Big transformation programmes used to make a lot of sense. For most of modern history, organisations would run for a period of time and then need to make a change. So they’d set up a programme, run a transformation, project, or change over a set period of time, and then go back to a steady…
Co-creation, in practice, tends to mean getting enough people to nod that nobody can later say they weren’t asked. The workshop ends, the objections are noted, the design moves forward largely as planned, and everyone involved has technically been consulted. It looks participatory. It isn’t. The trouble with treating consensus as the goal is that…
The World Economic Forum, with Kearney, has published a blueprint for an AI-first enterprise. It is one of the best papers I have read of how deeply AI changes the way an organisation creates value, and a good deal of it is simply correct. So let me start with what it gets right, because there…
A keystone is the central stone at the top of an arch. It is the last stone set, and it is the one that locks every other stone in place. Take it away and the arch does not weaken slowly or sag at the edges. It collapses. Every other stone was depending on it. I…
Most businesses cannot afford their operating model. They just do not know it yet. That is not a provocation for its own sake. It is the conclusion I keep arriving at after years inside complex global organisations and now working with the leaders trying to scale them. The patterns that cause operating models to fail…
There is a familiar pattern in how organisations approach major change. They invest in technology, process redesign, and a training plan. They commission a change management workstream, usually late in the programme when the design is already set. They measure adoption at go-live and call it done. This pattern has always been inadequate. For AI,…
Microsoft published its 2026 Work Trend Index this week. It surveyed 20,000 workers across 10 countries, analysed trillions of productivity signals, and reached a conclusion that will feel familiar to anyone who has spent time inside a business trying to make AI work. The technology is ready. The organisations, in most cases, are not. They…
80% of companies deploying AI cut headcount. Most saw marginal returns or negative outcomes. In some cases they are having to rehire significant numbers of employees. That is the Gartner finding from 350 enterprises, all with revenues above $1 billion, all actively deploying intelligent automation.The conclusion they reached? Layoffs do not create AI returns. This…
There is a version of the AI conversation that most organisations are having, and then there is the conversation they need to be having. The one they are having tends to centre on tools: which ones to buy, how quickly to deploy them, how to demonstrate return on investment before the next board cycle. The…
Product wants velocity on new features. Engineering wants to reduce technical debt. Customer Success wants immediate fixes for top clients.Everyone’s optimising their piece of the puzzle and the enterprise is breaking. I see this pattern constantly. Each department builds the perfect solution for their world. Product gets their sprint velocity. Engineering carves out time for…
S&P 500 companies mentioned AI in earnings calls at record rates between 2024 and 2025. Almost all of them described implementation as entirely positive. The productivity data tells a different story. Most macro studies of productivity growth find limited evidence of a significant AI effect. Even firms that say it is useful find little evidence…
Why the behaviour you are trying to change might be the most rational thing in your organisation There is a version of organisational diagnosis that goes like this: the teams aren’t collaborating, the silos are entrenched, the behaviour is territorial. The conclusion you come to is that you have a culture problem. The solution is…
Earlier this week I wrote on LinkedIn about a message from a former colleague. She had just come out of two difficult sessions about a new tool rollout, frustrated not by the tool itself but by how the decision about it was being made. It prompted me to write about what I used to do…
I have spent the better part of two decades inside large organisations, watching the same problem appear in different costumes. A company scales quickly. Headcount doubles. New markets, new products, new reporting lines. Leadership hires smart people and builds processes to manage the growth. And then, somewhere in the middle of all that activity, something…
