by JW | May 4, 2026 | Briefing
Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been noticing a pattern in conversations with leaders I’m working with. Things aren’t necessarily broken, but they’re taking far more effort than expected—more time, more energy, more attention than anyone planned for going in. Most...
by JW | Apr 20, 2026 | Briefing
You can’t force a wave to form. You can only recognize it—and move at the right moment. I learned that the hard way as a kid in Hawaii. The same is true in strategy. Leaders spend a great deal of time refining strategic design and improving execution. When a strategy...
by JW | Apr 6, 2026 | Briefing
The instinct to simplify is almost always wrong. Over the past several weeks, I’ve noticed a recurring pattern in conversations about organizational design and management systems. At some point—often immediately after a system is introduced—the same request emerges:...
by JW | Mar 16, 2026 | Briefing
Friday night a Kona storm rolled across Maui and knocked out the power. For nearly twenty hours the lights were out. The street outside our condo flooded, and for a while it was impossible to drive anywhere—even if we wanted to. Inside, however, everything was...
by JW | Mar 12, 2026 | Perspective
The Difference Between Complicated and Complex When strategy stalls, leaders often search for someone who can diagnose the problem and fix it—like calling an auto mechanic for a broken engine. It’s an understandable instinct. Many of the problems we encounter in...
