Today, we’re not just creatively stunted, inefficient and unsatisfied...

We’re actively sabotaging ourselves.

And worse, we’re calling it business as usual.

When curiosity is at tension with productivity, and play is eclipsed by monetization, we get nothing good.

As Rory Sutherland sees it,

“People effectively are laser focused on the things they can get bollocked for. And it's much, much easier to get bollocked for being illogical than it is to get bollocked for being unimaginative.

You can't bollock

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We’ve sacrificed nuanced judgment for a trend report without a methodology.

We’ve sacrificed white space thinking for whatever the average is doing.

And we’ve sacrificed the attributes we care most about (resonance, loyalty, fandom, influence and impact) for the metrics easily available to us (clicks, views and follows).

As Rick Rubin puts it,

“If you

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04. The Illusion of Progress : Action Bias leads us to believe that doing something – anything – is better than doing nothing , even when the action doesn’t actually move us forward. We equate busyness with productivity, mistaking motion for progress, and perceive novelty as innately valuable.

How much of our work exists because we ‘think’ we have to do it?

How to Dissent

Simply, we need to ask three questions:

Why are we doing this?

Who is this for?

Does this matter to them?

01. Fear of Being Wrong : Our decisions are often driven by Loss Aversion – the cognitive bias that makes us more afraid of failure than excited by potential success. In a world where a single misstep can get us “bollocked,’ we stick with what feels safe, even when it’s clearly not working.

Metrics Are Poisoning You

This isn’t just about bad ideas, poor execution and apathy — it’s about the broader culture we’ve created around innovation. It’s become too hard to stop, reflect, interrogate and interject with fresh ideas, while KPIs run the show.

We’re not solving real problems; we’re searching for validation .

As marketer and author Rory... See more

The Illusion of Progress : Action Bias leads us to believe that doing something – anything – is better than doing nothing , even when the action doesn’t actually move us forward. We equate busyness with productivity, mistaking motion for progress, and perceive novelty as innately valuable.