The short version: strategy consultant, OKR coach, author.

Five drawers, then two

I joined the civil service, at the Atomic Energy Authority, in a shiny new suit and a stiff collar. I got the job down to about a day and a half a week, and told my boss. He said that was really good, but not to rock the boat: we're all here for our pensions, so take it easy.

Then two men in overalls arrived, asked me to stand away from my desk and took three of its five drawers. My grade only warranted two. The others went to the basement.

If I needed any more proof it wasn't the place for me, that was it.

A shop on a building site

So I saved up and, with my best friend, opened a clothes shop near Aberdeen University. It went well for about a year, until the road outside became a building site. We hadn't checked. The lease had been cheap for a reason.

It taught me exactly what I didn't know.

An economics degree, by accident

I went to London and took the first job going, tracking down people who'd run away from their credit card debts. A friend rescued me with lunch at Kingston Polytechnic, where he was studying. Emboldened by four pints of Swiss lager, I went to ask about the business studies course. Full.

But a senior economics lecturer walking past heard I had an economics A level, interviewed me on the spot, and by the end of the afternoon I was enrolled. No planning whatsoever.

Talking my way into technology

I graduated into a poor economy and applied for a graduate scheme at an American computer company serving advertising agencies. My covering letter said I was computer literate. That was not true.

I learned quickly, helped by colleagues with far better keyboard skills than mine, and ended up running the help desk. People kept leaving because it was stressful, so I stopped putting new starters on the phones alone. One listened and took notes while the other searched the manuals, actual A4 binders. People stopped leaving.

Only selling what I believe in

Back in the North East, the contract I'd come home for ended and the only jobs going were in sales. I've never been able to sell anything I don't believe in. I have tried. But I loved Apple Macs, so I joined an Apple Centre, was handed the Teesside Yellow Pages and a phone, and told to get on with it.

My biggest account came from a toner cartridge. An agency I'd been courting for six months was stuck without one, with big jobs to proof. I could have charged whatever I liked. I charged a fair price. Their IT director said it was half what they'd been paying and asked me to look at everything else they bought. They became my biggest client, and later my employer.

This is also where I made the find-and-replace mistake on the home page.

What annoys you most about IT?

At the agency I became IT director, then new media director, reporting to the CFO. My board reports were full of ticket numbers, and still the complaints kept coming. So I suggested something different: I'd sit down with every director and senior manager, ask what annoyed them most about IT, and attack that list. It worked, because it turned complaints sent by email into conversations face to face.

It ended with a cardboard box. The owners told me there was no future in the internet, and I was made redundant in an afternoon, with our second child due two months later.

The most important thing I learned there: the job wasn't to show off IT skills. It was to understand why the agency existed and how it made money.

A lift at Tower 42

Next came a web development business with two people I'd met through the agency. We were invited to pitch for the intranet in Swiss Re's new London building, the one everyone now calls the Gherkin, against the big London agencies. I was sure we had no chance.

Then, in a lift at Tower 42, I got talking to a fellow northerner carrying an enormous brochure: the wayfinding guide for the new building. They'd printed too many, so he gave me one. We used it to shape our design so the intranet matched the signs in the lifts and corridors. We pitched third. They said they'd seen enough.

Later my fellow directors fell in love with an AI idea for the games industry. I couldn't see the money in it and we were heading different ways, so I left, for less than my shares were worth. My wife's advice: don't hang on, make it clean.

Be very careful who you go into business with. Complementary skills aren't enough. If your values don't match, the relationship cracks the moment the business comes under stress. I learned that the hard way, more than once, and I'm sure the people involved would say I was hard work too.

You're a catalyst

Coaching work came through an accountancy firm in the North East. Over a Chinese meal, Ian Harland, who I worked with there, asked if I knew what I was. I gave him the boring answer about being a bridge between technology and sales. He said: no, you're a catalyst. You help people change.

It has shaped how I've worked ever since. The job isn't to agree with people and hand them a slide deck that confirms what they already thought. I've been guilty of that now and again. Mostly, I try not to be.

Betting everything on OKRs

With David Anderson, who named Auxin after the hormone that helps plants grow, and Mark Richard, I built a business that started out helping small companies with sales, marketing and IT. A partner introduced us to a tender for OKR work. We tried to bend our offer to fit it and, thankfully, didn't win. It made us curious enough to pivot the whole business to OKRs.

A friend in PR warned us not to put all our eggs in one basket. We did anyway, and it paid off. When COVID arrived, the distance that had cost me work in North America stopped mattering, and for a while I had more clients in South Africa than in the North East.

Mark mentored me throughout, not least on how boards really work, as opposed to how the org chart says they do. In 2023 we sold Auxin to Quantive. The story of how that relationship started is on the Exit page.

An old dog, new tricks

After four days of workshops in Abu Dhabi, with a flight the next morning and a full week waiting at home, I dictated everything I could remember into a document and, without much confidence, asked ChatGPT to turn my anonymised stream of consciousness into a report. I said “no way” out loud in my hotel room. With some light editing, it was good. The client had it before I boarded.

I tell clients how I use AI, and I'll tell you too: it helped me build this site. The thinking and the stories are mine.

Earn the Right

These days I work with leadership teams on strategy and OKRs, with founders preparing to sell, and one to one with people who need to get clear on themselves first. I wrote Earn the Right: Leading with Strategic Intelligence, now in its second edition. I'm a founding partner at OKRs.com with Ben Lamorte, and one of his founding partner coaches for the Start with You Blueprint.

I grew up in Consett, County Durham, and I'm still based in the North East of England, working with clients across the UK, US and Europe.