How the work really gets done

Great strategy isn’t about working forwards from backward-looking data in the form of numbers. It’s about working backwards from forward-looking data in the form of ideas.

In either case, the big idea is not another small logical step on the journey. It’s a giant imaginative leap. The big idea transports you to somewhere else entirely. You know you’ve landed in a good place, but it’s not where you expected to end up when you set off. It’s exciting. It feels right. But you’re not entirely sure how you got here.

So you ... See more

It’s the rent you pay to occupy space in my brain until this problem is nailed to your satisfaction. Sometimes I’ll do focused, dedicated work on the task. At other times I’ll let my brain do its subconscious thing, a looser more associative form of thinking. I’ll be thinking about it at some level on every dog walk and every bus journey. Eventuall... See more

A good short story is, among other things, a highly organised system. Its parts feel in connection with one another. There’s very little waste or randomness. Many decisions have been made along the way, by different means, some conscious, some not. It feels fraught with intention, full of direction. It doesn’t necessarily know what it is, but it w

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This is an uncomfortable truth. Retrofitting the beginning to fit the ending sounds like cheating (which it isn’t.) It sounds a bit chaotic (which it is.) It’s not something we speak about in public. It’s not an easy process to sell. It’s creative and intellectual alchemy.