A GENERALIST'S INSIGHT
I am unapologetically a generalist, not a specialist.
Six industry clusters in New Orleans. Cultural strategy for a city about to double in size. Rural economic development in Australia. Rescuing failing workplace change projects in Europe and the Gulf States for a global US corporate. A national risk-planning framework for the UK Fire and Rescue Service. Setting in place the European HQ of an English fast-growing fintech. On paper it looks like several careers that never quite settled.
What it actually was, was an education. Each new sector meant learning how a different set of people framed a problem — and the discovery, made over and over, that the same issue looks entirely unalike depending on where you stand. A petrochemical engineer, a port director and a coffee importer will describe the same obstacle in three vocabularies and never realise they are talking about one thing.
That is the generalist's actual advantage. Not knowing a little about a lot, but recognising a shape you have seen somewhere else.
Those roles gifted me the many shapes and colours of ideas and their application — a kaleidoscope of options we can twist together. My reading keeps supplementing that with new thinking and theories that contribute to making a sensible business case for change.
The books
"SWIVEL: How to refocus your business for a post-pandemic world" and "Shrapnel Free Explosive Growth", on managing fast company growth , distilled much of what I had learned — my own experience, the insights of people who had done it well, and what a wide range of business books offer.
Both now have second editions. "SWIVEL Again: Refocus your business for a fast-changing world" removed what is no longer pertinent and addresses directly the way the world changed radically in a matter of months: when long-standing international trust relationships were dismantled, tariffs redrew supply chains, and AI arrived in all its variations at the same moment. "More Shrapnel Free Explosive Growth: Business growth in a fast-changing world does" does the same, and offers a six-week guide your own team can use to reshape an outdated operating structure for the new realities of business.
Both books press the same point. You cannot get the insight your team already holds unless you build an environment where it is safe to offer it. And your real core offer is very often not the one you think it is.
My real skill is learning from others — especially my clients.
- I listen, and hear — including what is not said.
- I look, and see, which are not the same thing.
- I have fun with my clients and my team, and I think.
The result is new options, or better versions of the ones already in use, which is a very satisfying way to spend a working life.