It's Nearly November. How Did That Happen?

I'm dangerously close to saying the word November. Frankly, I feel this should require some kind of official permission.

It's been a year of interesting conversations, questionable workplace practices, some very good ideas and an alarming number of ducks.

I've spent much of 2026 writing, speaking, listening, asking questions and generally being fascinated by the weird and wonderful things humans do, particularly when we put them in organisations.

And a few themes keep coming up.

We've made work spectacularly complicated.

We've got frameworks for everything, meetings about meetings, collaboration that occasionally resembles death by committee, and an apparently inexhaustible appetite for making relatively simple things unnecessarily difficult.

I've written about peak workplace crazy, weaponised incompetence, the cult of busyness and the extraordinary capacity of seventeen well-meaning people to peck a perfectly good idea to death.

I'm increasingly convinced that making work less ridiculous is a legitimate organisational development strategy.

Leadership is a lot messier than we'd like to admit.

We've talked about good leadership, bad leadership, different brands of leadership and the increasingly appealing possibility of good enough leadership.

I'm particularly interested in what happens when we stop trying to manufacture exceptional leaders and start creating the conditions for ordinary people to do extraordinary things.

Space to think. Permission to decide. Time to learn. Room to be human.

Not terribly revolutionary. Strangely difficult to achieve.

AI has entered the chat. And possibly eaten the agenda.

This year has brought some fascinating conversations about AI, thinking, decision-making and the sheer volume of stuff we can now produce.

We're getting faster. But are we getting better?

And if technology is saving us all this time, why does everyone seem so exhausted?

I'm excited about the possibilities, but increasingly curious about what we might lose if we stop giving ourselves time to think.Being human is still a full-time job.

I've also spent a lot of time talking about resilience, overwhelm, compassion, curiosity and how we navigate the days when everything goes a bit pear-shaped.

Which brings me to one of my favourite things this year: bringing The Bad Day Playbook into the world.

It's a practical, playful little book about what to do when life isn't cooperating. Not fixing everything. Not bouncing back triumphantly. Just finding a little more awareness, agency and a useful next step.

Because sometimes the most productive thing you can do is lower the bar and have a biscuit.

And underneath all of this? Culture.

The invisible, everyday stuff that shapes how we experience work.

I've loved exploring the idea that culture isn't simply something leaders announce or organisations roll out. It's something we create together, through what we notice, reward, tolerate, question and make possible.

And that changing culture might have less to do with launching another initiative and more to do with making different things happen on an ordinary Tuesday.

So, what's next?

More writing. More questions. More slightly irreverent observations about working life.

And more opportunities to take these conversations into rooms full of people.

Because these aren't just things I like writing about. They're things I love exploring with leaders, teams and organisations through keynotes, workshops, coaching and conversations that are equal parts thoughtful, practical and entertaining.

If you're planning something for your people, I'd love to be part of it. And if you'd like a little practical help navigating the less fabulous days, The Bad Day Playbook is available too. There is a link below.

In the meantime, there's still a little bit of 2026 left. Plenty of time to build another framework. Please don't.