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Thoughts on leadership


After the AI Hype Comes the Real Revolution
Last January I wrote about Laloux and what AI does to our view of people in organisations. In April I looked at the Wild West of LLM use, where employees experiment while company policy lags behind. This time it is less about tools and more about the bet you are placing on the kind of AI future your organisation is heading towards. Gillian Tett makes an important point in the Financial Times . Current Big Tech valuations rest on a seductively simple idea: today’s large lan
4 days ago2 min read


BHP shows how five minutes of feedback delivers more than an hour of meetings.
Reading time for this blog: 3 minutes Return: at least 3 hours per week... We know it, but we do it anyway: meetings are the national sport. A full diary feels like status, and "let's schedule something" is the corporate version of hitting snooze. Meanwhile, hours evaporate, decisions are outsourced to "next time", and everyone leaves with action points without owners. Why do we inflict this upon ourselves? Because no one is held accountable for the cost of twelve people read
Nov 213 min read


The Forgotten Engine of Growth
At times, Europe feels like a museum of its own success. The streets are lined with monuments to past prosperity; the meeting rooms filled with committees trying to preserve it. And yet, there is one persistent problem that no taskforce, green deal or recovery fund seems able to solve: structural economic growth. Germany, France and Italy, three of Europe’s largest economies, have for years struggled with stagnating productivity and sluggish technological progress. The decisi
Oct 272 min read


No Leadership Without a Story
Personal communication, nowadays fashionably called "storytelling", gathering the best people around you and visualising the goal on the...
Sep 253 min read


The Illusion of the Sidelines
Holidays are there, also, to create distance from the daily grind. To take time for yourself and your loved ones, to recover and to...
Sep 32 min read


Summer reading 2025: books about ai, uncertainty, and leadership
For several years now, I've been sending book title suggestions for the winter and summer holidays, and the responses have always been...
Jul 84 min read


Culture Starts at the Top
Organisational culture – or 'corporate culture' – is a much-discussed topic. Various studies underscore its importance. But what exactly...
Jun 261 min read


On Effective Decision-Making Procedures in a Complex World
At the beginning of this month, in April, the President of the United States, Donald Trump, managed to plunge the global economy into a...
Apr 162 min read


AI usage is growing within organisations, but where is the policy?
It is striking that the use of LLMs – large language models – remains unstructured in so many organisations. Or, indeed, not used at all....
Apr 12 min read


To Inherit or Not to Inherit? The Dilemmas of Wealth Succession
Previously, I wrote about families with businesses and issues surrounding succession to next generations. For example, in my newsletter...
Feb 201 min read


Leadership in the age of AI
" Reinventing Organizations " by Frederic Laloux has been featured in my newsletters before. Laloux's vision on the development of...
Jan 232 min read


Books to reflect upon
As the calendar year draws to a close, I am pleased to share a selection of book titles that might be inspiring, engaging,...
Dec 19, 20247 min read


From Generation to Generation: Strategies for Successful Transitions in Family Businesses
The end of the year is approaching. This is often a time to reflect on how the past year has gone and to consider what the new year may...
Nov 22, 20242 min read


What we can learn from Marcus Wallenberg
Recently, I spoke with someone who leads a family office. There are numerous variations on this theme. Nicolai Tangen , the head of...
Oct 17, 20242 min read


The power of choosing your words wisely
Welcome back after the summer holidays. I hope you have had a wonderful summer time, both for yourself and with your loved ones. Now,...
Sep 4, 20241 min read


Work is a major part of life, it better be good!
Q2 is almost behind us. Time for a report. But not a financial one or anything like that, rather a qualitative one about what’s happening...
Jun 13, 20241 min read


Past successes are no guarantee for the future
Loyal readers will recognise this particular bugbear of mine. Past successes are no guarantee for the future! How often have I...
Jun 10, 20241 min read


The canary in the coal mine...
Bear with me. I'm no strategy consultant, let alone a macro-economist. And by nature, I'm certainly not a pessimist! But… previously in...
May 20, 20241 min read


Speaking about priorities...
Q1 is nearly over. Let's take a moment to reflect. Do you still have the priorities for the year clearly in mind? In other words, refresh...
Mar 22, 20242 min read


Succession without successor
Many family-owned businesses grapple with the issue of succession. This question is becoming increasingly urgent not only in the...
Feb 22, 20242 min read
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