome-led intent, enabling teams to test, learn and adapt within constraints. Progress in government is rarely achieved through transformation at scale, but through deliberate, incremen

In my work with financial services organisations, on question keeps coming up in reflections and client discussions: “How do we design an operating model that allows us to move faster without becoming less safe?” This question encapsulates many themes I have seen matter most in practice: Bridging strategy to execution across all levels, not just at the executive level Designing operating models with clear and durable accountability Creating learning, adaptive systems that wit

During my career I've been fortunate to work in a space that I am passionate about - policy, education and people. The universities and TAFEs I have worked with are full of deeply committed, passionate people doing important work. But too often legacy ways of working get in the way - creating bottlenecks, slowing decisions, creating unnecessary friction and pulling time and energy away from students, research and real-world impact. A question I hear again and again is: How d

I have been reflecting on my experience working in the Energy sector, one of the most complex, regulated and rapidly evolving industries in Australia. Operating under intense regulation, cost-of-living pressure and public scrutiny, energy organisations must deliver reliable, affordable services while enabling the energy transition, evolving markets like EV and distributed energy, and national decarbonisation commitments. In my experience, technical or regulatory constraints

This is the 15th blog post in the Organising for Outcomes series. It is helpful to understand where we’ve come from, how today’s ways of working have evolved, and the context that those ways of working evolved in. This helps us to understand why we’re working the way we’re working and what we might want to change in today’s context, which is significantly different compared to previous technology-led revolutions. In the previous post, we looked at the rise and rise of a scie

This is the 14th blog post in the Organising for Outcomes series. It is helpful to understand where we’ve come from, how today’s ways of working have evolved, and the context that those ways of working evolved in. This helps us to understand why we’re working the way we’re working and what we might want to change in today’s context, which is significantly different compared to previous technology-led revolutions. In previous post we looked at the shift from Systematic Manage

This is the 13th blog post in the Organising for Outcomes series. It is helpful to understand where we’ve come from, how today’s ways of working have evolved, and the context that those ways of working evolved in. This helps us to understand why we’re working the way we’re working and what we might want to change in today’s context, which is significantly different compared to previous technology-led revolutions. In previous posts we looked at the growth of Systematic Mana

What if the way your organisation runs today, team structures, daily rhythms, and performance systems were never designed for your world at all? We set out to trace the roots of the modern world of work on the Sooner Safer Happier 1st Industrial Revolution Tour. We visited the sites where it all began: the first factory system, the first production line, the first shift work, the first time human labour was treated as a repeatable input rather than a creative force. The paral

When whispers of ‘keyboard tracking’ started circulating this triggered a huddle with my client about how to explain to well-intentioned yet traditionally minded SVPs the dangers of confusing activity with efficiency. We talked through a number of efficiency measurement systems that have become widely accepted over the past decade. Some were already in place in the organisation (DORA) and others were a work in progress. Thankfully for this organisation, the exercise resulted

Belper Mills and Industrial Community Building Colourised photo of Belper circa 1912 What if the way your organisation runs today, team structures, daily rhythms, and performance systems were never designed for your world at all? We set out to trace the roots of the modern world of work on the Sooner Safer Happier 1st Industrial Revolution Tour. We visited the sites where it all began: the first factory system, the first production line, the first shift work, the first time h

Why Do We Still Work This Way? What if the way your organisation runs today, team structures, daily rhythms, and performance systems were never designed for your world at all? We set out to trace the roots of the modern world of work on the Sooner Safer Happier 1st Industrial Revolution Tour. We visited the sites where it all began: the first factory system, the first production line, the first shift work, the first time human labour was treated as a repeatable input rather t

Are your metrics enabling Better Value Sooner Safer Happier? Why do we need to talk about metrics now? Most organisations have various delivery dashboards, OKR trackers, and risk reports as ways to measure performance. But more often than not, organisations are measuring what is easy, not what is useful. Many current measurement systems reflect legacy mindsets. They are designed for control, not learning. They focus on status reporting, not flow. These systems might provide

Myth : Adam Smith in the Wealth of Nations (1776) was the first to write about division of labour. There's just one problem: Adam Smith never set foot in a pin factory. In fact we need to go back 3 steps to Jean-Rodolphe Perronet in the 1740s, the only person in this story to have actually visited a pin factory! Image of a pin factory, Diderot's Encyclopédie (1755) (1) Adam Smith (1776): The Economist Smith's description of a pin factory in The Wealth of Nations (1776) intr

For many organisations, the annual planning season is a familiar ritual - strategy decks get dusted off, budgets are locked in, and project roadmaps are finalised months before the new financial year. But behind this seemingly structured process lies a system that’s often disjointed, misaligned, and increasingly unfit for the pace of today’s world. If your annual planning sounds like this, it doesn’t need to be this way. Why annual planning needs to change In many organisatio

How to build, enable, and measure learning in an organisation If you, your team or your organisation stopped learning today, how long would it stay relevant? It’s scary to think about this question in a world that changes rapidly, and is so uncertain. Continuous learning is the only way to stay adaptable, resilient, and relevant. Learning happens every day. Learning happens at every level in the organisation. Hence, learning is not a nice-to-have in the organisation. Learning

In April, we “officially welcomed” our newest team member, AI. We hadn’t actually advertised a role, but had heard such good things that we arranged to meet. Our APAC team is located across Australia so much of our collaboration and support is virtual. We appreciated AI’s willingness to spend a little time with each of us as an introduction. Collectively we concluded that we could definitely see potential value, but recognised that we’d need to work with a more dynamic role d

In 2023, I wrote a perspective on the 5 roles and their behaviours for leaders. This was based upon my work in transformation and strategy to execution advisory from the previous decade. A few years on, I see these 5 roles as even more critical than ever! Today’s leadership environment is even more complex, uncertain, and demanding. To support leaders in navigating this, I’ve transformed these 5 roles into a light-weight self-assessment tool designed to guide reflection and

In this post we'll take a deeper dive into three broad themes of Systematic Management, introduced between 1870 to 1900: Specialisation, Centralisation and Data.

AI and its return on investment is dominating Executive and Boardrooms globally. But amid the buzz, it’s easy to lose sight of what really matters. It’s easy to lose sight of the learnings that we’ve had from many failed attempts at digital transformations. This post shares our emerging point of view on AI as it relates to our current operating context, the opportunities for how it can be used to improve strategy execution, and the patterns and risks to consider. Living in