Field Notes

Writing from the practice.

Occasional notes on what we've been thinking about, sent when they're ready.

Plate 6. The notes, in the order they were written.

On teams
Talented but tangled
A leadership team of capable people can still get in its own way. The knot is usually in the handovers between them.
Field note · 3 min
On risk
The price of doing anything that matters
Risk appetite is the board agreeing, before a proposal arrives, which bets it is willing to make.
Field note · 3 min
On structure
Eighty years of dust
What an empty building in Melbourne taught me about the distance between a vision and a structure that can carry it.
Field note · 3 min
On gaps
Everyone can see the gap
The gaps that matter are rarely hidden. They stay open because seeing a gap and closing it are two different jobs.
Field note · 3 min
On boards
The shortest list a board keeps
Every board should know what it decides for itself. The shorter that list, the better the board.
Field note · 3 min
On boards
Governance is not advice
The work of a board is not to have good opinions. It is to make sure the organisation can respond, especially to what no one has imagined yet.
Essay · 8 min
On the practice
The practice becomes permanent
A note on the fifth stage of our work (slow, measured, deep), and why it isn't a wrap-up.
Essay · 7 min
On discovery
The question before the question
What we listen for in discovery, and why the crux of any engagement is rarely where you'd first look.
Field note · 5 min
On practice
Why we say “co-design”
A strategy you wrote is a strategy you'll defend. A strategy they wrote is one they'll carry.
Field note · 4 min

Sent when they're ready.