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248: Oreos. Meera Sodha and Getting Started. RF Kuang and Making History.
Good morning dear friends I hope you’re well. It is book prize season. This week, the 2025 Orwell Prize for political writing announced their finalists. You can find them here.…

247: How Not to Grow. Know Yourself. Halfaampieskraal.
Dear friends It’s good to be back. I hope you’re well. The Pulitzer Prize winners were announced this week. As always, I am reaching for my credit card whilst dreaming…

246: The State of the Global Workplace
Dear friends Thank you for last week’s birthday wishes. I appreciated them. It was a wonderful weekend with all my favourite things – kayaking, good wine (2017 shiraz from Mullineux…

245: How to learn a lot; Be Comfortable with the Uncomfortable
““The world is like a mask dancing. If you want to see it well, you do not stand in one place”Chinua Achebe, adaptation of an Igbo proverb in Arrow of…

244: Build Buffers, Be Better
Good morning friends This time is hard. Every day, we are bombarded and destabilised. Whilst the world undoubtedly needs disruption, we have more than enough resources to ensure that no…

#243: Lessons from Love and Fury
“That’s what maps mysteriously do: They obliterate information to provide some information at all”.Zia Haider Rahman – In the Light of What We Know Good morning good people Our last…

#242: Lessons from Verne Harnish’s Scaling Up
Good morning good people If you’re growing a business (or even a division in a large corporation) you must read Verne Harnish’s Scaling Up. His genius is distilling the world’s…

#241: the courage to find better ways…
Dear friends If you need a smile (who doesn’t?), this video of two playful leopard clubs may do the trick. If you’re more of a fashion-loving sort, then these collabs…

#240: The Friction Project
Dear friends If my current client conversations are anything to go by, you’re probably drowning in meetings and processes, bouncing from one thing to the next, feeling overwhelmed and powerless…

#239: Leadership that does not listen, fails.
Good morning dear friends This week’s letter took an unexpected turn. I had it planned, then Microsoft’s Co-Pilot suggested a rewrite. I started wrestling with that (it is down at…

#238: Silence is expensive
Hello dear reader If you liked last week’s letter about how Capitec’s founders created one of South Africa’s biggest banks, I’d appreciate you sharing this post with your networks. TJ Strydom’s…

#237: Strategy Lessons from TJ Strydom’s Capitec Stalking Giants: The Story of a Challenger Bank
Good morning friends A few years ago, a client said, “I wish I didn’t need others’ approval”. I smiled and replied, “We all do. Practically, it helps us know we’re doing…