Words
The Sunday Dispatches archive...
Absence of context
Just look at the image that goes with this post. There’s a lot going on, right? It’s abstract, complex, and maybe a little overwhelming. Now think about your communication with client executives... do you mainly focus on selling them the “issue,” or explaining who you are and how
Guide not Guru
I was surprised when this post came up in my LinkedIn feed. Guide not guru. That’s me? It’s taken a long time to get here. I aimed for that 30 years ago when I broke free from corporate. Asking questions, paying attention, offering a perspective without prescription. Of
Maximum Attention
I remember walking out of a meeting thinking I’d done a good job. I persuaded, got my points across, and people seemed to agree. But afterwards my boss took me to one side and told me, “You weren’t really paying attention in there Clive, you can do better
The Catalyst
I remember the first time it happened. The client looked me straight in the eye and said... "That's different. Nobody asked me that before." And just like that something changed. I was amazed how quickly it happened. He started talking. He started thinking. He started seeing
How to influence decisions
Just overheard someone in a coffee shop. Tearing a rival firm's approach apart. Buyers who hear this kind of pitch - you know what they remember? Not the speaker. Not what they're selling. The competitor being slagged off. Knocking the competition feels clever... and satisfying. But psychologically
Your Impossible Future
Looking beyond what you once thought possible. That's how you get breakthrough thinking. But that vision - without relentless execution - is just dreaming. I've been on retreats, where executives get excited about the future they could have... the get totally stuck when they realise the magnitude of
Killing me softly
Are you killing the impact of your pitch? The wrong move. Someone asks you to pitch. You open the deck. Slide two: your credentials. Slide three: your methodology. Slide four: your case studies. Slide five: your team. And somewhere around slide six, the client checks their phone. They've
We're all underachievers.
We're all underachievers. It's not that we slack off. Quite the contrary, most of us work bloody hard. No, it's the fear... that's what hold us back. Fear of failure. Fear of being judged. Fear we might just succeed. And then what
Transformational Change
Think you know your arse from your elbow? Or a hare from a rabbit? Some people get confused I know. This one’s a hare. She was doing a bit of personal grooming in my garden this morning. I noticed her at around 5:30am as I was journaling my