The Cretin Tendency

July 6, 2025

Actionable Insights, Article, Conversations, Empathy, Honesty, Relationships

The Cretin Tendency

When Smart People Choose Small Talk

I see a peculiar phenomenon that plagues even the most brilliant minds amongst us. Let’s call it the cretin tendency – that inexplicable human habit of spending hours dissecting the trivial whilst studiously avoiding the profound. Watch any group of intelligent people long enough, and you’ll witness this strange alchemy: sharp minds that could solve complex problems instead choosing to endlessly rehash celebrity scandals, workplace gossip, the role of socks, or the perceived failings of absent friends.

The Paradox of Intellectual Avoidance

Picture this: a dinner party filled with accomplished people – doctors, engineers, writers, academics. The conversation flows freely for hours, covering everything from the latest streaming series to speculation about a colleague’s romantic life to detailed critiques of people who aren’t there to defend themselves. These same individuals who demonstrate nuanced thinking in their working lives suddenly seem content to marinate in the shallow end of human discourse.

What makes this particularly striking is the cognitive dissonance involved. These aren’t people lacking intelligence or insight. They’re capable of profound thoughts, meaningful analysis, and genuine connection. Yet they consistently choose the conversational equivalent of junk food – immediately satisfying but ultimately empty.

The Comfort of the Inconsequential

Why do we gravitate towards what doesn’t matter? The answer lies partly in the safety of inconsequence. Discussing a celebrity’s latest controversy carries no real stakes. You can have strong opinions without personal risk. You can be wrong without meaningful consequences. The conversation flows easily because nobody’s core identity or deepest needs are on the line.

Compare this to discussing what actually matters to you – your fears about your child’s future, your struggles with purpose and meaning, your concerns about your relationship, your genuine hopes for society. These conversations demand vulnerability. They require us to reveal parts of ourselves that might be judged, misunderstood, or rejected.

The Theatre of Pseudo-Engagement

The cretin tendency often manifests as a kind of conversational theatre. We perform engagement with topics that generate easy emotional responses – outrage, amusement, superiority – whilst carefully avoiding subjects that might require us to examine our own lives or admit uncertainty. It’s easier to spend an hour condemning a politician’s hypocrisy than to spend ten minutes honestly examining our own contradictions.

This pseudo-engagement creates an illusion of meaningful social connection whilst actually preventing it. We mistake the heat of shared indignation for the warmth of genuine understanding. We confuse the energy of gossip for the intimacy of authentic conversation.

The Absent Person’s Dilemma

Perhaps nowhere is the cretin tendency more apparent than in our treatment of absent people. How quickly conversations turn to detailed character analyses of those who aren’t present to offer their perspective. We become amateur psychologists, dissecting motivations and passing judgements with the confidence of those who will never have their conclusions challenged by the subject.

This isn’t necessarily malicious – often it feels like harmless social bonding. But it reveals something troubling about our conversational priorities. We’ll spend significant time and mental energy analysing the perceived faults of others whilst remaining remarkably incurious about their actual experiences, challenges, or perspectives.Without seeing them as essentially human.

What We’re Really Avoiding

The most telling aspect of the cretin tendency is what it reveals through omission. In avoiding meaningful conversation, we’re often avoiding:

Uncertainty and complexity. Real issues rarely have clear answers or easy solutions. It’s more comfortable to debate simplified versions of complex problems than to sit with genuine ambiguity.

Personal vulnerability. Sharing what truly matters to us requires emotional risk. What if others don’t understand? What if they judge us? What if we discover we’re more alone in our concerns than we thought?

The weight of genuine problems. Climate change, inequality, the meaning of existence, the fragility of relationships – these topics carry emotional and intellectual weight that can feel overwhelming. Celebrity drama, by contrast, feels manageable.

Self-examination. It’s easier to critique others than to honestly assess our own choices, motivations, and contradictions. (See also: the Fundamental Attribution Error.)

Breaking the Pattern

Recognising the cretin tendency doesn’t mean eliminating all light conversation – there’s genuine value in humour, shared cultural references, and social bonding through common interests. The issue arises when this becomes our default mode, when we use trivial talk as a shield against meaningful connection.

If we want to break this pattern, we might choose to apply some intentional effort. It means occasionally steering conversations towards substance, even when it feels awkward. It means admitting when we don’t know something instead of offering quick judgements. It means asking genuine questions about others’ experiences rather than seeking confirmation of our existing opinions.

Most importantly, it means acknowledging that the things we care about most deeply – love, purpose, mortality, justice, beauty – deserve more than the conversational scraps we typically offer them.

The Cost of Shallow Waters

The cretin tendency exacts a hidden toll. By consistently choosing the trivial over the meaningful, we gradually lose our capacity for depth. Our conversational muscles for handling complexity atrophy. We become strangers to our own deepest thoughts and feelings, let alone those of others.

We also miss opportunities for genuine connection and growth. Some of life’s most transformative conversations happen when someone finally asks, “But what do you really think about this?” or “How are you actually handling everything that’s happening?”

Choosing Depth

The alternative isn’t to become insufferably earnest or to eliminate all light conversation. It’s to become more intentional about when we engage our full intelligence and when we allow ourselves to coast in conversational cretinism.

It’s recognising that the people around us – including ourselves – are complex beings dealing with profound questions, not just sources of entertainment or validation for our surface-level opinions.

The next time you find yourself in the middle of yet another lengthy discussion about something that ultimately doesn’t matter to anyone present, consider asking a different question: “What’s actually on your mind these days?” You might be surprised by what emerges when we finally give our deeper thoughts permission to surface.

After all, we’re all more interesting than our small talk suggests.

My Affinity with R.D. Laing

June 29, 2025

Alien tech, Article, Honesty, Organisational Therapy, Psychotherapy

Leave a comment

My Affinity with R.D. Laing

From Anti-Psychiatry to Organisational Healing

Who Was R. D. Laing?

R.D. Laing (Ronald David Laing, 1927-1989) was a Scottish psychiatrist who became one of the most influential and controversial figures in 20th-century mental health. Here’s an overview of who he was:

Background

Born in Glasgow in 1927, Laing studied medicine at the University of Glasgow and initially trained in conventional psychiatry. However, he became increasingly critical of traditional psychiatric approaches and developed radically different ideas about mental illness, particularly schizophrenia.

Key Ideas & Contributions

Anti-Psychiatry Movement Though he rejected the label, Laing became associated with the “anti-psychiatry” movement of the 1960s. He challenged the medical model of mental illness, arguing that what we call “madness” often made perfect sense when understood in context.

The Divided Self His most famous concept was that mental distress, particularly schizophrenia, wasn’t a brain disease but a comprehensible response to impossible family and social situations. He saw the “divided self” as a survival strategy in the face of unbearable circumstances.

Family Systems Laing pioneered the idea that families, not individuals, were often the source of psychological problems. He studied how families created “double-bind” situations that drove members to breakdown.

Phenomenological Approach Instead of treating patients as objects of study, he insisted on understanding their subjective experience and inner world. He treated people’s “psychotic” experiences as meaningful rather than merely symptomatic.

Major Works

The Divided Self (1960) – his breakthrough work
The Politics of Experience (1967) – his most radical book
Knots (1970) – poetic explorations of relationship tangles
Sanity, Madness and the Family (1964, with Aaron Esterson)

Cultural Impact

Laing became a celebrity intellectual in the 1960s counterculture, influencing:

Literature (writers like Doris Lessing)
The human potential movement
Alternative therapy approaches
Political thinking about power and normalcy

Kingsley Hall

In the 1960s, Laing established therapeutic communities like Kingsley Hall in London, where people experiencing psychosis could live without forced medication or restraints—a radical experiment in treating mental distress.

Legacy & Controversy

Laing remains controversial. Supporters see him as a humanitarian who exposed the violence of traditional psychiatry. Critics argue his ideas delayed proper treatment for serious mental illness. His influence on therapy, social work, and organisational psychology continues today.

He died in 1989, but his core insight—that individual symptoms often reflect systemic problems—remains influential across many fields, including the organisational psychotherapy work discussed in this blog post.

There’s something profoundly liberating about reading R.D. Laing. His rejection of psychiatric orthodoxy—the labels, the pathologising, the clinical distance—feels like a breath of fresh air in a field often suffocated by its own rigid protocols. But what struck me most wasn’t just his critique of traditional therapy; it was how his radical approach to understanding human suffering could be transplanted into entirely different contexts. Specifically, into the complex ecosystems we call organisations.

The Orthodoxy Problem

Laing’s fundamental insight was that the orthodox psychiatric approach often perpetuated the very problems it claimed to solve. By reducing complex human experiences to diagnostic categories, by maintaining clinical objectivity at the expense of genuine encounter, traditional psychiatry risked becoming another form of violence against already vulnerable people. His famous assertion that ‘the divided self’ wasn’t a pathology to be cured but a comprehensible response to impossible circumstances revolutionised how we think about mental distress.

What fascinated me was how perfectly this critique applied to organisational life. Just as traditional psychiatry reduced individuals to symptoms and syndromes, conventional organisational consulting reduces complex systemic issues to neat problems with tidy solutions. Teams are ‘performing below expectations’, leaders are ‘problematic’, cultures are ‘challenging’—as if slapping a label on something constituted understanding it.

The Encounter Over Diagnosis

Laing emphasised authentic encounter over clinical assessment. He sought to understand the inner world of his patients, to make sense of experiences that others dismissed as senseless. This wasn’t mere empathy; it was a radical repositioning of the therapeutic relationship from expert-patient to human-human.

In my work with organisations, I’ve found this approach transformative. Instead of arriving with predetermined frameworks and assessment tools, I’ve learnt to listen for the organisation’s own story about itself. What narratives do people tell about their workplace? What metaphors emerge? What does the organisation’s ‘divided self’ look like—the gap between its stated values and lived experience?

I remember working with a tech company where everyone complained about ‘communication problems’. The orthodox approach would have been to implement communication training, new meeting structures, better tools. But sitting with the discomfort longer, really listening to the stories people told, I began to hear something else: a deep grief about the loss of intimacy as the company scaled. The ‘communication problem’ was actually a mourning process that invited acknowledgement, not fixing.

The Politics of Organisational Experience

Laing’s The Politics of Experience challenged us to see individual symptoms as responses to systemic pressures. The person experiencing distress wasn’t the problem; the family system that produced the double-binds was where the patterns originated. This insight is revolutionary when applied to organisational challenges.

When we see an employee’s ‘resistance to change’ or a team’s ‘lack of engagement’, we’re often witnessing healthy responses to challenging systems. The issue isn’t the individual’s psychology; it’s the organisational ecology that makes authentic engagement difficult or risky.

I’ve learnt to ask different questions: What would have to be true about this workplace for this behaviour to make perfect sense? What double-binds exist here? Where are people being asked to be simultaneously autonomous and compliant, innovative and risk-averse, collaborative and competitive?

The Knots We Tie

Perhaps no work of Laing’s speaks more directly to organisational life than Knots—those impossible tangles of communication where every response makes things worse. Organisations are full of such knots:

We want you to take initiative
But don’t make mistakes
We value innovation
But only if it succeeds
We’re a family here
But it’s just business

Traditional organisational development tries to untie these knots through clearer policies and better communication. But Laing understood that some knots can’t be untied—they have to be seen, acknowledged, and sometimes simply held with compassion until they naturally loosen.

Beyond Adjustment

The most radical aspect of Laing’s approach was his refusal to see therapy as adjustment to an unjust status quo. If the family system was creating impossible conditions, the goal wasn’t to help the identified patient adapt better to those conditions. Sometimes the most therapeutic response was to help people see clearly what they were dealing with, even if it meant disrupting existing relationships.

This translates powerfully to organisational work. My role isn’t to help people adjust better to challenging environments or to make struggling systems run more smoothly. Sometimes the most therapeutic intervention is helping people name what they’re experiencing, validating their perceptions, and supporting whatever responses emerge from that clarity—even if it means people leave, or demand fundamental changes, or refuse to participate in harmful patterns.i.e. Surfacing and refelecting (SAR).

The Courage to Be Present

What I’ve learnt from Laing is that healing—whether individual or organisational—requires the courage to be present with things as they are, not as we wish they were or think they should be. It means sitting with discomfort instead of rushing to solutions. It means honouring the wisdom embedded in symptoms instead of pathologising them away.

In organisational settings, this looks like creating spaces where difficult truths can be spoken, where the organisation’s shadow material can emerge and be witnessed. It means understanding that what appears challenging often contains the seeds of growth, that what looks problematic might actually be the system’s attempt to evolve.

The Ongoing Revolution

Laing’s revolution in psychiatry was fundamentally about dignity—treating people as experts on their own experience rather than objects of professional knowledge. This revolution is far from over, in therapy or in organisational life. Every time we choose curiosity over certainty, encounter over assessment, empathy over judgement, we’re continuing his work.

The organisations I work with aren’t systems needing to be fixed by expert intervention. They’re complex human communities deserving of the same respectful attention Laing brought to his most distressed patients. They have their own wisdom, their own capacity for growth, their own truth to tell—if we’re brave enough to listen.

Why Progress Dies in the Executive Suite

May 25, 2025

Actionable Insights, Article, Change management, Honesty, Management

Leave a comment

Why Progress Dies in the Executive Suite

The Great Management Reckoning

Across industries and organisations, we’ve witnessing something unprecedented, yet long overdue: a collective uprising from the very people who were meant to benefit from decades of management initiatives, transformation programmes, and cultural change efforts. Teams are no longer politely nodding along to leadership’s latest improvement campaigns. Instead, they’re delivering a blunt message: “If you can’t or won’t make the necessary changes to make this work, then frankly, sod off with all your exhortations.”

This isn’t just workplace grumbling about the latest fad. It’s a reckoning that’s been building for decades, spanning everything from Agile adoptions to diversity initiatives, from digital transformations to sustainability programmes.

The Pattern Repeats Everywhere

Whether it’s Agile adoption, DevOps transformation, digital-first strategies, environmental sustainability, diversity and inclusion efforts, or employee wellbeing programmes, the same depressing cycle plays out:

Leadership announces bold new directions. Consultants are hired. Frameworks are adopted. Teams are trained. Metrics are established. Progress is measured, celebrated, then quietly forgotten as the next initiative takes centre stage. Meanwhile, the fundamental organisational structures, incentive systems, and collective assumptions that created the original problems remain completely untouched.

I bet you’re so bored with the situation that this post solicits no more than a yawn.

Gallup’s employee engagement surveys tell the story with brutal clarity. Despite decades of management innovations, leadership development programmes, and cultural transformation efforts, roughly 70% of employees remain fundamentally disengaged at work. These figures have barely budged even as organisations have spent billions on change management, coaching, and improvement initiatives.

The Theatre of Change

What we’ve created instead is an elaborate theatre of change. Organisations implement the visible trappings of progress whilst steadfastly refusing to address the underlying power structures and cultural assumptions that make real change possible.

Teams are asked to “embrace innovation” whilst being buried under approval processes that kill creativity. They’re told to “think like owners” whilst being treated like replaceable cogs. They’re encouraged to “speak truth to power” whilst watching colleagues who do so get marginalised or managed out. They’re expected to deliver “customer-centric solutions” whilst working in silos that make customer focus nearly impossible.

The sustainability team produces glossy ESG reports whilst the business continues prioritising quarterly profits over long-term environmental impact. The diversity and inclusion programme runs unconscious bias training whilst the same homogeneous leadership makes all the important decisions. Ddigital transformation initiatives implement new tools whilst preserving analogue processes and hierarchies.

The Uncomfortable Truth About Management

Here’s what decades of failed transformation efforts have taught us: meaningful organisational change requires management to fundamentally alter how they work, not just how they ask others to work. It demands giving up comfortable assumptions about control, hierarchy, and decision-making. It means accepting that the solutions to complex problems often emerge from the people closest to the work, not from executive strategy sessions.

Most critically, it requires acknowledging that the very management practices and organisational structures that got leaders to their current positions might be precisely what’s preventing their organisations from adapting to a complex, rapidly changing world.

But that level of self-examination and change is hard. It threatens established power structures, comfortable routines, and career advancement paths. It’s much easier to hire consultants to “fix the culture” whilst leaving management behaviours unchanged. It’s more comfortable to implement new processes than to examine why people circumvent existing ones. It’s safer to mandate training programmes than to act on the feedback they generate.

The Gaslighting Industrial Complex

For years, workers have been gaslit into believing that failed transformation efforts were their fault. They weren’t adaptable enough. They weren’t collaborative enough. They were “resistant to change.” They needed more training, more coaching, more commitment to the process. The problem was always with their execution, their attitudes, their willingness to embrace new ways of working.

This dynamic has created a peculiar form of organisational trauma. People know from experience that meaningful change is possible—they’ve seen glimpses of it during crisis situations when hierarchies temporarily flatten, bureaucracy gets suspended, and people are empowered to solve problems directly. But they’ve also learned that these moments are exceptions, quickly snuffed out once “normal” culture reassert itself.

The current backlash isn’t about resistance to improvement. It’s about exhaustion from caring more about organisational health than the people who supposedly lead it. It’s about watching the same dysfunctional patterns repeat whilst being told that transformation is just around the corner if only they’d try harder.

Beyond Organisational Theatre

Consider the current state of popular management initiatives:

Digital Transformation: Organisations spend millions on cloud migrations and AI implementations whilst preserving decision-making processes designed for industrial-age hierarchies and assumptions. The technology changes; the power structures remain identical.

Environmental Sustainability: Companies set net-zero targets and publish sustainability reports whilst maintaining business models fundamentally dependent on unsustainable consumption patterns. The metrics look good; the underlying logic stays unchanged.

Diversity and Inclusion: Organisations track representation statistics and mandate bias training whilst preserving recruitment, promotion, and cultural practices that systematically exclude diverse perspectives from meaningful influence.

Employee Wellbeing: Companies install meditation apps and flexible working policies whilst maintaining performance management systems that create chronic stress and overwork as standard operating procedure.

Customer-Centricity: Businesses reorganise around customer journeys and implement NPS tracking whilst preserving internal silos and incentive structures that make genuine customer focus nearly impossible.

The Innovation Paradox

Perhaps nowhere is this pattern more visible than in innovation efforts. Organisations create innovation labs, hire Chief Innovation Officers, and establish venture arms whilst maintaining procurement processes, risk management frameworks, and decision-making hierarchies specifically designed to prevent anything genuinely new from happening.

They ask teams to “think outside the box” whilst punishing any thinking that threatens established business models, challenges existing partnerships, or questions fundamental assumptions about how value is created and captured. They want the benefits of disruptive innovation without any actual disruption to comfortable arrangements.

What the Data Shows

The persistence of low employee engagement despite decades of management innovation reveals something profound: the problem isn’t with individual initiatives or methodologies. The problem is with the underlying assumption that organisational change can happen without management fundamentally changing how they operate.Or getting the hell outa Dodge altogether.

Gallup’s surveys, along with research from companies like McKinsey, BCG, and academic institutions, consistently show that successful transformation efforts share one critical characteristic: senior leadership doesn’t just sponsor change, they model it by altering their own behaviours, roles and responsibilities, assumptions and beliefs, first. They don’t just communicate new values, they make decisions that demonstrate those values even when it’s uncomfortable or expensive.

The Reckoning Arrives

What we’re seeing isn’t just pushback against specific programmes or initiatives. It’s a fundamental rejection of organisational theatre—the gap between what leadership says and what they actually do, between proclaimed values and lived reality, between transformation rhetoric and management behaviour.

Teams calling out this disconnect aren’t being difficult or resistant to change. They’re being honest about what they’ve observed and experienced. They’re refusing to participate in charades that benefit no one except consultants selling the next organisational panacea, and the personal wellbeing of already well-heeled managers and executives.

The most engaged, capable people are increasingly refusing to pretend that surface-level changes will address structural problems. They’re demanding either genuine transformation or honest acknowledgement that the organisation isn’t actually serious about change.

What Comes Next?

The path forward isn’t about abandoning improvement efforts—the challenges facing organisations are real and urgent. It’s about finally having honest conversations about what meaningful change actually demands from management.

Transformation is primarily a management challenge, not a team challenge. It requires managers to examine and alter their own collective assumptions, behaviours, and comfortable practices before asking anyone else to change. It demands accepting that in complex systems, control is largely illusory and that the best solutions often emerge from unexpected places.

For teams currently living through this frustration: your anger is justified, and your insights are valuable. The problem isn’t with your execution, your attitude, or your willingness to embrace change. The problem is with systems that ask you to transform whilst keeping the people with the most power to enable or block change entirely unchanged.

For folks genuinely committed to transformation: the roadmap has been there all along, visible in every failed initiative and abandoned programme. The question isn’t whether you understand the latest methodology—it’s whether you’re willing to do the uncomfortable work of examining and changing your own behaviour first.

The great management reckoning is here. Across every industry and type of change effort, people are choosing whether they’re serious about transformation or just playing with prettier versions of the status quo. The theatre is closing. It’s time for the real work to begin.

The Cultural Transformation Paradox: Why Digital Transformation Will Fail Wherever Agile Already Has

May 24, 2025

Agile, Agility at Scale, Alien tech, Article, Change management, Culture change, Digital evolution, Honesty, Marshall Model, Memeology, Organisational Therapy, Quintessence, Rightshifting

1 Comment

The Cultural Transformation Paradox: Why Digital Transformation Will Fail Wherever Agile Already Has

We’ve all seen the statistics. According to various industry reports, somewhere between 60-70% of agile transformations fail to deliver their promised benefits. Meanwhile, digital transformation initiatives boast similarly dismal success rates, with studies suggesting that 70% or more fail to meet their objectives. Yet organisations continue to invest billions in these initiatives, convinced that this time will be different.

The uncomfortable truth is that both agile adoption and digital transformation require the same fundamental shift that organisations consistently refuse to make: a complete overhaul of their cultural DNA—their collective assumptions and beliefs about work itself.

The Agile Mirage: Surface Changes, Deep Resistance

Most agile “transformations” are really just process makeovers. Organisations eagerly adopt the ceremonies, tools, and vocabulary of agile whilst leaving their underlying cultural operating system completely intact. They implement daily standups whilst maintaining rigid approval hierarchies. They create cross-functional teams whilst preserving territorial budget processes. They preach customer collaboration whilst rewarding individual performance metrics that encourage hoarding information and credit.

The result? A thin veneer of agile practices layered over an unchanged command-and-control foundation. When pressure mounts, the old cultural reflexes kick in immediately. Managers bypass their newly empowered teams to make decisions directly. Budget cycles force teams back into detailed upfront planning. Risk-averse executives demand comprehensive documentation.

This happens because Agile isn’t really about processes—it’s about fundamentally different beliefs about human nature, decision-making, and value creation. True Agile requires a collective belief that:

People closest to the work make better decisions than distant executives
Learning through experimentation beats planning through prediction
Responding to change creates more value than following predetermined plans
Collaboration trumps individual heroics

Note that these (collective) beliefs align with the Synergistic mindset of the Marshall Model. These beliefs directly challenge the foundational assumptions upon which most large organisations are built—namely, the Analytic mindset as described in Rightshifting and the Marshall Model. It’s worth noting that the Agile Manifesto itself, whilst historically significant in crystallising these ideas, has at this point become little more than an historical curiosity—a fusty old relic that organisations reference whilst systematically ignoring its fundamental principles.

The Executive Comfort Zone Problem

Here’s where executives consistently fail: they want the benefits of cultural transformation without the discomfort of actually changing culture. They’re willing to fund new roles, reorganise teams, and implement new tools. But ask them to genuinely redistribute decision-making authority, eliminate layers of approval processes, or accept that their detailed strategic plans might be wrong, and you’ll encounter fierce resistance.

This resistance isn’t malicious—it’s deeply human. The existing culture got these executives to where they are. It validated their skills, justified their positions, and created their success. Asking them to embrace a fundamentally different approach feels like asking them to invalidate their entire professional identity.

So they compromise. They keep one foot in the old world whilst dipping a toe in the new. They want autonomous teams that still seek approval for every significant decision. They want rapid experimentation within predetermined boundaries. They want cultural transformation without cultural disruption.

This resistance isn’t just rational but deeply psychological – requiring the kind of intervention that organisational psychotherapy provides, rather than traditional change management.

Digital Transformation: Same Problem, Bigger Scale

Now we’re being told that digital transformation is the answer to organisational competitiveness. But digital transformation isn’t really about technology any more than agile transformation is about processes. It’s about completely reimagining how organisations create, deliver, and capture value in a digitally-native world.

True digital transformation requires even more radical cultural shifts than agile adoption:

From ownership to access: Success comes from orchestrating ecosystems, not controlling assets
From planning to sensing: Markets move too fast for traditional strategic planning cycles
From efficiency to adaptability: The ability to change quickly matters more than operational optimisation
From competition to collaboration: Value creation happens through partnerships and platforms
From products to experiences: Customer relationships matter more than transaction efficiency

These shifts are even more threatening to traditional organisational culture than agile principles. They challenge not just how work gets done, but the fundamental business models and value propositions that justify the organisation’s existence.

The Predictable Pattern

Watch what happens in most digital transformation initiatives:

Phase 1: Excitement and investment. New roles are created (Chief Digital Officer, anyone?), consulting firms are hired, and pilot projects launch with great fanfare.

Phase 2: Technology implementation. Organisations focus on the tangible, measurable aspects—new platforms, data analytics capabilities, customer-facing applications. Progress feels real and quantifiable.

Phase 3: Cultural collision. The new digital capabilities bump up against unchanged organisational behaviours. Decision-making bottlenecks prevent rapid iteration. Risk management processes slow down experimentation. Performance metrics reward short-term efficiency over long-term learning.

Phase 4: Accommodation and retreat. Rather than confronting the cultural barriers, organisations find ways to make the new capabilities fit within existing structures. Digital transformation becomes a series of technology upgrades rather than a fundamental reimagining of how the organisation operates.

Phase 5: Disappointment and blame. When the transformation fails to deliver transformational results, organisations blame the technology, the consultants, or the execution—anything except the cultural foundations they refused to examine.

Why We Keep Believing the Lie

If the pattern is so predictable, why do organisations keep falling into the same trap? Several cognitive biases work together to maintain the illusion:

The technology fallacy: It’s easier to believe that new tools will solve organisational problems than to confront the reality that the problems are human and cultural.

The incremental improvement myth: Organisations convince themselves that they can achieve transformational results through incremental changes, avoiding the disruption of true cultural shift.

The expert outsourcing delusion: Hiring consultants and creating new roles provides the psychological comfort that someone else is responsible for managing the transformation complexity.

The measurement misdirection: Focusing on easily quantifiable metrics (tools deployed, teams trained, processes documented) provides false evidence of progress whilst the deeper cultural work goes unmeasured and undone.

The Uncomfortable Alternative

What would genuine cultural transformation actually require? It would mean executives giving up significant control and accepting genuine uncertainty about outcomes. It would mean dismantling organisational structures that have provided stability and predictability for decades. It would mean acknowledging that many of the skills and approaches that created past success might be liabilities in a rapidly changing environment.

Most fundamentally, it would require leaders to model the vulnerability and learning mindset they’re asking their organisations to adopt. They would need to admit what they don’t know, experiment with approaches that might fail, and change course based on feedback from people lower in the organisational hierarchy.

This level of authentic change is rare because it’s genuinely difficult and risky. It requires leaders who are more committed to organisational success than to their own comfort and certainty.

A Different Question

Instead of asking “How can we make digital transformation successful?”, perhaps we should ask “Are we prepared to become the kind of organisation that digital transformation requires?”

This question cuts through the comfortable mythology and forces honest self-assessment. Most organisations, when confronted with this question directly, would have to answer “no”—and that honesty might be the first step toward genuine transformation.

And honestly answering this question might require the kind of deep self-examination that organisational psychotherapy is designed to facilitate.

The alternative is to continue the expensive charade of surface-level change initiatives that provide the appearance of progress whilst leaving the fundamental constraints unchanged. We can keep funding the consultants, implementing the tools, and reorganising the teams whilst wondering why transformation remains elusive.

But we shouldn’t be surprised when digital transformation fails at the same rate and for the same reasons as agile transformation. The problem was never the methodology or the technology—it was always the culture we’re too attached to change.

The Budget-First Revolution: What Most Product Development Teams Don’t Know

February 12, 2025

Article, Financial, Honesty, NoEstimates, Organisational effectiveness, Paradigm shifts, Product development, Requirements, Software Delivery

Leave a comment

The Budget-First Revolution: What Most Product Development Teams Don’t Know

In the world of product development, there are two fundamental approaches to budgeting: the cost-first approach (“How much will it cost?”) and the budget-first approach (“What can we get for our notional budget limit?”). Despite these being equally valid options, most organisations default to cost-first estimation simply because they’re unaware that budget-first is a legitimate alternative. This unconscious limitation of choice often leads teams down a path of unnecessary estimation complexity when a simpler approach might better serve their needs.

The Cost-First Approach: The Traditional Path and Its Pitfalls

The cost-first approach begins with a vision of what needs to be built and works backwards to determine the necessary budget. Whilst familiar to many organisations, this traditional estimation-based method comes with significant challenges and drawbacks:

The Estimation Fallacy

Studies consistently show that development estimates are notoriously inaccurate. The Cone of Uncertainty suggests that initial estimates can be off by a factor of 4x – or more – in either direction. Even with experienced teams, complex projects routinely exceed their estimated budgets by 50% or more.

Hidden Costs of Estimation

The process of creating detailed estimates consumes significant time and resources. Teams often spend weeks in estimation meetings, agreeing requirements, preparing documentation, and defending their numbers – time that could be spent actually building and delivering value.

The Planning Fallacy

Humans consistently display optimism bias in planning, underestimating the time and effort required for complex tasks. This psychological tendency, combined with pressure to provide “acceptable” estimates, leads to systematic underestimation.

Requirements Instability

The cost-first approach assumes requirements can be accurately defined upfront. In reality, requirements often change significantly during development as understanding evolves and market conditions shift. This makes initial estimates increasingly irrelevant as the project progresses.

Perverse Incentives

When estimates become commitments, teams face pressure to cut corners to meet arbitrary deadlines. This can lead to technical debt, reduced quality, and increased long-term costs. Additionally, teams may pad estimates defensively, reducing trust and transparency.

The #NoEstimates Movement

In response to these challenges, the #NoEstimates movement has emerged as a critique of traditional estimation practices. Pioneered by practitioners like Woody Zuill and Neil Killick, the movement questions the value of detailed upfront estimation in product development.

Core Principles of #NoEstimates:

Focus on delivering small, valuable increments rather than predicting future costs
Use historical data and throughput metrics instead of speculative estimates
Make decisions based on value and capacity rather than detailed predictions
Embrace uncertainty and adaptation rather than trying to eliminate them through planning

Alternative Metrics

Instead of detailed estimates, #NoEstimates advocates suggest focusing on:

Cycle time: How long it takes to complete work items
Throughput: How many items are completed per time period
Value metrics: Direct measures of business impact
Running tested features: Working software in production

The Budget-First Approach: Starting with Notional Limits

The budget-first approach flips the traditional model by starting with a notional budget limit and determining what can be delivered within those constraints. Whilst this approach has gained popularity with the rise of agile development and lean startup principles, it remains surprisingly underutilised. Many teams continue with tortuous estimation processes simply because they don’t realise they have a choice.

Understanding Notional Budget Limits

The term “notional budget limit” is crucial here – it represents the realistic financial boundaries within which the team must operate. This isn’t about arbitrary restrictions, but rather about acknowledging the actual financial constraints that exist in most organisations. These limits might come from:

Annual departmental budgets
Quarterly funding allocations
Project portfolio constraints
Market-driven price points for the final product

Working Within Known Constraints

Rather than spending time estimating costs that may or may not fit within available budgets, teams start with the known financial constraints and work backwards. This creates a more focused conversation about:

What features provide the most value within the budget limit
How to phase delivery to match funding cycles
Where to make strategic trade-offs
How to maximise return on the available investment

Prioritisation is Key

Rather than exhaustively documenting all possible features, teams focus on identifying and prioritising the most crucial functionality. This often leads to better-focused products that deliver core value more efficiently.

MVP Definition

Teams work backwards from the notional budget limit to define a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) that fits within financial constraints whilst delivering essential functionality. This forces tough but valuable conversations about what features are truly necessary versus nice-to-have.

Innovation Through Clear Constraints

Understanding the notional budget limit upfront often drives more creative solutions. Teams focus their innovation efforts within known parameters rather than generating ideas that may prove financially unfeasible.

Why Teams Don’t Choose Budget-First

Understanding why budget-first remains underutilised can help organisations make more conscious choices about their approach:

Cultural Inertia

Many organisations have deeply ingrained practices around estimation and budgeting that are rarely questioned. The very idea that there might be an alternative to detailed estimation often comes as a surprise.

Misunderstanding of Control

There’s a common misconception that detailed estimates provide more control over development outcomes. In reality, budget-first approaches often provide better control by forcing early decisions about priorities and trade-offs.

Fear of Commitment (Lack of Trust)

Some organisations avoid stating budgets upfront, believing it will lead to teams consuming the entire budget regardless of need. This fear often leads to the more wasteful practice of extensive estimation exercises.

Procurement and Governance Requirements

Many organisations believe their governance processes require detailed estimates. In reality, most governance requirements can be satisfied through budget-first approaches with appropriate documentation of assumptions and priorities.

Choosing the Right Approach

The choice between cost-first and budget-first approaches often depends on several factors:

When to Use Cost-First

Regulatory compliance projects with non-negotiable requirements
Mission-critical systems where functionality cannot be compromised
Projects with well-understood requirements and clear technical paths
Organisations with flexible budgets and focus on comprehensive solutions

When to Use Budget-First

Startups and new product initiatives with limited funding
Innovation projects where learning and adaptation are crucial
Organisations with strict budget cycles or financial constraints
Projects where time-to-market is a primary concern

Making the Choice Conscious

To move towards more effective budgeting approaches, organisations might choose to:

Question Default Practices

Before automatically responding to the question “How much will it cost?”, teams might choose to explicitly consider whether a budget-first approach might be more appropriate.

Educate Stakeholders

Help decision-makers understand that budget-first is a valid and often more effective approach. This includes explaining how it can lead to better outcomes and more efficient use of resources (i.e. lower costs, quicker time to market).

Start Small

Consider piloting budget-first approaches on smaller projects where the stakes are lower and resistance to change may be less intense.

Success Factors for All Approaches

Regardless of the chosen methodology, certain factors are crucial for success:

Clear Communication

All approaches require transparent communication about constraints, whether they’re financial or functional. All stakeholders may choose to understand and agree to the chosen approach and its implications.

Realistic Expectations

Teams may choose to be honest about what can be achieved, whether working within a fixed budget or estimating costs. Over-optimism in either approach leads to disappointed stakeholders and stressed teams.

Regular Review and Adjustment

All approaches benefit from regular checkpoints to assess progress, adjust plans, and ensure alignment with business objectives Cf. Tom Gilb’s Mountain Goat principle). This includes being willing to make tough decisions about scope, quality, or additional funding when necessary.

Conclusion

Whilst the cost-first approach remains common in many organisations, this is often due to habit rather than conscious choice. The emergence of budget-first thinking, which starts with notional budget limits, reflects a broader shift toward more adaptive, value-focused approaches to development.

The key is not just to choose between approaches, but to make that choice consciously rather than defaulting to traditional estimation methods out of habit. By acknowledging that working within notional budget limits is a valid starting point, organisations can make better choices about how they approach budgeting and delivery.

Success in modern development invites questioning of traditional practices and being willing to adopt approaches that might initially feel uncomfortable. Whether through budget-first methods, #NoEstimates practices, or hybrid approaches, organisations have more options than they often realise for moving beyond the limitations of traditional cost-first estimation.

The Great Pretence of Software Craftsmanship

February 6, 2025

Article, Honesty, Improvement, Motivation

2 Comments

The Great Pretence of Software Craftsmanship

[Tl;Dr: Almost everyone’s just play acting.]

The software industry has an open secret: almost everyone pretends to care deeply about improving their craft, yet almost no one actually does.

Watch any tech conference, browse any developer forum, or step into any engineering office. You’ll hear the same tired, rehearsed lines about continuous learning, staying current with technology, and pursuing excellence in software development. Developers share links to technical articles they’ll never read, star GitHub repositories they’ll never explore, and enthuse about side projects that will never see a single line of code.

The Theatre of Technical Excellence

The pretence runs deep. Developers maintain carefully curated LinkedIn profiles highlighting their “passion for clean code” and “dedication to software craftsmanship.” They nod sagely in architecture discussions about SOLID principles whilst their own codebases remain tangled and brittle. They advocate for comprehensive testing whilst making excuses for why their own code can’t be tested “right now.”

A Cultural Phenomenon

This widespread insincerity isn’t malicious – it’s human nature colliding with industry expectations. We’ve created a culture where expressing devotion to craft improvement isn’t just encouraged, it’s practically mandatory. So developers play along, maintaining the illusion of constant growth whilst remaining comfortably static in their skills and practices. Or even going backwards, given the rate at which things change.

The Rare Authentic

The truly remarkable ones – perhaps one in ten thousand – actually live what others merely preach. They’re the developers who spend evenings understanding how their tools work under the bonnet, who rewrite their own code multiple times to explore better approaches, who genuinely struggle with difficult concepts – like Lean, Quality, psychology, etc. – until they master them. They don’t talk much about improvement because they’re too busy actually doing it.

The Comfortable Reality

Some developers are competent professionals who reliably deliver working software. But they’ve mastered the art of appearing more invested in improvement than they really are. They’ve learnt that saying “I should really learn about that” is an acceptable substitute for actually learning it.

The Cost of Pretence

This collective play acting serves a purpose – it maintains the fiction that we’re all part of a craft-focused profession rather than just people doing a job. But it also creates an exhausting environment of constant posturing, where genuine growth becomes harder to distinguish from well-practised performance.

The Statistical Reality

Given the rarity of truly dedicated craftspeople – maybe one in ten thousand – the mathematical reality is stark. In a company of say 500 developers, the probability of having even one sincere craftsperson is vanishingly small. Most developers will go their entire careers without ever working alongside someone truly committed to mastery. This creates a self-perpetuating cycle where mediocrity masquerading as excellence becomes the unquestioned norm, as no one in the organisation has ever experienced anything different.

The few genuine craftspeople tend to gravitate toward specific roles and organisations where they can find their peers, leaving the vast majority of companies in a state of comfortable stagnation, each developer reinforcing the others’ pretence of professional growth.

Perhaps it’s time we were more honest about this reality. Most developers aren’t passionate craftspeople constantly honing their skills – they’re practical professionals doing their jobs more or less adequately. And maybe that’s okay. But let’s stop pretending otherwise?

The next time you catch yourself nodding along to discussions about best practices you’ll never implement, or agreeing that you should really learn that new framework, ask yourself: are you actually going to do it, or are you just playing your part in tech’s longest-running show? More fundamentally, do you need to be honest with yourself?

The Brutal Truth About Why Companies Sell You What You Want (Even When It’s Bad for You)

November 3, 2024

Article, Attendants, Customers, Ethics, Honesty, Needs, Psychology

Leave a comment

The Brutal Truth About Why Companies Sell You What You Want (Even When It’s Bad for You)

The Allure of Superficial Wants

Commercial success in today’s marketplace hinges on a deceptively simple principle: give people what they want. It’s a formula that has built empires, from fizzy drinks giants to fast-fashion behemoths. These companies haven’t achieved their staggering profits by focusing on what might genuinely benefit their customers—their needs. They’ve mastered the art of fulfilling (and often manufacturing) wants.

Yet this relentless pursuit of wants creates a moral quandary. Whilst businesses rack up profits by satisfying our cravings for sugar-laden snacks, fast fashion, and endless entertainment, they often actively undermine what we genuinely need: nutritious food, sustainable clothing, and meaningful uses of our time. The painful truth is that these companies aren’t necessarily villains—they’re simply playing by the rules of a system where commercial success and moral success rarely intersect.

The Quieter Call of Deeper Needs

What we truly need—proper nutrition, meaningful relationships, physical exercise, mental stimulation—often lacks the glamour and attraction of our wants. A quiet evening reading a book rarely generates the same immediate excitement as scrolling through social media, despite being potentially more fulfilling.

Healthcare provides a stark example of this dichotomy. Private healthcare companies profit more from selling comfortable but unnecessary procedures than from providing essential preventive care. The commercial incentive often aligns with patient wants (immediate relief, cosmetic improvements) rather than patient needs (lifestyle changes, preventive measures).

A Business Conundrum

Profit vs Purpose

Businesses face a genuine ethical dilemma. Their survival depends on commercial success, yet their moral obligation might require steering customers toward choices that are less immediately appealing but more beneficial in the long run.

Consider publishing houses: Might they prioritise publishing self-help books promising quick fixes (what people want) or more challenging works that promote deeper understanding and personal growth (what people need)?

Rare Alignment

Occasionally, but oh so rarely, wants and needs do align. Consider farmers’ markets that make locally-grown, seasonal produce fashionable, responsible, ethical and nutritious. They’ve managed to transform the essential need for healthy, sustainable food into something people actively desire. However, these instances are exceptions rather than the rule.

Breaking the Cycle

To address this dilemma, both businesses and consumers might choose to evolve. Companies could invest in educating consumers about their true needs whilst making necessary products and services more appealing. Meanwhile, consumers might benefit from more mindful consumption. Fat chance.

A Personal Reflection

To better understand this tension, ask yourself: what would you rather have, today—what you want, or what you need?

In answering this question, consider your recent purchases. How many served genuine needs versus momentary wants? How often have you chosen immediate gratification over long-term benefit?

This reflection might reveal uncomfortable truths about our consumption habits, but it could also guide us toward learing about more meaningful choices in both our personal lives and our business practices.

The Myth of Change Resistance: Why We Really Struggle with Change

September 9, 2024

Actionable Insights, Article, Culture change, Honesty, Learning, Psychology, Reflections, WhatIf

Leave a comment

The Myth of Change Resistance: Why We Really Struggle with Change

The Deceptive Mantra

“People don’t like change.” We’ve all heard this phrase countless times, haven’t we? It’s plastered across motivational posters, whispered in office corridors, and preached from management pulpits. But what if I suggested this widely accepted notion is fundamentally flawed?

The Real Culprit: Our Cherished Beliefs

The truth is far more intriguing. Humans don’t inherently resist change; we resist having our deeply held beliefs and assumptions challenged.

The Cognitive Fortress

Our beliefs and assumptions aren’t just casual thoughts; they’re the bricks and mortar of our mental fortresses. They shape how we perceive the world, control our decisions, and form a significant part of our identity. When these core beliefs are called into question, it feels like an attack on our very essence.

Consider this: How many Agile believers have you successfully convinced with logical arguments and stories from experience? Probably none. It’s not because they can’t comprehend the evidence, but because accepting it would require dismantling a fundamental part of their worldview.

The Discomfort Zone

When we encounter information that contradicts our existing beliefs, we experience cognitive dissonance—a mental state akin to trying to force two repelling magnets together. It’s uncomfortable, and our brains will perform impressive mental gymnastics to avoid it.

Remember the last time you were proven wrong in an argument? That flush of embarrassment, that urge to defend your position despite knowing you’re incorrect? That’s cognitive dissonance in action.

The Ego Shield

Challenging our beliefs requires admitting that we might be wrong—a prospect that’s about as appealing as a root canal. Our egos kick into overdrive, deploying an arsenal of defence mechanisms to protect our cherished worldviews.

It’s why climate change deniers can look at melting glaciers and still claim it’s all a hoax. The alternative—accepting that long-held beliefs might be incorrect—is too threatening to their sense of self.

Reframing Change: From Threat to Opportunity

So, how do we overcome this deeply ingrained resistance? The key lies in reframing how we perceive challenges to our beliefs. Instead of viewing them as threats, we can see them as opportunities for growth and learning.

Imagine approaching new ideas with the excitement of a child discovering the world for the first time. What if, instead of immediately dismissing contradictory information, we asked ourselves, “What if this is true? How would that change my understanding?”

The Superpower of Intellectual Humility

Developing intellectual humility—the ability to acknowledge that our knowledge and beliefs may be incomplete or incorrect—is crucial in this process. It’s not about being uncertain of everything, but about being open to the possibility that we might not have all the answers.

Think of it as upgrading your mental operating system. Just as you might not insist on using MSDOS in 2024, why cling to outdated beliefs when new information becomes available?

Embracing the Adventure of Change

As we navigate our rapidly evolving world, recognising the true nature of our resistance to change is more important than ever. It’s not change itself we fear, but the challenging of our comfortable, familiar and self-defining beliefs.

The next time you feel that knee-jerk resistance to a new idea, pause. Ask yourself: “What belief of mine is being challenged here?” You might find that by loosening your grip on that belief, you’re not losing a part of yourself, but gaining a whole new perspective.

Remember, every great discovery in history came from someone willing to challenge existing beliefs. Who knows what amazing insights you might uncover by being open to change?

A Meta Moment: Your Reaction to This Post

Now, here’s where things get interesting. As you’ve read this post, you’ve likely had one of two reactions:

“This makes sense! I’ve experienced this myself.”
“I disagree. People really do resist change, and this post is overthinking it.”

If you fall into the first category, congratulations! You’ve just demonstrated the very openness to challenging beliefs that we’ve been discussing.

But if you’re in the second camp, don’t worry – you’re not alone. In fact, you’re providing a perfect real-time example of the very phenomenon this post describes. By dismissing these ideas, you might be unconsciously protecting your existing belief that “people resist change”.

Take a moment to reflect: Is your disagreement based on careful consideration of the arguments presented, or is it an instinctive defense of your current beliefs? Remember, the goal isn’t to prove anyone right or wrong, but to encourage a more flexible, growth-oriented mindset.

The Ultimate Challenge

So, dear reader, here’s your challenge: Regardless of your initial reaction, can you hold this post’s ideas in your mind as a possibility, even if you don’t fully agree? Can you say, “What if this is true? How would it change my understanding of human behavior and my own reactions to new ideas?”

By doing so, you’re not just reading about intellectual humility and openness to change – you’re actively practicing it. And that, perhaps, is the most powerful change of all.

Remember, the most profound growth often comes from considering ideas that initially make us uncomfortable. So, whether you’re nodding in agreement or shaking your head in disagreement, I invite you to sit with these ideas, ponder them, and see where they might lead you.

After all, isn’t the willingness to change our minds the truest embrace of change?

Upton Sinclair’s Dictum

April 5, 2024

Article, Business, Collaboration, Culture change, Ethics, Honesty, Memeology, Organisational effectiveness, Product development, Quintessence, Software development, Teambuilding, Value

Leave a comment

Upton Sinclair’s Dictum

The Maxim and Its Intellectual Pedigree

For those unfamiliar with the novelist and polemicist Upton Sinclair, he is perhaps best known for his 1906 novel “The Jungle” which exposed horrific conditions in the meat-packing industry and inspired reforms like the creation of the FDA. But one of Sinclair’s most oft-quoted maxims has lived on as sage advice in fields well beyond its original context of Yellow Journalism and muckraking:

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”

This pithy statement, now known as Upton Sinclair’s Dictum, echoes the perspective of the English mathematician and philosopher William Kingdon Clifford, who famously declared

“It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.”

thereby making belief an issue of morality, or ethics.

Both Upton Sinclair and William Clifford saw intellectual honesty and a commitment to following evidence over expedience as paramount moral and ethical imperatives.

The Perils of Motivated Reasoning

Sinclair’s dictum cuts to the heart of the conflict of interest that can arise when people are incentivised to ignore uncomfortable truths or turn a blind eye to unethical practices. Over a century later, it remains as relevant as ever – particularly for business leaders and managers charged with enabling collaborative knowledge work.

The Crucible of Knowledge Work

In fields like software development, product design, team coaching, and other collaborative brain (grey muscle) work, the challenges teams face are often wicked problems – complex issues with no clear right answer, where even reasonable people can disagree with each other. Successfully navigating these choppy waters requires the fearless questioning of assumptions and beliefs, a relentless commitment to empiricism over ego, and a culture where all ideas can be rigorously stress-tested rather than self-censored.

Incentives Gone Awry

And yet, how often do we see teams afflicted by an insidious form of willful blindness, where dissenting perspectives are downplayed or dismissed outright in service of binding to already-held beliefs? Perhaps it’s driven by managers’ career incentives being too tightly coupled to delivering on a specific roadmap or revenue target. Maybe it stems from product leaders’ identities being too inextricably bound up with their “billion dollar baby” and thus being emotionally invested in rationalising sunk costs. Or it could simply be the natural tendency toward the comfortable inertia of groupthink.

Embracing Intellectual Honesty

Whatever the root causes, the antidote is the same – cultivating a culture of intellectual honesty, where all the Folks That Matter™ have both the autonomy and the enthusiasm to vocalise doubts and scrutinise lchains of reasoning, assumptions and beliefs. Where no stone goes unturned in interrogating the fundamental assumptions underlying key decisions. Where Value at Risk* queries are not only tolerated but actively encouraged as a check against blind spots and biases.

Fostering this boundary-less ethos of truth-seeking is a significant challenge facing modern knowledge-work leaders. But by striving to live up to the spirit of Sinclair’s admonition, we give ourselves the best chance of circumventing the self-deceptions and rationalisations that can otherwise send initiatives careening toward ruinous failures.

Heeding History’s Warnings

Time and again, history’s cautionary tales have proved the adage that “in a battle of conviction against conventional wisdom, conventional wisdom has largely prevailed.” That’s why embracing Sinclair’s Dictum is so vital. For only by creating an environment where people can transcend their vested interests and follow the truth wherever it leads can we hope to part the veils of entrenched assumptions and beliefs.

*”Value at risk queries” refers to the practice of actively questioning and scrutinising decisions, plans, or initiatives to assess the potential downsides, risks, and costs if things go wrong.

The term is taken from the financial concept of “value at risk” (VaR), which is a risk measurement and management method used to estimate the potential losses an investment or portfolio could face over a given time period.

Here, “value at risk queries” means rigorously examining the value potentially put at risk by a course of action – whether that value is financial, reputational, opportunity costs, or other key metrics important to the organisation.

Some examples of value at risk queries include:

What is the worst-case scenario if this product fails to gain market traction?
Have we fully stress-tested the assumptions around customer adoption rates?
To what regulatory or compliance risks are we potentially exposing ourselves?
How much technical debt and future constraints are we incurring with this architecture?
Are we missing any significant blind spots in our competitive analysis?

Instead of shutting down or dismissing these tough “what if?” questions, organisations might choose to actively encourage and support value at risk queries. This helps surface potential blind spots and provides a check against overly optimistic planning or narrow frames of reference.

In essence, value at risk queries apply rigorous risk management thinking as an antidote to groupthink and comfortable consensus-building. They stress-test initiatives before making irreversible commitments.

Radiant Responsibility: Companies Shine with Ethical Standards and Radiant Transparency

February 1, 2023

Article, Culture change, Ethics, Honesty, Improvement, Trust

Leave a comment

Radiant Responsibility: Companies Shine with Ethical Standards and Radiant Transparency

In the vast and complex world of commerce and industry, there are a multitude of factors that contribute to a company’s success or failure. Of these, perhaps none is more important than a culture of transparency and accountability. And one of the most powerful tools in promoting this culture is the act of whistleblowing.

Whistleblowing refers to the act of reporting misconduct or illegal activity within an organisation to those who have the power and responsibility to take action. It is an act of courage that can be difficult for the whistleblower, but one that ultimately benefits both the company and its stakeholders.

At its core, whistleblowing is about promoting a culture of transparency and accountability within an organisation. When employees feel confident that they can report unethical or illegal behavior without fear of retribution, it sends a message that the company values honesty and integrity above all else.

The benefits of this kind of culture are numerous and far-reaching. For starters, it promotes a sense of trust and confidence among employees, which in turn can lead to increased morale and job satisfaction.

In addition, a culture of transparency and accountability also promotes ethical behavior within the company. Employees are less likely to engage in unethical or illegal behavior when they know that their peers are also acting ethically.

Furthermore, a culture of transparency can also have a positive impact on a company’s reputation. When employees feel confident that they can report unethical behavior without fear of retaliation, it sends a message that the company is committed to doing the right thing, even when it is difficult. This can help to improve the company’s standing in the eyes of its customers, shareholders, and other stakeholders, all of which can have a positive impact on the company’s bottom line.

Ultimately, the benefits of whistleblowing cannot be overstated. It is a critical component of a healthy and successful organisation, and one that can have a positive impact on a company’s bottom line in a number of ways. Whether it is improving morale, promoting ethical behavior, or building trust and confidence, the benefits of whistleblowing are clear and undeniable.

In conclusion, in the complex and ever-changing world of commerce and industry, the importance of a culture of transparency and accountability cannot be overstated. And among the many tools available for promoting this culture, whistleblowing stands out as one of the most powerful. By supporting employees in reporting unethical or illegal behavior without fear of retribution, it promotes a culture of trust, confidence, and respect, all of which can have a positive impact on a company’s bottom line. So let’s embrace the power of whistleblowing, and work together to build a brighter, more transparent future for all.

Factors of Top Performing Businesses

July 10, 2022

Article, Business, Culture change, Ethics, Honesty, Organisational effectiveness

Leave a comment

Factors of Top Performing Businesses

In order of biggest influence (biggest first):

Luck.
Graft a.k.a. criminality.
Unethical practices.
Rape of the planet.
Friends in high places.
Massive capital.
Effective shared assumptions and beliefs.

Luck

Most entrepreneurs admit that their success is largely down to luck. Being in the right place at the right time, and so on.

Graft

Criminal enterprises such as Enron or Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities are widely known. Graft on relatively smaller scales is widespread as a business strategy or tactic.

Unethical practices

Unethical practices such as stealing from employees, explotation of employees or customers, rape of pension funds, unethical marketing practices, and so on are so widespread as to be common practice.

Rape of the planet

Many businesses inflate their profits through appropriation of natural resources (water, forests, carbon deposits, minerals, etc.).

Friends In high places

Favourable treatment by e.g. regulators or legislators can lead to increased profits, revenues, etc., if you know the right people from whom or via whom to secure such favours.

Massive Capital

Most companies with voluminous financial resources generally see little need to be effctive, despite their shrill exhortations and protestations.

Effective shared assumptions and beliefs

Way down at the bottom of my list is actually running the business effectively. Little wonder then that all the other options listed here seem much more common as strategies for “success”.

Most of the options listed here reside more or less outside the control of the businesses in question. Luck is rarely in the control of the protagonists. Graft risks prosecution and sanctions such as jail. Unethical practices risk alienating customers. Rape of the planet risks alienating society, more than ever nowadays. Friends in high places relies on having such friends, and avoiding scrutiny of such relationships.

Only the last option in the list confers some degree of integrity. But then when did integrity ever count for much in business?

– Bob

Blockers

May 18, 2022

Alien tech, Article, Honesty, Improvement, Innovation, Memeology, Organisational effectiveness, Quintessence, Rightshifting, Software Delivery

Leave a comment

Blockers

Is it really beyond the bounds of credibility to imagine that we could all be twice, three times, four times better at delivering software? The data’s there (ISBSG). The real-world results and exemplars are there (Familiar, not least). The road-map, blue-print or manual is there (Quintessence). The support required to build the necessary environment is there (Hearts over Diamonds, Memeology, Organisational Psychotherapy).

So what’s holding back our industry, our software delivery organisations? Indifference? Ignorance? Learned helplessness? Lack of incentives? Vested interests? Fear? Something else?

I’m sure I don’t know the exact nature of the blocker*. But it’s clear that there’s blockers.

– Bob

*I have my suspicions. But it seems that no one wants to even talk about it.

Quickie: Coaching As Fixing

December 22, 2021

Coaching, Honesty, Quickies, Teambuilding

Leave a comment

How often do you see coaching as a means for “fixing” others?

Quickie: Lies Pay

October 15, 2021

Ethics, Honesty, Quickies, Reflections

Leave a comment

In the software industry, the more egregiously one lies, the more money one makes. probably true in other industries, as well.

Quickie: Fiction

September 26, 2021

Honesty, Productivity, Quickies

Leave a comment

Are you still buying into the fiction that managers are at all interested in productivity?

Let’s be Honest

August 20, 2021

Article, Culture change, Ethics, Honesty

5 Comments

Let’s be Honest

Let’s be honest, honesty seems in pretty short supply in life, and especially in business.

Let’s be honest…

It’s dangerous to speak one’s mind honestly.
Most folks are more interested in holding down a job than in being honest about what’s going on.
Being honest feels good, but has far more negative consequences than positive ones.
The more senior the person, the more lip-service is paid to honesty.
How often do you feel it necessary to hide what you’re doing, rather than honestly declaiming your actions?
The smarter folks are, the more acute their capacity for self-deception.
Character (as in “good character”) is lauded in public and ridiculed in private.
You’re not going to risk commenting on this post, lest someone influential sees your honest opinon.

– Bob

The Cretin Tendency

When Smart People Choose Small Talk

The Paradox of Intellectual Avoidance

The Comfort of the Inconsequential

The Theatre of Pseudo-Engagement

The Absent Person’s Dilemma

What We’re Really Avoiding

Breaking the Pattern

The Cost of Shallow Waters

Choosing Depth

Share the joy :)

My Affinity with R.D. Laing

From Anti-Psychiatry to Organisational Healing

Who Was R. D. Laing?

Background

Key Ideas & Contributions

Major Works

Cultural Impact

Kingsley Hall

Legacy & Controversy

The Orthodoxy Problem

The Encounter Over Diagnosis

The Politics of Organisational Experience

The Knots We Tie

Beyond Adjustment

The Courage to Be Present

The Ongoing Revolution

Further Reading

R.D. Laing’s Key Works

Organisational Learning and Systems Theory

Systemic and Therapeutic Approaches to Organisations

Contemporary Perspectives on Organisational Psychology

Share the joy :)

Why Progress Dies in the Executive Suite

The Great Management Reckoning

The Pattern Repeats Everywhere

The Theatre of Change

The Uncomfortable Truth About Management

The Gaslighting Industrial Complex

Beyond Organisational Theatre

The Innovation Paradox

What the Data Shows

The Reckoning Arrives

What Comes Next?

Further Reading

Share the joy :)

The Cultural Transformation Paradox: Why Digital Transformation Will Fail Wherever Agile Already Has

The Agile Mirage: Surface Changes, Deep Resistance

The Executive Comfort Zone Problem

Digital Transformation: Same Problem, Bigger Scale

The Predictable Pattern

Why We Keep Believing the Lie

The Uncomfortable Alternative

A Different Question

Further Reading

Share the joy :)

The Budget-First Revolution: What Most Product Development Teams Don’t Know

The Cost-First Approach: The Traditional Path and Its Pitfalls

The Estimation Fallacy

Hidden Costs of Estimation

The Planning Fallacy

Requirements Instability

Perverse Incentives

The #NoEstimates Movement

Core Principles of #NoEstimates:

Alternative Metrics

The Budget-First Approach: Starting with Notional Limits

Understanding Notional Budget Limits

Working Within Known Constraints

Prioritisation is Key

MVP Definition

Innovation Through Clear Constraints

Why Teams Don’t Choose Budget-First

Cultural Inertia

Misunderstanding of Control

Fear of Commitment (Lack of Trust)

Procurement and Governance Requirements

Choosing the Right Approach

When to Use Cost-First

When to Use Budget-First