Recognition. Voice. Mess.

You’re One of Us

It’s the Silly Season so I was at my local outlet of a very large national chain of liquor stores. I was low on champagne and beer, and on successive days was about to host a Christmas drinks evening for solo consultants, and a god-daughter’s graduation lunch.

The store is supermarket sized, and I was pleased to see they stocked my favourite Belgian beer (Chimay, if you’re interested), so took a few. At the counter, a sprightly young man said, “A fellow fan of Belgian beers. We don’t sell too many of these. You’re obviously a man of good taste”.

We both laughed at his patent attempt at flattery.

“But I’ll tell you what” he continued, leaning slightly, “Because there aren’t many of us Belgian beer lovers, I’ve got a code on my register that I can use to apply a large discount to your whole order.”

I was spending $300 or so, and his code was 15% off, so a worthwhile amount.

He went on further: “You know, La Chouffe beer?” (I did). “We’ve got a really good price on the large bottles. Two for $24.”

So, I asked him to add those. As I left, I said, smiling, “You’re one hell of a salesman. Merry Christmas”.

But I felt buoyed by the interpersonal experience. And, I even felt a positive association with this otherwise large faceless corporation.

Here’s what struck me: that young man had turned a brief transaction into a micro- relationship through genuine recognition — and personal agency. And it worked. Now, perhaps he does this with everyone — if so, it doesn’t matter. If anything, it makes the phenomenon even more powerful. Because then it works at scale.

I see this with some of my best clients: those that genuinely engage their communities aren’t those with the most sophisticated frameworks, or scripts. They’re the ones who’ve given their people permission to notice who’s in front of them and respond meaningfully. It’s about whether your people can recognise someone who cares about the same things and say, “You’re one of us”.

Question: What would happen if everyone in your organisation had a "Belgian beer code": some small discretionary power to turn transactions into moments of genuine connection?

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Unused Intelligence

Harvard’s Amy Edmondson discovered something counterintuitive: the highest-performing hospital teams reported more errors, not fewer.

It turned out they weren’t making more mistakes: they were simply willing to talk about them. The difference wasn’t competence; it was candour.

I see this pattern with my clients. Organisations that tolerate poor behaviour, even low level irritants — the dismissive manager, the self-interested “team” member, the colleague who dominates meetings — gradually lose access to their own intelligence. Not because people don’t notice problems, but because they’ve learned that silence is safer than speaking up.

The strategic cost is enormous. Edmondson’s research shows executive teams routinely make consequential decisions that members had serious doubts about but felt unable to voice. Your strategy sessions aren’t failing because you lack smart people; they’re failing because your smartest people have learned to stay quiet.

Here’s what shifted my thinking: this isn’t about punishing bad actors or creating feedback mechanisms. It’s about recognising that speaking up is an act of organisational loyalty. When someone raises a concern about unfairness, poor behaviour, or strategic missteps, they’re offering intelligence you desperately need.

Question: What critical insights do you most want people to NOT stay quiet about?

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Productive Chaos

A client last week, mid-strategy session, said with a smile, 'This is messy, isn't it?'"

It wasn’t a complaint. She was experiencing what research confirms: tolerance for ambiguity—the ability to sit with uncertainty and half-formed ideas—directly predicts creative output.

Roughly halfway through every strategy process I facilitate, I see the same pattern: people get restless. We should be further ahead by now, their faces say. They start reaching for plausible answers.

This is the moment that matters most. My job is to hold them there, not by making it comfortable, but by naming what’s happening. “This feels unclear because we’re doing the hard work of finding what actually matters, not just what’s easy to articulate.” That permission to stay messy changes everything.

Good strategic thinking moves through three phases. Divergent thinking generates possibilities. Convergent thinking decides what matters. But the middle phase — emergent thinking — is where people abandon this productive messiness too early, grabbing “reasonable solutions” to escape discomfort. So I extend this phase intentionally — not unnecessarily — so that we can properly thematise the chaos, identify the real drivers and, ultimately, find the crux.

Question: When your strategic discussions get uncomfortable, what helps you stay in the 'productive mess'?

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We’re at year’s end and next week’s newsletter will be the last for 2025. I’m going to sum up my main ‘a-ha’ moments and ‘so whats’ and I’d love to know yours. So drop a comment here — or send me a message. And as always, click the heart so we stay connected, at least virtually.

See you next Friday and for those enjoying Christmas, may the season be full of love and joy.

Andrew