Welcome to the first edition of my weekly newsletter. This week we've explored some fascinating territory around balancing innovation with operational excellence, the evolving role of human judgment in AI-powered recruitment, and the strategic power of authentic leadership vulnerability.
Whether you're navigating the tension between stability and change, rethinking your hiring practices, or building more authentic team cultures, this week's content offers practical frameworks you can start implementing straight away.
Let's dive into what we covered:
This Week's Articles
Published Friday, 13 June
Every leader faces the impossible choice: innovate or die, but don't let anything break while you're doing it. This piece dismantles the false choice between innovation and operational excellence, introducing a dual-track leadership approach and practical frameworks like the 70-20-10 allocation model to help you build innovation capability without sacrificing operational reliability.
Published Wednesday, 11 June
Your CV screening software flags someone as weak: employment gaps, no formal degree, non-traditional background. But the algorithm missed something crucial about their potential. This deep dive explores where AI recruitment tools are failing us and provides actionable frameworks for combining AI efficiency with human insight to improve both diversity and quality outcomes in your hiring process.
Published Monday, 9 June
Most leaders fear that admitting struggles will undermine their authority. But here's what 25 years of leadership experience reveals: strategic vulnerability doesn't weaken your leadership, it strengthens it. This piece explores the framework for strategic vulnerability, showing how to share growth edges whilst maintaining professional boundaries and creating environments where teams feel safe to acknowledge what they don't know.
From the Archive
Originally published 4 June
With AI dominating boardroom conversations, this piece deserves another look for its practical approach to environmental impact assessment. While headlines scream about AI's energy consumption, this article provides engineering leaders with actionable frameworks for understanding real costs, revealing that inference often dwarfs training costs and showing how location choices can double your carbon footprint.
That's this week's collection. Each piece offers frameworks and insights you can start applying immediately, whether you're refining your leadership approach, improving your hiring process, or making more sustainable technology decisions.
Have a great weekend, and I'll see you next week with more practical leadership insights.
Tom
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