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What causes talented people, strong teams and successful organizations to lose their way?
I’m currently reading Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull, former President of Pixar Animation and Disney Animation. In his introduction he shares: What makes Pixar special is that we acknowledge we will always have problems, many of them hidden from our view; that we work hard to uncover these problems, even if doing so means making…
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Human Beings are Messy Data Sets
This is one of the reasons alignment is so difficult, whether in families, teams, businesses, or entire organizations. Systems are relatively straightforward. A process follows a sequence. A policy establishes boundaries. A workflow defines how something should move from one stage to the next. If something goes wrong, you can often trace the breakdown, identify…
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No One Tells a Cardiologist, “It’s OK…I’ll Watch YouTube.”
One of the things that has always fascinated me about medicine is how readily we accept the idea that expertise matters. If someone experiences chest pain, persistent fatigue, an irregular heartbeat, or a concerning test result, very few people respond by saying, “You know, before you spend money on a cardiologist, have you tried Googling…
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Stop Trying to Create Perfect Stability
When I first read Thriving on Chaos years ago, what remained as a foundational thought, was not any particular model or management technique. It was the challenge buried inside the title itself. Most people spend an enormous amount of energy trying to create conditions that feel permanent. Businesses do it. Leaders do it. Entire industries…
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Is this Decision Asymmetrical?
Asking “Is this decision asymmetrical?” is a vital mental model for risk management and strategy. Before discussing strategy, before discussing execution, before discussing budgets, restructuring, hiring, expansion, partnerships, marketing campaigns, software purchases, or new opportunities, the question to ask is: Is this decision asymmetrical? Most leaders spend considerable time trying to determine whether a decision…
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What we Think of as an Advantage or Disadvantage isn’t Always Correct
A business with more money is assumed to be in a stronger position than the one struggling to make every dollar stretch, yet sometimes the opposite becomes true over time because constraints force a level of attentiveness that abundance does not require. Meanwhile larger organizations can slowly become insulated from the consequences of poor thinking…
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The Path of Least Resistance still Trumps any other Path to Success…
The interesting thing about “the path of least resistance” is that most people interpret it as escape velocity from effort itself. So the modern success economy becomes filled with cheat codes, shortcuts, bending rules, algorithm hacks, visibility tricks, overnight formulas, AI-generated personas, copied strategies, borrowed aesthetics, and endless shiny objects marketed as “smart.” The promise…
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Navigating the Flatline — Business Audits for the Modern Era
I am huge fan of the TV series FROM. I usually don’t watch horror, but I guess for me, it’s the combination with mystery and science fiction that makes it appealing. A group of strangers become trapped in a mysterious town they can’t leave. By day, they try to build some version of normal life.…
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Jumping to conclusions without fully understanding the problem is one of the most expensive habits in business
The brain is wired for speed, not accuracy. Faced with uncertainty, pressure, or the need to appear decisive, it reaches for the nearest explanation and calls it a conclusion. That conclusion often feels logical, even strategic, but it is frequently built on incomplete information, unchecked assumptions, or surface-level observations. The result is a quiet but…
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Embrace Uncertainty as a Source of Innovation, Adaptability & Competitive Advantage
Embracing uncertainty is critical to your success, especially in this volatile, rapidly evolving business landscape. However uncertainty goes against the grain of us humans, who want to control our environment. Margie Warrell PhD, tells us that embracing uncertainty is critical to our success. In a Forbes article, written almost a decade ago she shares: We…
Clarity BEFORE Execution. Structure BEFORE Speed
If you could better understand one thing about your business right now….
Most costly decisions begin with
an inaccurate understanding of the situation.
I help leaders understand what is actually happening before major decisions are made or
resources are invested in solving the wrong problem.
Giselle Hudson | Pre-Decision Diagnostic Advisor | Sensemaking for high-stakes business decisions 