If a problem is not happening to you, then is it really a problem? We may not like the answer to this philosophical-sounding question, but it has very real and practical implications. There is that philosophical question that if a tree falls down in a forest and nobody is there to hear it, did it make a sound? One answer is that it would have caused some vibrations through the air, but the perception of sound requires an ear to receive those vibrations, and nerves to convert them to [...]

As some people would have it, even a plane can’t fly without them in it. How disappointing for them when they discover autopilot. If you’ve been a regular reader, you might have noticed a theme emerging about how we can’t throw ourselves like a missile at reality and expect things to all go our way. And that metaphor is not mine but was lifted from this excellent TED talk by the poet and philosopher David Whyte. It’s called Life at the Frontier: The Conversational Nature of Reality, and it [...]

Just as rules are meant to be broken (sometimes), we could say that plans are meant to go awry—and they do (very often). How, then, should you respond when things aren’t going to plan? In the 2023 Rugby World Cup semi-final against England, South Africa’s Springboks found themselves struggling in unexpected wet weather against a determined opposition playing to a slightly different pattern from what they had played before. South Africa’s coach Jaques Nienaber—no doubt prompted by his boss Rassie Erasmus—subbed flyhalf Manie Libbok in the 31st minute, much [...]

We strongly believe that we know what’s best, even when the evidence is against us. There’s a more helpful assumption for leading though uncertainty, and it’s not what you’d think. Here is a quote that I use to kick off many of my workshops. It’s relevant to the theme of trust and psychological safety, and equally to the theme of uncertainty. It’s by Chris Argyris and Peter Senge, two giants of organizational and leadership development. “Teams and organizations trap themselves in defensive routines that insulate their mental models from [...]