Leadership
The Curse of Knowledge
Once you understand something, it becomes very hard to imagine not understanding it — which is why leaders consistently overestimate how clearly their priorities have landed.
2-minute read13 Oct 2026
Nudges
The science of small changes
Two-minute reads on the behavioural research behind culture, each ending with one thing you can try with your team this week.
In partnership with Nudges at Work by Tareef Jafferi and the team at Happily.ai.
Learning & Performance
The Feedback Intervention Paradox
Feedback makes performance worse surprisingly often. Whether it was positive or negative barely matters — what matters is whether it points attention at the work or at the person.
2-minute read10 Oct 2026
Learning & Performance
The Zeigarnik Effect
Unfinished tasks keep tugging at your attention — but you don’t have to finish them to make the tug stop. Writing a specific plan does almost as much.
2-minute read8 Oct 2026
Learning & Performance
The Goal-Gradient Effect
People speed up as a finish line gets closer and slow down when a new goal starts. Long programmes with one distant finish line stall in the middle.
2-minute read6 Oct 2026
Learning & Performance
Goodhart’s Law at Work
When a measure becomes a target, people optimise the number instead of the thing it was meant to indicate — sometimes disastrously.
2-minute read3 Oct 2026
Leadership
The Benjamin Franklin Effect
People tend to like you more after they’ve done you a favour — but only when you asked them yourself.
2-minute read1 Oct 2026
Learning & Performance
The Köhler Effect
Groups usually make people coast — except when the team’s result depends visibly on the weakest contributor. Then that person works harder than they would alone.
2-minute read8 Sept 2026
Wellbeing & Energy
Recovery Doesn’t Batch
Holidays genuinely restore wellbeing — but the benefits largely vanish within two to three weeks of returning to work.
2-minute read5 Sept 2026
Living the Values
Let Them Meet the Person They Helped
Five minutes with a real beneficiary can transform motivation for weeks. Reading about the same person does almost nothing.
2-minute read3 Sept 2026
Recognition & Appreciation
Recognition Works on the People Who Don’t Get It
Publicly recognising a few specific top performers lifted output across the whole group — with much of the gain coming from people who weren’t recognised.
2-minute read1 Sept 2026
Change & Transformation
You Cannot Kill Your Own Project
The person who launched a failing project is the person least able to stop it — not from stubbornness, but because stopping means admitting the original call was wrong.
2-minute read29 Aug 2026
Psychological Safety
The 19-Word Note
One sentence attached to critical feedback dramatically increased how many people acted on it — especially those who trusted the giver least.
2-minute read27 Aug 2026
Onboarding & Belonging
The Endowed Progress Effect
People are far more likely to finish something when they feel they’ve already started — even if the remaining work is identical.
2-minute read25 Aug 2026
Leadership
Competence Earns the Right to Fumble
A visible mistake makes a highly competent person more likeable — but makes someone of unproven ability less likeable.
2-minute read22 Aug 2026
Living the Values
The One-Miss Rule
Habits take much longer to form than the “21 days” myth suggests — and missing one day barely matters. What kills a habit is the dramatic restart afterwards.
2-minute read20 Aug 2026
Wellbeing & Energy
Resilience Is Not a Personal Skill
Burnout comes from job demands outrunning resources. Teaching individuals to cope better doesn’t fix a structural imbalance.
2-minute read18 Jul 2026
Recognition & Appreciation
The Five-Minute Favour
Trust is built through small, frequent acts of help far more than through rare grand gestures.
2-minute read16 Jul 2026
Wellbeing & Energy
The Detachment Dividend
People who mentally switch off from work in the evening come back with more energy and less exhaustion — even with the same workload.
2-minute read14 Jul 2026
Leadership
Most Decisions Are Reversible
Organisations slow themselves down by treating easily reversible choices with the same heavy process as irreversible ones.
2-minute read11 Jul 2026
Learning & Performance
The Two-Question Pulse
Annual surveys measure memory, not experience. Two questions asked weekly reveal far more than sixty asked once a year.
2-minute read9 Jul 2026
Leadership
The Manager Variance Multiplier
Managers account for at least 70% of the variance in team engagement — more than pay, perks or mission.
2-minute read7 Jul 2026
Psychological Safety
The Anonymity Cost
Anonymous feedback protects people in low-trust environments — but it can’t be followed up, so it rarely gets acted on. How much anonymity you need is a measure of trust.
2-minute read4 Jul 2026
Leadership
The 1:1 Agenda Flip
One-to-ones run on the manager’s agenda feel productive but rarely surface real problems. When the report owns the agenda, different issues come up.
2-minute read2 Jul 2026
Learning & Performance
The Mere Urgency Effect
People reliably pick urgent tasks over important ones — even when the important task pays off more.
2-minute read30 Jun 2026