Hi Reader The majority of the start-up founders & business leaders I get to work with are drowning in input and starving for insight. What do I mean? As I see it, they will tell you they consume enormous amounts of content e.g. four books on the go at once, podcasts on commutes, LinkedIn threads they scroll through waiting for coffee. So they say they read voraciously & that they listen constantly. At the same time though, they can’t understand why their thinking hasn't improved. Something is...
8 days ago • 2 min read
Not good enough to finish....but you say nothing. Hi Reader Last Sunday I sat in the bar of a cool local hotel and watched the staff turn out €15 cocktails like they were doing them for the first time. Aesthetically, the bar is comfortable, appealing & embracing to sit in. The service is prompt & pleasant . The drinks were a disaster. I spoke to the F&B manager later. He's a friend. He told me client feedback had been strong. He was pleased with how the summer had gone. He’s my pal so I had...
15 days ago • 2 min read
After a while of 'the same' you just don't notice it Hi Reader There's a noticeable pattern & trend in founder and business leader behaviour that's so common most just can't see it. I’ve come to see that it’s not just one behaviour but something known as “a register”. For example….. "Would you be open to..." when they mean I want. "I'd love to explore..." when they mean I've decided. "Just checking in..." when they mean this matters. "I hope this makes sense..." at the end of something that...
29 days ago • 1 min read
Hi Reader There's an approach most founders & business leaders reach for when the pipeline goes quiet. More noise. More posts. More visibility. More brand awareness. More content. More voice. I've seen it so many times that I can pattern-recognise it before a founder or leader has finished describing what they're planning to do. And, yes, I've made it myself, more than once. Two weeks ago I wrote in my own reflection journal that it was time for “more people to know me”. I ruminated on that...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader Most founders & business leaders I meet believe two things about their own performance. The first is that working harder produces more output. The second is that when the output starts to drop, the answer is to work harder still. Neither belief is examined and both are the operating assumptions underneath most daily and weekly calendars. Both are wrong. Not partially wrong. They’re wrong in a specific way that turns effort into an active force against performance rather than a...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
Hi Reader A few weeks ago I told a sports-tech start-up founder something he didn't want to hear about how he was showing up in his sales meetings. It was something specific enough that he couldn't easily deflect it; I'd mulled it over for a fortnight before saying anything. He listened & nodded in the right places. Asked one or two clarifying questions and thanked me for my honesty. All good, I thought. Then he went into his next prospect meeting and did exactly the same thing. I know...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader Napoleon walked his camps at night. Not to inspect or plan; he walked to talk to the sentries. One story, possibly apocryphal, has him finding a sentry asleep at his post. A capital offence in any army before or since. Instead of court-martialling the man, Napoleon picked up the musket and stood the watch himself until the relief arrived. Whether that particular night happened as told, the practice around it is documented. He knew the names of veterans from campaigns years earlier....
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
Hi Reader In 1979, Akio Morita was about to release a portable cassette player with no recording function and headphones-only output. The market research was unanimous: people wanted recording. Buyers wouldn't pay for listening they couldn't share. Sony's own engineering team thought it was a mistake. Morita shipped it anyway. The Walkman sold over 400 million units across its lifespan and created a category that didn't exist before he forced it into the world. A bad idea, according to...
2 months ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader The sports-tech founder sent me his sales pipeline on a Saturday morning. Eight deals at an advanced stage, all green, all moving…and he was buoyant about it. Fair enough, I thought. The sales team had been busy, the activity metrics were up, the forecast looked like the best one he'd put in front of his board in months. He also sent me three sales-call recordings, "for context," he said. He wanted me to hear how well the sales team was handling the buyers (football academies). So I...
2 months ago • 4 min read