Balancing acts

Beyond pixels

Steve Jobs once infamously called out Google's CEO over a "wrong shade of yellow" on a pixelated app button. But what drove this borderline obsessive pursuit of design perfection? The answer lies in a surprising place: calligraphy.

Yes, calligraphy. While attending college (which he eventually left), Jobs was captivated by the school's beautiful hand-lettered posters. Intrigued, he took a calligraphy class – seemingly useless for a future tech mogul in the 1970s.

Fast forward ten years later to the development of the Mac. Suddenly, those calligraphy lessons came flooding back. Jobs' appreciation for spacing, proportion, and letterform beauty heavily influenced the Mac's interface design. The result? A user-friendly and visually stunning experience which was a stark contrast to the clunky interfaces of the era.

Jobs famously remarked in his Stanford Commencement Speech that "you can't connect the dots looking forward." You have to trust the seemingly random experiences will somehow connect in your future.

And connect they did. Jobs' calligraphy influence went far beyond aesthetics. It reflected his core belief: technology should be an extension of ourselves, as elegant and intuitive as a beautifully crafted letter.

So, the next time you hold an Apple device, consider this:

Question: What instinct or ‘gut feel’ should you follow with confidence that the dots will connect in future?

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Pyjama party

Ever come back from a strategy retreat to blank stares and "So, what happened?" from your team? It's a valid question. Senior leadership whisked away for days, whispers of "pyjama party" - does anything real come out of these sessions?

This week, I helped a group tackle that head-on. Yes, we did work (and wore comfy clothes!), but the team took their staff's skepticism seriously.

And, here’s what we did: In the last hour, we created a video message, directly to employees. Each leader answered two key questions to camera:

1. What excites you about the new strategy? (Energy, not ‘hard work’)

2. What's changing, and what's staying the same? (Evolution, not revolution)

No scripts, just a few minutes of preparation for honest, inspiring answers. The result? A raw, 25-minute video (being edited to a tighter 6-8 minutes) that cuts through the "retreat experience" and focuses on what truly matters: what the strategy means for the business.

They're confident their team will watch. It's not about the retreat itself, but about making the outcomes real and accessible.

Question: How can you effectively communicate the heart of your strategic decisions to your entire team, not just those in the "war room"?

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Apparently opposed

Imagine this leader: strong, decisive, with a laser focus on results. Now picture another: empathetic, nurturing, building a collaborative team. Traditionally, these leadership styles seem like opposites. But what if the best leaders embody both?

Tracey Ezard, a leadership consultant and long-time colleague, coined ‘ferocious warmth’ to describe this balance. Great leaders are ferocious: driven by a moral compass, courageous in their convictions, and relentless in pursuit of goals. They're also warm: building strong relationships, fostering empathy, and cultivating a positive, collaborative environment.

This can seem paradoxical. Years ago, I worked with a healthcare organisation where "hospitality" was a core value. They struggled to fire under-performers, fearing it contradicted their ethos. Instead, we reframed it as "hospitable exits," allowing them to reconcile kindness with necessary action.

As leaders, we often have to navigate a "centrifugal field" – that is pulling in different directions.

And here’s a further example of this. Another colleague, Deb Pascoe, introduced me to "virtuous betrayal": when leaders must make tough choices for a greater good. The concept’s originator, James Krantz, tells of Churchill choosing this in , World War II. Having cracked the Enigma code, he knew of a coming German attack, but warning Coventry would expose the code, potentially leading to more devastation. He chose silence, a horrific yet strategic decision.

Fortunately few of us face such extremes of contradictory strategic demands, but whatever form they take for you, ask this question:

Question: When you are faced with a strategic paradox, what would happen if you blended the seeming opposites?

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Just 20 left . . .

That’s how many seats remain for the marvellous documentary UnCharitable which I’m hosting in person in Melbourne on June 5th.

If you’re a leader involved in the non-profit world, you MUST see this. It will open your eyes to the paradoxes (and solutions) of how NFPs are funded - and why they are often not able to do their best work. After the screening, I’ll host a short conversation with two CEOs of prominent ‘for purpose’ organisations, and we’ll extend the discussion to our participants. I’d love to see you there.

Until next week, delight in the contradictions of the world around you, and see you next Friday.

Andrew