Blog & articles

The skills which get people hired are rarely the skills which carry them through the next five years.

These articles look at the capabilities shaping work now: critical thinking, business acumen, professional reputation and learning alongside AI. Each piece gives you something to try with your team or in your own work this week. To understand how others experience you at work, read about Known By Name.

Skills & Development

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Why Is Taking Over an Existing Team So Hard?

13 min read

Almost nobody builds their own team. Taking over an existing one is the default condition of management. Five fair-first moves for the first 90 days, what changes with a struggling team or a harsh predecessor, and the two clocks deciding when the team becomes yours.

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Manager vs Leader: The Real Difference and Why It Became a Status Game

6 min read

Manager and leader describe two kinds of work, not two kinds of people. The distinction turned into a status game, and teams pay for it in vague expectations, soft feedback and slow decisions. The real difference, and which kind of work your team needs from you first.

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What a New Manager Needs to Build in Themselves

11 min read

The skills that earned you the promotion are not the ones the job now runs on. A four-stage guide to what a newly promoted manager needs to build in themselves, from the identity shift to the presence that gets them trusted with more.

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How to Set Up First-Time Managers for Success

12 min read

First-time managers fail in predictable ways, and the fix is structural. How to set a new manager up across the first quarter, then develop them well past it.

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What 25 Years as an L&D Buyer Taught Me About What Actually Sticks

6 min read

After 25 years buying L&D at SEEK, Westpac, Vodafone, News Ltd, PepsiCo and Caltex, Rob Yarham shares what separates programmes that stick from the ones that quietly fade.

A professional woman in a modern office looking at a glowing digital tablet. The screen reflects a simplified, smiling cartoon version of herself rather than the complex data and global news blurred in the background, symbolizing algorithmic confirmation bias and cognitive offloading.

Is Tech Killing Critical and Creative Thinking?

14 min read

Critical and creative thinking are the most in-demand skills in the workforce. They are also declining. Here is what the research says, what it looks like at work, and how to fight back.

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