“Knowledge can be a double-edged sword when it comes to creativity. While knowledge in a domain facilitates action and work in the domain, it can also constrain from thinking outside the domain.” — Manu Kapur I’ve just returned from speaking for Mastercard, who kindly invited me to join them for VIP access at Monza to celebrate their sponsorship […]

“Life is a balance of holding on and letting go.”- Rumi I’ve been suffering with shoulder and neck pain for years. Occasionally, it gets so bad I go to a physiotherapist. They treat the symptoms, I take some anti-inflammatories, it eases for a while…but the dull pain always comes back. Recently, I decided to take matters into

“Your perspective is always limited by how much you know. Expand your knowledge and you will transform your mind.” — Bruce Lipton In 1873, the British amateur biologist Douglas Spalding noticed that young birds tended to follow the very first moving object they saw. It didn’t matter if that object was their mother or something else entirely. This

From Little Red Riding Hood to Amazon Web Services, the stories we inherit shape how we see risk and opportunity. This article explores how cultural conditioning and organisational habits keep us clinging to the core — the safe, well-worn path — even when innovation strategy and growth beyond the core demand we step into the unknown. Featuring insights from

[TL;DR: Just as parasites manipulate host behaviours for their benefit, our internal microbiota subtly influence our dietary choices and behaviours to enhance their survival. Similarly, organizations risk strategic stagnation when overly influenced by dominant customers, neglecting disruptive innovations essential for long-term health and adaptability. This Thursday Thought emerges from the surprising connections from eclectic insights — from

“No company starts out as a cumbrous bureaucracy, but most end up that way. As an organization grows, layers get added, staff groups swell, rules proliferate, and compliance costs mount. Once a company hits a certain threshold of complexity — around two to three hundred employees — bureaucracy starts growing faster than the organization itself.” — Gary Hamel and Michele Zanini,

“Competition and cooperation are not contraries. They have no opposite meaning. They are complimentary. In every aspect of life, we do both. Schools are highly cooperative endeavours within which scholars vigorously compete. The Olympic Games combine immense cooperation in structure and rules with intense competition in events. As the runners leap from the blocks, competition

“Past success can breed complacency and constrain future innovation.” — Robert Alexander Burgelman Imagine you’re a fighter pilot in a chaotic dogfight, adrenaline surging as you zero in on an enemy plane. Your vision tunnels on that target, and you start to lose awareness of everything else. Pilots call this target fixation — becoming so focused on one object

“How did you go bankrupt?” asks one character in Ernest Hemingway’s novel The Sun Also Rises. “Two ways,” his friend replies. “Gradually and then suddenly.” (via Paul Nunes, in “Big Bang Disruption”) That sentence explains so many collapses in life: waistlines, empires, reputations. One biscuit at a time. One skipped workout. One more justification. I

“The Map is not the Territory” — Alfred Korzybski For generations, the German village of Mödlareuth lived as one. A narrow brook — the Tannbach — trickled through its centre, technically dividing Bavaria from Thuringia. But for the people who called it home, it was simply a stream. They crossed it daily to attend school, share meals, marry neighbours, and bury their