The Scribbler: When Language Gets Cheap, Thinking Gets Expensive
A quiet change has taken place in executive life, and it is not "AI" as such. It is the arrival of smoothness as a default condition. Language is
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Artificial Intelligence
On artificial intelligence—not as novelty, but as the old failures of leadership and judgement conducted at unprecedented speed and expense.
36 essays
How to Use AI as a Thinking Partner Without Letting It Think For You
A practical method for how to turn AI into a thinking partner—surfacing assumptions, testing arguments, and strengthening decisions through disciplined cognitive friction.
The Commons
The Chat Trap: When AI Makes Your Thinking Softer
AI makes language effortless—but thinking is done best when it is effortful. Thus, beware the “chat trap”: how casual use of generative AI can quietly soften judgement by replacing framing, definition, and trade-offs with fluent prose.
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Critical Ignoring: The Executive Discipline That Makes Strategy Possible
In an age of cheap text and AI-generated plausibility, leaders are not misled by too little information but by too much of the wrong kind. In this piece I explore why attention has become a governance risk—and why learning what to ignore now matters as much as what to know.
Inner Circle
In Defence of the Em-Dash
The em-dash has fallen under suspicion—treated as a tell-tale sign of artificial writing rather than what it has always been: a mark of care, rhythm, and thought in motion. It should return to good standing so we can recover linguistic standards we seem oddly eager to abandon.
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2025 in Review: Authority, Attention, and the Return of Coherence
A 2025 review of authority, trust, coherence and attention—plus a strategic outlook for 2026 on AI governance, provenance, regulation and decision quality. What to prioritise, what to ignore, and why clarity beats theatre.
The Commons
An Eight-Part Playbook for Human-Centred AI
A practical playbook for human-centred AI: redesigning workflows, building capability, governing judgment, and sustaining talent pipelines so AI amplifies human agency rather than hollowing out the organisation.
The Commons
The Missing Middle in Enterprise AI
Most companies use AI, but few achieve real impact. In part I of this series I explore why people—not tools—determine AI maturity, and why the next serious organisations will dominate the space between pilots and profit.
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Authorship in the Age of AI
In an age when machines can mimic thought, the real question is who stands behind the words. A reflection on authorship, judgement, and the human presence that gives writing its authority.
The Commons
Which Humans? Whose Values? The Cultural Biases of AI
AI models mirror WEIRD cultural norms while claiming universality. Alignment methods reinforce this bias, projecting one community’s “common sense” as global truth. Recognising plurality through Wittgenstein’s language-games and Popper’s falsification reframes alignment as provisional and adaptive,
The Commons
Trust in the Age of the Machine
AI's fluency enchants, eroding the old signals of competence and authority. The danger is that trust becomes a machine illusion. Leaders must refuse the managerial shortcut and practise noble language—reasoned, responsible speech—to keep trust a human achievement.
The Commons
AI Is Changing the Structure of Organisations, The Future Is a Rhomboid
AI is said to be reshaping organisational forms, rendering pyramids obsolete and obelisks ascendant. Yet the deeper truth is distortion rather than stability. The “Rhomboid Organisation” captures this skew—unstable, off-balance, authority flattened.
The Commons
AI Sycophants: How To Stop Your Model From Kissing Up
AI models often mirror our beliefs, rewarding us with agreeable but shallow answers. This sycophancy flatters rather than challenges, eroding judgment and candour. To gain true value, leaders must set incentives that favour truth over comfort, design prompts that demand trade-offs, and treat AI as a
The Commons
No-Click Reading: How AI Summaries Starve Critical Thinking
Clicks are dying, and with them provenance, nuance, and the economics of ideas. AI summaries reward skim over substance. We need friction, attribution, and long-form thinking—treating summaries as aperitifs, not meals—so leaders decide from sources, not headlines.
The Commons
How Corporate FOMO Replaced Strategy with Stagecraft
In their fear of missing the AI bandwagon, many boards are blindly investing in tech they barely understand—driven more by hype than strategy. Mimicry, not discernment, has become the default. The result? Strategic incoherence, wasted billions, and millions of people thrown unnecessarily out of work
The Commons