Build Your Darlings

Build your darlings for the people you care about serving. Those people who will fall in love with how your work enables them to live the lives they want.

Read More

Better Work Happens By Design

My parents both left school in their early teens. They and most of their peers were manual labourers, who didn’t get to choose the kind of work they did. They worked in factories or on building sites for most of their lives. Work for them was a means to an end—a way to contribute to…

Read More

Try Anyway

Texas head teacher, Belinda George, doesn’t have access to more resources than her colleagues. So how does she change her students’ lives for the better? Instead of focusing on the things she and her team can’t control, like educational policy and budgets, she concentrates on the things she can influence. Ms George is then free…

Read More

Sweeping The Floor

One of my first jobs was in the hospitality industry. We worked long hours, weekends and holidays for average pay. Staff turnover was high. It was hard for managers to motivate people. One of our best managers didn’t bark orders about smiling at customers or showing up on time. She led by example. The first…

Read More

Efficiency Vs. Meaning

Mike’s been driving for Uber for three years. In that time he’s done 20,000 trips while maintaining a consistent 4.94-star rating. Mike works when he wants to. He’s earning more than enough money to pay the bills, and yet he can’t help feeling there’s something missing. Mike is a phenomenally successful Uber driver by any…

Read More

On Culture

Culture is how we act, based on what we know about who we are. It isn’t about fitting in, it’s about understanding where we belong and why. Culture is a reminder that if we believe this, then we do or don’t do, that. It’s about saying this is who we are, then living up to…

Read More