Its Decision Time

Navigating the natural conflict between disruption and patience is essential. Responding to each at the right time is one of life’s greatest challenges.

Org Charts: Why They Are Wrong

Let me count the ways - but for now a short primer ….

Wrong - In What They Are

  • A static snapshot in a dynamic system - Org charts freeze people in place, in a world that’s fluid, adaptive, and always in motion.

  • An illusion of control - They suggest neat lines of authority, when actual influence flows in networks, whispers, and Slack threads.

  • A power fantasy - Designed more to reassure executives than to reflect how things really work on the ground.

Wrong - In How They Are

  • Too hierarchical, too linear - Most charts resemble military command structures in an age that demands collaboration and cross-functionality.

  • Built top-down, not inside-out - They reflect formal reporting lines, not value creation, lived relationships, or trust pathways.

  • Exclusionary by design - Contractors, advisors, ecosystem partners, AI tools? Nowhere to be seen, yet often critical to delivery.

Wrong - In the Information They Contain

  • Titles ≠ capability - Job labels are vague proxies. They reveal little about what someone is great at, trusted for, or actually doing.

  • Missing the real flows - No view of how decisions are made, who connects teams, or where knowledge is hoarded vs. shared.

  • Performance blind - They say nothing about value contribution, outcomes, energy, or momentum.

Wrong - In How Work Is Understood

  • They reduce people to boxes - And forget that work is a web of conversations, motivations, tensions, experiments, and progress.

  • Ignore emergence and adaptability - Real work happens across silos, shaped by informal leaders, not always those in bold font.

  • Reinforce outdated logic - Built for predictability and scale, when today’s work is about learning, iterating, and adjusting on the fly.

The Fractalisation of Work

To understand how the fractalisation of work (doesn’t) work - consider ’the taxi’, the definition of which is in the process of being redefined as a personalised vehicle that will take you for a to b.

That continues - BUT … it also used to be a place for …

  • Human conversation - spontaneously - about local gossip, life advice, or even silence. And all without algorithmsmonitoring sentiment.

  • A helping hand, someone who’d load your luggage, not because it was required, but because that’s what people do.

  • Navigation expertise by someone who knows the backstreets better than GPS, and magically avoid traffic lines.

  • The ‘welcome committee’, offering recommendations for where to eat, what to avoid, and how to make the most of your stay.

  • An interpreter or cultural guide, especially in unfamiliar cities or countries, bridging gaps in language and local norms.

  • A protector that waited until you got safely inside your home or hotel before driving off.

  • A confidant that listens to everything from your job woes to relationship breakdowns .. no subscription required.

  • A fixture of community memory in the form of a driver who knew your parents, remembered your last trip and asked after your kids.

  • A micro-economy participant, in that they often owned their vehicle, had real agency over hours, routes, pricing, and long-term plans and what they earned was part of the local economy where they plied their trade - no profits siphon off and extracted to the banks of the ride share company.

  • A professional, who knows that the job isn’t just driving, but care, awareness, and service - all wrapped in experience.

None of which is really provided by the things replacing taxis …

And yes - I know that doesn’t describe all Taxis - but it certainly describes the good ones.

We should all do the right thing by and for our children ...

Protecting children’s online safety should be a top priority for everyone, as they are vulnerable to harmful influences from companies prioritizing profit over safeguarding. Sharing the ‘Words of Jax’,

This is from iAWriter.

Trust Requires Trust. Who Do YOU Trust?

If ‘the future’ is trust. Who/what - do you trust? I mean really really trust? And why?

Replying To A LinkedIN Post

Linear sales funnels oversimplify reality and fail to account for the complexities of customer journeys and the importance of data in optimizing business processes - and more - IMHO.

Can New Zealand Win? No. Unless it redefines the game.

🔗 Responding to Bill Bennet’s article.

The dependencies are clear - but if the EU, with 450 million people and deep talent pools, is only now waking up to the fact they can’t compete head-on in AI and cloud infrastructure, then NZ’s current posture makes even less sense.

The EU’s defaulted to regulation because that’s what they can actually do. But even that gets framed as geopolitical interference by Washington. They’re playing defence from a position of relative strength.

NZ pursuing direct competition in AI, quantum or advanced chip manufacturing isn’t realistic. More importantly, it’s the wrong game entirely. Our constraints should force us to be smarter, not just smaller versions of what’s happening in ‘The Valley’.

We have genuine strengths if we care to look around … Agriculture. Biotech. Climate tech. These are domains where our size becomes an advantage because we can move faster and stay coherent. They’re built on foundations this country has already established.

From where I’m sitting, I see less of that and more of organisations either chasing every race simultaneously or reinventing the wheel in isolation. It goes all the way to government. Nobody asks the straightforward question: where can we actually win? We’re all chasing whatever we’re afraid of missing. The EU might sustain that scatter. New Zealand has no chance.

We need to stop managing dependencies and choose the fights we can win. Then do them exceptionally well. That’s the part we struggle with, even with our number-eight-wire mentality.

Then again - here’s a win - fiscally a BIG win

Chris Keall reported last week …

Rocket Lab will deliver satellites equipped with advanced missile warning, tracking, and defense sensors to provide global, persistent detection and tracking of emerging missile threats, including hypersonic systems.

Luxon has historically been a big drum basher for RocketLabs - but on this one - so far - silence as far as I can see - including nothing from www.beehive.govt.nz - as surprise given how often they are helf up as ‘a great Kiwi Company’ ..

Maybe it’s how these are going to be used for (apparently) the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture

So I guess we need to first define winning?

In Praise Of Drafts

Drafts, an app by Agile Tortoise, has been recognized as App of the Year for 2025 thirteen years after its release, showcasing its continued relevance and utility in writing. Reposting @ameripie - adding small thoughts. ( Thankyou @agiletoroise )

The Information Gets Its Facts Wrong - Again

Osborne’s appointment to OpenAI reflects a trend of organisations hiring political figures, despite their lousy records in public office - and Clegg didn’t even play a PM on TV - much less be one in real life.