My Approach

I've always been drawn to understand and manage systems and tech. Structure intrigues me - the big picture and the fine detail. I love figuring out how things fit together, and how to get them working. I'm a lawyer by training and trade, so I'm compliance-minded and fairly risk-averse. And finally, I'm a natural sceptic and an optimistic realist.

I do get excited by big visions, but I never want to gloss over the reality of achieving them. If you want to throw the show in the barn, I'll be the one wondering about mains electricity and toilets.

I want you to enjoy working with me. That's one reason I offer a free Clarity Call - to give you a chance to meet me and see how well we click.

Along the years I've gathered a set of principles for working with tech. I've also got some theories about mindset. None of these are set in stone, but if they resonate with you then we'll probably work well together.

Guiding principles

You’re the CEO, so you make the decisions and need sufficient knowledge and information to make good ones. You cannot outsource understanding.
Anticipate obstacles. Things rarely work exactly as expected. Thinking ‘this should be simple’ is a failure of thinking.
A system which depends on a human never making a mistake or forgetting to do something is a system which will fail. A system which depends on a piece of tech never falling over will also fail, but less frequently. Therefore: expect failure and build for it.
Complexity is easy. Systems naturally grow in complexity. Simplicity is harder.
Know what risks you’re taking and take them consciously, according to your appetite.
Minimise cognitive load by reducing distractions. I use plain colours for Google themes, plain backgrounds for Trello boards, and I never save to my desktop. Find out what works for you.
Distinguish reality from stories about reality, especially stories about how reality ‘should’ be (see above). It’s fine to live in reality. If your brain can only handle 45 minutes of work today then nail those 45 minutes and go rest.
Minimise platform proliferation. Use the tools you need but don't duplicate functions. Platforms are like children - they need care and attention and don't always play nicely with each other.
Try to avoid ecosystem clashes. Microsoft and Google are something of a Godzilla and King Kong. Great individually but questionable when together on screen.
Recruit team members mindfully and systematically. The wrong people will at best make running your business harder and at worst cause chaos and destroy your mental health. This is not an exaggeration.
Long, complex, unique, personal passwords for every platform. And use a password manager. Not your browser, not a Google doc and not a formula combining your favourite holiday destination and dates from history.
It’s waaay easier to keep things tidy than to tidy up.
Use the same naming convention for files. Everywhere. Year-month-day will sort chronologically. Day-month-year will prove unhelpful after the first month.
Tools which are used every day need to feel welcoming. If a platform feels clunky and counter-intuitive (after the initial learning curve) then it’s perfectly OK to reject it just for that reason.
Learning something new always feels like free-fall at the start.
Tech-anxiety is real, but the looping thoughts are lies. ‘I’ll never get this’, ‘I’m hopeless with tech’, ‘I can’t do this’ are all fears, not facts. I get them too, when I’m doing something way out of my comfort zone.
Sometimes we've only got a tiny bean of willingness to do a task. Notice this and plant it wisely. Don't use it up on non-priority tasks (although if the bean is really teeny tiny then accept that may be all that's available to do).
Colour-coding is useful and also fun.