Five years after I wrote the first version of this page, I would frame this very differently. A student asked me, what is the purpose of that page?
It may look like a library, but it is not a library. It is an operating system for development.The distinction matters. Most professionals already have access to more ideas than they can use. Books are read, articles saved, videos watched and yet, when you look closely at how people actually work week to week, very little changes. The gap is not intellectual. It is behavioural. That is where this collection is positioned.
At its core is a principle associated with Richard Pascale: 'adults are far more likely to act their way into a new way of thinking than to think their way into a new way of acting.'
Taken seriously, that reverses how most development is approached. It suggests that clarity is not a prerequisite for action; it is often a by-product of it. It suggests that confidence is built through evidence generated in practice, not through preparation in isolation. And it suggests that waiting until you feel “ready” is, in many cases, a sophisticated form of delay.
From that position, development becomes less about accumulating insight and more about managing a series of deliberate experiments in your own behaviour. The materials here are therefore not organised as content to consume, but as prompts to intervene. They are intended to be used in the middle of real work: before a difficult conversation, after a meeting that did not land, during a period where your influence is not translating into outcomes, or when you sense that your current way of operating has reached its limits.
The underlying logic is simple, but demanding. Start with a live situation where performance matters. Translate one idea into a concrete behavioural shift. Test it in context. Observe the response; both yours and others’. Refine. Repeat. Over time, this produces something more robust than insight: it produces judgement.
A few implications follow from this way of working.
Development is local, not abstract. The relevant question is not whether an idea is “true” in general, but whether it is useful in your specific context. The same behaviour, directness, restraint, escalation, patience... can be effective or ineffective depending on timing, relationships, and organisational conditions. The aim is not to apply models correctly, but to apply them intelligently.
Progress is uneven and often uncomfortable. Because the work is behavioural and visible, it carries risk. You are trying things that may not work, in environments where outcomes matter and perceptions form quickly. This is not a flaw in the process; it is the process. Avoiding that exposure is one of the main reasons development stalls.
Much of the work is subtractive. By mid-career, the constraint is rarely a lack of tools. It is overuse of familiar ones. Patterns that have delivered success: precision, responsiveness, control, expertise... start to create second-order problems when overextended. Development often involves doing less of something that has previously been rewarded, which is psychologically more difficult than adding something new.
Leadership capability is inseparable from the system around you. Performance is not just a function of individual skill. It is shaped by how work is structured, how decisions are made, what is rewarded, and what is avoided. Many of the resources here are included to help you read those conditions more accurately and to intervene more effectively, not just to improve yourself in isolation.
Consistency outweighs intensity. Single moments rarely define a leader’s trajectory. Patterns do. What you do repeatedly, how you run meetings, how you follow up, how you signal priorities, how you handle tension... all accumulates into a reputation that either supports you or constrains you. Small, deliberate shifts, sustained over time, tend to have disproportionate impact.
Used well, this collection becomes less of a reference point and more of a companion to practice. You do not move through it linearly. You return to it when something is not working, when something important is at stake, or when you are trying to operate at a higher level than before.
The question is not, “What should I learn next?” It is, “What am I trying to do differently and what here will help me do it in a way that others can see, feel, and respond to?” That is the standard.
Because in the end, development is not measured by what you know. It is measured by what changes in your behaviour, in others’ responses, and in the outcomes you are able to produce over time.
Everything here is designed to support that shift.
Videos
Books
Articles
Please contact me here if you would like to discuss how you may go further in this topic through Coaching.
Please use the comments section at the foot of the page to suggest resources you have found useful on this topic and I'll add them for the benefit of others.