John is a boat engineer. He designs the structures that keep vessels seaworthy — load, resistance, water pressure, the kind of work where “close enough” doesn’t hold up. We spent several weeks talking about his business before we talked about money at all: harbours, jurisdictions, a satellite connection that only ran in maritime mode. Somewhere in...
The Cost of Being Told What You Want to Hear Sycophancy is a systemic risk in leadership environments, not a personality flaw in any individual advisor. It compounds quietly, and most leaders cannot detect it from inside their own organisation. Sycophancy is usually discussed as a character flaw — a weakness in the person doing the...
Why Advice Fails at the Top Senior leaders are often the worst-advised people in any organisation. Not for lack of advisors — because everyone around them has something to lose from candour. There is a peculiar irony at the top of most organisations. The further someone rises, the more advisors accumulate around them — consultants, bankers,...
