All Posts

Professional advice isn’t a luxury. It’s the infrastructure of competence. Whether you’re improving strategy, upgrading systems, refining governance, or rethinking engagement, the quality of your advice determines the quality of your organisation. Cutting corners here is the definition of false economy.

Most superhero teams are built on noble ideals. They’ve got pristine headquarters, glossy PR, and a mission to save the world. But The Boys are something else entirely: a scruffy guerrilla unit of misfits, bound together not by virtue, but by trauma and vengeance. They shouldn’t work. And yet, they do.

Our brains are designed to prioritise threats over rewards. Evolution decided long ago that it was more useful to remember the snake that bit you than the fruit that tasted nice. Psychologists call this negativity bias, i.e., the tendency to notice, remember, and be influenced more by unpleasant experiences than positive ones. For leaders, this is both inconvenient and instructive.

Who could argue with fairness? Who wants to be accused of gatekeeping in a world obsessed with openness, inclusion, and accessibility? But the reality is that for membership organisations, this way of thinking can be fatal. When everyone has access, the very purpose of membership disappears.

Facilitation is not about avoiding discomfort. It is about staying steady in the discomfort so that others can do their work. Sometimes that means holding silence. Sometimes it means naming patterns. And sometimes, it means carrying on with composure even when your insides are burning.

This summer, when MindsEye, the studio’s first release, finally arrived, it crashed spectacularly. Players called it broken, reviewers called it unplayable, and within weeks hundreds of staff were gone. What followed wasn’t just a failed launch but a public unravelling of leadership itself.

Over recent months, the UK trade association sector saw a slew of new CEO announcements and each had something in common: a middle-aged white man taking the helm. I am categorically not questioning the abilities of the appointees because each individual brings invaluable experience and dedication to their new organisations; but when the outcome is always the same, it tells us something important about trade associations, i.e., their leadership pathways are too narrow and too

Membership organisations exist to serve, represent, and empower their members. Yet in too many boardrooms and inboxes, the people running those organisations find themselves on the receiving end of cynicism, contempt, or outright hostility. It's time to bust some myths.

In Game of Thrones, Eddard Stark, Lord of Winterfell, is the embodiment of integrity. He’s transparent, dutiful, loyal to his people and his cause. He lives by the code that “he who passes the sentence should swing the sword.” He’s the leader we all say we want to be - fair, consistent, courageous. And he gets his head chopped off.

Membership organisations thrive on trust, between members, volunteers, and executives. That trust is built on visible, credible governance. Giving the CEO a board seat may feel like a gesture of partnership, but in practice it blurs accountability and weakens independence.

Eight national rugby unions have threatened to ban players who join the proposed R360 League from representing their countries. In short: play our game, or don’t play at all. Their decision says a lot about power, fear, and protectionism, and not just in sport. It’s a mirror many membership organisations would do well to look into. Because whether you’re a rugby union or a membership body the instinct to control rather than evolve is a sure sign that your model is wobbling.

In over two decades of working with membership bodies, I’ve seen Board members glaze over at the mention of governance reform, look blank at data strategy, and politely nod through conversations about engagement metrics. Yet mention a logo redesign and suddenly the entire boardroom is animated. Everyone has an opinion, everyone wants to be heard, and the whole process takes on a significance out of all proportion to its real impact. Why?

In our latest Leadership Multiverse podcast, we explored Kirk’s leadership through a contemporary lens of servant leadership, risk appetite, moral integrity, and the fine art of strategic rule-bending. What emerged is a portrait of a complex leader: fallible, impulsive, but deeply principled. And, for modern executives, surprisingly relevant.

If you’ve ever sat on an association committee, you’ll know the rhythm: a packed agenda, familiar faces, and the creeping sense of déjà vu. Decisions inch forward, minutes pile up, and enthusiasm quietly ebbs away. Committees have long been the workhorse of association life: part governance, part member engagement, part legacy; but maybe, just maybe, they’ve had their day.

We talk a lot about self-awareness in leadership. And rightly so. It’s the cornerstone of emotional intelligence, the root of empathy, the spark of growth. Without it, leaders drift. With it, they navigate. But let’s be honest: being self-aware all the time is utterly exhausting.

We’ve all met a Batman. You know the type, the overworked, emotionally repressed, control-driven “leader” who believes no one can do the...

Many trade association boards find themselves in a similar pattern: engaged, but in the wrong place. The energy they invest in measurement is admirable, but if it comes at the expense of foresight, the organisation is left exposed.

A calculator doesn’t decide which sums I should do; a keyboard doesn’t dictate what I should write; and AI is no different. Its real value is in how it fits into your work, your needs, your priorities.

The lesson of the Avengers is that talent is not enough. You can assemble the brightest minds, the biggest reputations, and the most impressive CVs but without trust, accountability, and a shared culture, you don’t have a team. You have a fragile coalition waiting for the next crisis.

The myth of the superhuman consultant is tempting because it promises certainty in an uncertain world. But the real value of consultancy comes when we reject that myth and embrace something much more powerful: humanity, with discipline.