I'm going to tell you about my brand new offer. It is called...

Leading In Complexity

Let's play a game and see how you compare to your peers. How many of these things do you recognise from your team?

1. You're in a meeting. A decision needs to be made. And somehow, an hour later, you leave without one.
   ​
2. Or worse … someone makes a decision that nobody actually agreed to, and now you're all living with it.
   ​
3. You wanted a self-sufficient team. What you got is a queue outside your door.
   ​
4. You spend a third of your working life in meetings. And most of it feels like a waste.
   ​
5. Everything is speeding up. The to-do list grows. And somewhere in the noise, you lost track of what actually matters.
   ​
6. The organisation is under pressure. And somewhere along the way, you started feeling like the problem was you.
   ​
7. You know something is out of kilter. But every time you try to fix it, work fills the space again.

I hope, for your sake, you don't recognise any of these, but many of the people (and teams) I coach struggle with all of them. Why do you think this is?

It's because we all misunderstand the role that complexity plays in modern leadership. We apply outdated techniques to the way we meet, make decisions, surface ideas and so much more. And that makes things worse for everyone.

The good news is that, with a change in perspective and some new techniques, you and your team can be much more efficient, productive and relaxed.

And so, I have created something totally new and absolutely unique to help. It's not a course or a program like the ones you are used to. It is a set of inspiring, actionable ideas that you can seed through your whole organisation quickly.

I'm going to launch it properly next week. The full price of Leading in Complexity will be £1,500 per person, with packages for teams. But you are my most loyal and valued followers.

And so, if you want a half price Alpha place for yourself, or someone in your team, just let me know by the end of the week. I've made five available for only £750. Once they are gone, they are gone.

A Quote I Love

"When a measure becomes a target it ceases to be a good measure." (Goodhart's Law)

The reason this is true is that, when you are working in a complex system, when you change the incentive, you change the behaviour.

Let's say, for example, you had a team making nails and you want them to improve. So you try different targets:

• Firstly, you set a target to produce a certain number of nails. The team then adapts and produces millions of tiny nails.
• Which is not what you want, so you set a target for the weight of nails the team produces in a day. And they adapt and produce a very small number of really heavy nails that are the size of a car.
• And so you hold your head in your hands and cry.

Obviously, this is a joke to make the point, but look at the targets you have and ask what incentives they encourage.

Recently I helped a client with this. The leader wanted the team to collaborate, but the members of the team were rewarded for individual performance. And so, the incentive was to compete, not to help.

By changing the target to a team target, with team rewards, the incentive changed to encourage new behaviours. Both performance and team happiness increased.

My Cultural Life

I have started reading a really excellent book called The Science of Storytelling by Will Storr. It's fascinating and brilliantly written, as you would expect, given the title.

What I'm Working On

I just launched a new program. Did I mention it? It's called Leading in Complexity 😎

Also, on Thursday I will be spending a full day at a client's site in London. There I will be running a coaching clinic. Basically I sit in a room for a day and coach people one by one. It makes me feel like a GP. And I love it.