Articles

Essays and field notes by topic.

One article library, organized by topic rather than separate blogs.

Stop making bad work faster

Systems · September 08, 2026

Stop making bad work faster

In 1990 Michael Hammer told companies to stop using new technology to make obsolete processes faster. We now have far better technology and appear to have preserved the mistake. Most bad corporate processes were never designed. They accumulated, one control and one spreadsheet at a time, until nobody could explain why any of it existed. The current generation of automation tools can strip enormous amounts of manual work out of arrangements like that, which is not the same as removing the reason the work exists. Drawing on the AICD's 2026 Director Sentiment Index and research from McKinsey, Deloitte and Microsoft, this piece sets out what to ask before approving the next business case promising thousands of hours saved, and why saved hours are a poor measure of anything on their own.

rtificial intelligence automation business process reengineering workflow redesign operating model productivity corporate governance board of directors business transformation leadership Michael Hammer
Seeing Is Not Stopping

Recovery · July 04, 2026

Seeing Is Not Stopping

Fluency in the pattern was supposed to change things. It did not. The gap between knowing and stopping does not live in the other party; it lives in the traffic: explanation, reaction, research, hope, all arriving on schedule. The message still sitting in drafts is written for audiences who cannot deliver the verdict. The work turns from decoding them to auditing what leaves you, stripping the labels off, and closing the valves.

narcissisticabuse narcissisticabuserecovery emotionalabuse covertnarcissist traumabond gaslighting coercivecontrol boundaries selftrust stopfeedingthesystem
It's Getting Obvious Who's Actually Thinking

Systems · June 23, 2026

It's Getting Obvious Who's Actually Thinking

For all of history a long, fluent document was expensive, so we read it as proof of the thinking behind it. AI takes that cost to zero, and the receipt becomes a costume. Senior leaders, flooded and unconvinced, would rather you walked into their office than sent a file. Underneath the flood sits a quieter cost: the people outsourcing the thinking are getting weaker, and the shared record is filling with forgettable noise.

AI artificial intelligence knowledge work writing critical thinking communication leadership productivity future of work attention deep work AI reports AI writing
The Pattern, Not the Diagnosis

Systems · June 15, 2026

The Pattern, Not the Diagnosis

You cannot diagnose someone whose whole skill is looking one way in public and another at home, least of all when the relationship has worn down your read on reality. So stop diagnosing them. Read your own week instead: what you have stopped doing, what your apologies have become, whether repair ever costs them. The pattern is accessible where the label is not.

narcissisticabuserecovery coercivecontrol emotionalabuse gaslighting toxicrelationship traumarecovery narcissisticabuse healingafterabuse selftrust stopfeedingthesystem