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Are you comfortable being challenged as a leader?
Most leaders would answer yes. The better question is whether the people around them believe it. Leadership requires making decisions in the absence of complete information. Every day, leaders form conclusions about customers, employees, competitors, market conditions, priorities, and risk. Those conclusions become assumptions, and assumptions become the foundation upon which decisions are made. There…
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Have You Ever Asked a Doctor for a Refund?
It’s perhaps a strange question to ask but I am curious. A doctor diagnoses a condition, explains what is happening, recommends a course of treatment, and sends us on our way. We may follow the advice diligently. We may follow some of it. We may ignore it entirely. Yet if our condition fails to improve…
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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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The fog of war does not only exist on battlefields
The fog of war is a phrase that originally belonged to military strategy…those moments where commanders were forced to make decisions while visibility remained partial, communication fractured, and information arrived distorted through fear, delay, assumption, ego, or incomplete observation. From a distance, war often looks like movement directed by certainty. Inside it, however, people are…
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Why “One Size Fits All” Decision Training Fails
There is value in teaching and training leaders to become more effective in areas like decision-making, communication, delegation, negotiation, strategic planning, conflict resolution, emotional regulation, and execution. Organizations need these things. Teams function better when leaders can slow down enough to evaluate options, regulate reactions, ask better questions, and avoid making decisions from pure panic…
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Are You Building Your Business/Life Around the Wrong Story?
There is a difference between noticing what is broken and building a life around brokenness. I have been thinking about that distinction quite a bit lately because I am realizing how easy it is, especially when you are observant, perceptive, analytical, and deeply aware of patterns, to become someone who spends more time diagnosing reality…
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Leadership behaviour is hardly ever questioned seriously
Discussed? Yes. Constantly. Employees discuss it amongst themselves. Citizens discuss it amongst themselves. Families discuss it amongst themselves after political speeches, church meetings, board meetings, management changes and community fallout. Entire organizations can quietly organize themselves around the behavioural patterns of one leader while pretending the real issue is workflow, morale, communication or “culture.” But…
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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.…
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 