Transformative Thinking at work

Most conversations rest on the hidden assumption that we've understood each other. What if we usually haven't?

Technical, marketing, finance, HR — we all speak different languages. The conversation gets unstuck when you switch to theirs.

Drowning in your inbox? It's not the volume. It's the assumptions underneath: must read, must answer, must follow up.

Most meetings are dreadful and some are hell. Start with the outcome, let the process serve it, never let the most senior person chair — and a meeting becomes something people actually want to join.

Feedback stings because we take it personally — but what if the person giving it is standing beside you, not across from you? Soft on the person, hard on the content: that's the way out.

The hour is the unit we sell — but rarely the unit the work needs. What happens when you give yourself half the time?

When does a target stop measuring the thing and start replacing it? The hidden danger of running on dashboards.

Half of what you do at work is unnecessary. The reframe: don't do it more efficiently — don't do it at all.

More work, longer reports, bigger budgets. What if the proportion between input and output is a myth — and less is genuinely better?

"I choose a lazy person to do a hard job — they'll find an easy way." Why every team needs at least one.

We've quietly assumed that more is better — more teaching hours, more weeks in the school year, more published articles. Question those numbers: most of them rest on nothing, and less often produces better results.

Always available, always in the loop, always on WhatsApp. Is that good management — or the opposite?

We assume the best employees are the ones who say yes. What if the best ones are the ones who push back?

Treating people equally sounds fair. But equal treatment means no one is treated according to who they actually are.

Top-down rosters give everyone their second-best option. Could a currency-and-trade system give everyone their first?

Forty annual reviews, every December, the same printed list of questions, and a director who dreads all of it. What if you questioned every single piece of the ritual?

Becoming a manager is a complete reframe: everything you've learned as an expert you have to forget. The skills that made you indispensable as a specialist are the wrong skills for the job ahead.

Do they really? Behind what customers say they want is usually a different need entirely.

The assumption: people choose the cheapest. Is that always true? Sometimes, the more it costs, the more they want it.

Some sectors live and breathe the pitch; others have never heard of it. If pitching is mostly theatre and wasted work, could a competition unlock the same effort — and turn it into something valuable?