About Me

I make collaborations work.

I connect stakeholders to help them find common ground on which they can build something of value.

It's better to get along with someone than to get in their way, and when I see this principle violated I am compelled to act.

The exception is when the other person is creating harm, in which case the opposite applies: it's better to get in the way of a harmful person than to help them get along.

Not everything needs to be collaborative of course. Many valuable things are done alone, either in isolation or parallel to the work of others. So much craftsmanship, art, intellectual advance, and living is done by ourselves, in our heads, on our own.

But eventually we interact with something, or someone. What we do with that moment defines how we are. Interaction is our primary behaviour, and without behaviour we are just atoms.

I love finding things out and am driven to KNOW. To understand WHY. To see the cause and appreciate the effect.

This has been consistent for my whole life and I have learned to use it.

I discovered curiosity is incredibly useful when paired with ignorance, forming a sort of 'perpetual intention' machine: I can go on asking 'why?' forever, no matter how much I learn in the process.

We are all the same. Compared to the sum total of all knowledge even the smartest, most knowledgeable person in the room is almost completely ignorant.

I use this leveller of ignorance with the unending power curiosity to build perspectives, common ground, and collaboration.

After all, if we knew everything there would be nothing to be curious about and nothing to get done.

I deploy curious ignorance to learn what people want, why they think from the perspective they hold, and what that tells them about their understanding of the world. I encourage you to try it. You will find when you do this to two people who are engaged in some common endeavour, whether it's a relationship, a business deal, or a dispute, you begin to light a pathway between them and the obstacles and common tracks they each face on that path.

I find that storytelling, explicating, encouraging, challenging, and inspiring these perspectives helps combine peoples' capabilities to solve their problems.

Throughout my career in law, technology businesses, and non-profits I have experienced building (and failing to build) collective ownership to solve complexity.

I enjoy untangling these often intricate situations, unpacking things to their core components to bring everyone to the same level. This creates an opportunity for collaboration through enquiry about the best way to rearrange things for the better, or to achieve something more.

I like to involve people in building antifragile structures. Structures that gain strength from disorder, positively react to change, and benefit from uncertainty, because these are the strongest structures of all. There is no greater constant than unpredictable interruption, so a system designed with this truth at its heart is the most capable system that can exist.

I do this specifically with safety and controls in mind so that collaborators have the tools to maintain direction and protect  their future options, so I try to teach not preach. I explore the principles and boundaries people hold with importance, and the consequences these have for their interactions. From here we can adjust the things that don't fundamentally alter who they are, and even address some that do if this proves useful.

I am great at working with your (always unique, but never different) people and stakeholders. I communicate by empathy, analogy, example, and visualisation to expand collective understandings and commitment. I provoke, kindly, and destabilise people sufficiently to shift their weight and perspective, so they gain insights whether or not they return to their original position.

I do all this to help you find the data, strategy, plans, and execution styles that suit your purpose, and I have the patience to work urgently over the long term.

I’m skilled at delivering intellectually and operationally complex projects, using Collaboration Maps to organise and mobilise multi-disciplinary, multicultural & multinational teams.

I have created worldwide collaborations in travel, health, Big Tech, nonprofit, payments, academia, enterprise, early stage, accounting, fundraising, government

I distil my approach as the Collaboration Map.

Click here to see how.