Less consulting please. Better advice thank you.

"I don't know where I'm going from here, but I promise I won't bore you."

I've always liked that Bowie quote. Mostly, because for about the half the time I don't really know what I'm doing. What I do know is that when I don't have all the answers, and I'm figuring it out as I go, is usually when I'm at my happiest.

Uncertainty to me is fun. It's kinda why I can't really be a 'proper' consultant. In a big consulting firm, I find more time is devoted stripping the uncertainty out of things, prioritising planning and control over exploration and imagination.

I believe that is causing huge problems for people who have the opportunity to do amazing things with big institutions. Rather than being able to play and explore, they're having to rationalise, look to 'best practice' and play it safe. Even the consultants are feeling stressed about it, as their people have become resources not experts.

We can get away with that for a bit. Problem is we've sorta got away with it for too long. I'm seeing too many clients suffering from mediocre consulting, analysis paralysis and leadership by PowerPoint. When some are going to ChatGPT with their biggest questions, the system has failed them.

I'm seeing leaders drowning in 'work', often not having the time to look for new ideas or a different perspective. I've heard others say they're scared to ask consultants new questions as instead of an opinion or quick advice, they're more likely to get a proposal with a project plan attached.

• Close to 75% of managers feel burned out at the end of each day.
• Just 40% of managers see their executives as high quality leaders.
• Only 12% of CEOs believe they have a strong bench to fill leadership roles.

So after a decade and a bit of being a consultant, I feel I need to do something better to help solve big challenges. And weirdly, I've already been doing a bit of it almost by accident by building advice playlists.

A few years back I started doing these at the front end of innovation and strategy projects where we bring in 10ish interesting people around a topic, and record conversations with them that can be edited into private podcasts.

We did it around the likes of pensions, banking, transportation and even whisky.

What we got were diverse voices sharing brilliant stories that just could not be found on the internet. Better still, they were tailored for the audience and captured in a format that could be shared with colleagues, bosses, teams, new recruits and even board members.

By accessing, capturing and sharing advice in new ways we can make decisions that were previously a lot more challenging. We can also make a lot fewer PPT slides!

Decisions happen faster. Leaders can feel more confident. Talent can feel more engaged. Advisors can feel a lot more involved.

So I'm doing something new. Turning that new way of working into a product that I hope can help thousands of leaders work different, make bigger decisions and feel happier.

So yeah, I'm not quite sure where it's going to go from here. But I promise you we won't let it be boring.

More details to come. If you're eager. Read here: www.labelsessions.com