Admitting “I don’t know” isn’t weakness, it’s the foundation of trust and psychological safety. I used to think the opposite.

Research shows that humility fuels better decisions, stronger relationships, and higher-performing teams. When leaders make it safe to not know, people drop their guards and bring their best selves today and grow faster into even better versions tomorrow.

I’ve learned to judge advice by its fit to my circumstances, not by its source. We trust doctors because they're trained to diagnose and fix problems with our bodies and our bodies don’t change much. But businesses do. They evolve constantly. Markets and laws shift, processes change, skills and tech are replaced. The patient is never the same. Before you act on advice in the future, ask: How well do they know the patient? Then go check with AI!

Most of us have built our careers on a cultural myth that's becoming outdated: that working hard regardless of outcome makes us virtuous. AI is systematically handling routine tasks, creating space for people to focus on what truly matters, identifying meaningful problems and orchestrating smart solutions that blend creativity with efficiency.

The mindset shift from, "How hard are you working?" to "What difference are you making?" will open a world of new opportunities for those willing to make it.

We’ve been told distraction kills productivity, but in creative work, the right kind of distraction can be rocket fuel. Focused distractions, like walking, lifting, or switching tasks, give your subconscious space to solve problems while your conscious mind rests. Pair them with AI to capture and organise your thoughts before you step away, and you’ll return with more clarity, more energy, and bigger ideas.

Half of us are stuck in a childhood trap, trading our authentic voice for others' approval. This people-pleasing programming once kept us alive because rejection from the tribe meant death. But today, that same wiring kills potential and burns us out from the inside.

The antidote isn't becoming callous, it's becoming conscious: catching when you're managing others' emotions to calm your own anxiety, understanding feelings without fixing them, and choosing where your empathy gets invested instead of scattering it everywhere.

A growing number of companies, including Moderna and Bunq, are merging HR and IT as AI blurs the line between workforce planning and technology enablement. With 64% of senior IT leaders predicting consolidation within five years, the focus seems to be shifting to optimising workflows between human skills and AI capabilities and not optimising for each separately.

Research shows feedback can nearly double learning speed, especially when sought at around 60% completion, early enough to adjust, but refined enough to be useful.

Asking for feedback too late wastes time, reinforces flawed assumptions, and slows progress, while early feedback loops keep you agile and on track. The fastest learners aren’t perfect from the start, they’re the ones brave enough to share messy drafts and smart enough to listen.

Raising your voice might feel like leadership in the moment, but it often damages trust and kills collaboration. Research from Google’s Project Aristotle shows psychological safety, not fear, is the real driver of team performance. By recognising stress triggers, creating space between feeling and action, and using simple tension-release techniques, leaders can protect trust, keep teams engaged, and raise the performance bar without raising their voice.

Accountability doesn’t fail because it’s bad, it fails because it’s forced. When leaders push for more control, they get compliance, not commitment. The best results come from people who choose to care, not those who are pressured to perform.

The fastest way to learn AI, or any complex topic, is to prepare to teach it to others. Research from Washington University shows that expecting to teach dramatically boosts learning outcomes. In this era of rapid AI introduction into the workplace, learning with the view of sharing your newfound knowledge with others will help accelerate your growth.

Most meetings are built for updates. But what if you ran them like a musical jam session, starting with alignment, layering ideas, and riffing toward something new? A songwriting program for young people at Bondi Pavilion showed my son (and me) how structured improvisation creates magic and the same approach can unlock bold solutions in any workplace.

AI feels confident and fast, but it doesn’t actually know anything. It guesses, it fills gaps, and if you’re not careful, it’ll hallucinate and lead you astray. To get the best results collaborating with AI, learn how to build trust working with it. Be clear in your request, don’t limit its responses too much, and always ask for real data are three strategies to use. And remember, trust is always earned, whether with people or AI.

Most people spend a lot of time waiting. Waiting for permission, waiting for the perfect moment, waiting to be told what to do. But the people who change things? They don’t wait. People who take initiative I call Problem Hunters. They are the most valuable in an organisation. Here’s how to use AI to help you become one.

Deciding whether collaboration should be in-person or virtual is a decision managers and leaders need to make multiple times each week. This post shares a simple three-question framework backed by research gives you an easy to use framework to make the right decision every time. Use it to save time, reduce unnecessary travel, and choose the right format that gets you better results faster.

Collaboration is becoming one of the most important skills as AI changes how businesses work. To do it well, you need three key foundations and manage three common fears that can quietly sabotage any team.

Inside are two simple strategies you can use right now to build stronger, smarter foundations for collaboration to deliver better results faster.

Could appetite-suppressing drugs like Ozempic also suppress the “gut feelings” we rely on for decision-making? No one yet knows for sure. This post explores how this could impact the future choices we make and the path the problems we choose to solve take us.

In a Pringles survey, 43% of consumers admitted to getting their hands stuck in a Pringles can and they weren’t happy about it. This was a big problem that needed to be solved.

But what was the problem Pringles leadership chose to solve and how did they do it? A clue: what you believe can always change.

Ever feel stuck in your own head when big challenges hit you? This post breaks down three sneaky thinking traps that mess with your perspective and how to get out of them and back into action.

Too easy, and we get bored. Too hard, and we give up. The sweet spot? It's where we succeed 85% of the time and struggle 15% researchers have found. This is the Zone of Desirable Difficulty—where real growth happens. It's the formula for entering the flow state.

“Got a minute?” might sound harmless, but it’s how small problems become big distractions and dependency replaces initiative.

These micro-escalations drain a leader’s focus and send the message that thinking belongs elsewhere.

With the right prompts, AI helps teams explore before they escalate, building confidence and ownership instead of handing problems up.