Build #50 - the journey so far Hey there, Today’s Build has a slightly self-indulgent feel. I’m taking a look back over the last 50 issues of my newsletter for founders. I was going to title it “the greatest hits” but I bailed. Build began in November 2022 as an exploration of how businesses can scale better – becoming sustainable organisations for the long term, not grown too fast upon weak foundations. Then as I went independent in January 2023, it became an opportunity to capture...
14 days ago • 3 min read
Build #49 - coaching, measuring and disaggregating work Hello, Hope your week’s going well and you’ve got a little corner of brain space for three interesting articles I spotted recently: 1. Measuring knowledge work is hard Cal Newport has an interesting article that segues neatly from Elon Musk through management by objectives to its modern day counsin OKRs. The common thread is the challenge of measuring the unmeasurable - how knowledge work is inherently unmeasurable, despite a lot of...
21 days ago • 1 min read
Build #48 - why you need a BOS Hey there, I’ve worked closely with founders in growing businesses since 2014. Over those years I’ve noticed a few patterns that hold true almost everywhere. One is about the founder’s ability to devolve the right to make meaningful decisions. The sad version of this pattern is where the founder holds decision-making power close and doesn’t really enable others to genuinely take decisions. As the business hires good people into leadership roles, they work out...
28 days ago • 3 min read
Build #47 - place, governance and the ego toll Hey there, It’s Wednesday which means a quick canter through three interesting things I spotted this week: 1. We are shaped by place Jindy Mann explores how place shapes who we become on our journey through life. Through the lens of his own experience, he considers how the contexts in which he has worked and travelled might have shaped the people he met along the way. My take: I love Jindy’s writing. It's beautiful. It never fails to transport me...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
Build #46 - the case for curiosity Hello, I hope your week’s going well so far. In this week’s Build I’m asking you to take a step back and join me in an exploration of why curiosity matters. Our life experience shapes who we are and the way we work. It strongly influences the way we perceive those around us and our interactions with them. Yet we rely too much on our experience and this leads us to make flawed decisions. Psychologists Emre Soyer and Robin Hogarth have a great book about this...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
Build #45 - People, sincerity and status Hey there, This week’s pick of three interesting things has a people and relationships strand running through it. I won’t claim that’s by any kind of inspired intention...they were just the three most interesting pieces that made it on my shortlist for this week: 1. Your people are your worst asset Joe O'Mahoney has an interesting post about the relative importance of people and systems in the scaling phase of business. He argues that an over-emphasis...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
Build #44 - a tightrope between predictability and agility Hola and happy Wednesday once again, I’m fascinated with the enduring tension between seeking predictability and embracing agility in growth businesses. It’s a classic tightrope for founders to walk. What shows up as agility in the early days of a business doesn’t scale well. Add 50 people to an agile 25 person business and you usually end up with a sh*tstorm of a chaotic 75 person business. Conventional wisdom encourages founders to...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
Build #43 - organisations, mirrors and founder mode Good morning! Here’s your weekly dose of thought provoking links, curated to help you take a different perspective on building your company: 1. Organisations are mirrors An old article that James Gairdner’s recently updated that looks at the relationship between founders and the organisations they lead into being. He uses the thinking of Elliot Jacques to explore how the human faultlines that are inherent in us all can become transposed into...
2 months ago • 1 min read
Build #42 - the atomisation of work Hey there, I’ll start with a word of warning…today’s Build is a bit of a wandering foray into the nature of work, organisational design and building companies. I’ve been noodling around with thinking about the future of work since first reading Reinventing Organisations by Frederic Laloux back in 2014. Laloux’s “Evolutionary-Teal” paradigm started my journey to challenge much of what I’d learnt about organisations and management in my career before then....
2 months ago • 3 min read