The words I work with
Twelve words. Hover any one.
people cry. people belly laugh. someone, eventually, says the thing.
that, usually, is where the work starts.
What actually happens in the room
Someone laughs first.
Usually because the truth has arrived sideways.
Then someone cries.
Not because it is sad. Because the room is finally honest.
Then the work can begin.
The centrepiece
The four questions
I keep coming back to.
What is alive. What is true. What is useful. What is possible. Almost every stuck organisation has one of them gone quiet.
Four questions. Five meeting points.
Most organisations get stuck because one of the four has gone quiet, or because two of them have stopped speaking to each other. Hover a question. Tap a meeting point.
a wand. in a boardroom. it works more often than it should.
The unit of change is a conversation.
Almost always one nobody wanted to start.
Choose a door
Why are you here?
Six doors. Walk through the one that fits.
The Edge Walker
For leaders standing at the door of a decision nobody wants to name.
What are you not crossing because the old room is familiar?
Step throughThe Soul Finder
For organisations that have scaled, hardened, or quietly forgotten why they started.
What did this organisation lose on the way to becoming successful?
Step throughThe Pattern Spotter
For leaders drowning in information and short on the one or two distinctions that would change things.
What still gives direction when the map fails?
Step throughThe Firestarter
For places, teams or communities that need courage, momentum and a different kind of energy.
What small thing could change the whole system if it was properly nurtured?
Step throughThe Village Weaver
For systems that need relationship, not another top-down strategy document.
What keeps tightening because nobody is naming the real tension?
Step throughThe Playmaker
For teams that have become very good at being serious and very bad at being surprised.
What becomes possible when the frame changes?
Step throughMarc is one of those rare people who genuinely changes the direction of your life without ever forcing it. He sees something in you before you can see it in yourself, and then creates the space for you to grow into it. There is a depth to how Marc works that is hard to explain until you experience it. It is not just strategic, it is human. If you get the chance to work with Marc, take it.
John M. Sweeney, Founder, Suspended Coffees. TEDx speaker.
Three small stories
2014, a blog post
I drew the Ikigai diagram on a quiet afternoon. It now sits on a few hundred million screens. It taught me that the things that travel are the ones that name what people already feel.
Years in rooms
Founders, boards, leadership teams at the moment the old map runs out. The work, almost always, is to make it safe enough for the sentence everyone is avoiding.
An island, a community
Over a decade helping a small island use its smallness as an advantage. It taught me that you do not need scale to matter. You need honesty, and somewhere to put it.
Bring me the thing you are not saying yet.
A first conversation is the smallest useful step. Honest, sharp, occasionally funny, and usually clarifies more than a quarter of meetings would.
Occasional letters on the soul of organisations. No noise.