by Mark Harling | Jul 11, 2025 | Blog
Rethinking vision implementation through culture, not just process In over two decades of transformation work, one pattern keeps repeating: an organisation spends significant time and energy crafting an ambitious vision, only to see it slowly evaporate. Initial...
by Mark Harling | Jul 9, 2025 | Blog
Many organisations struggle with problems that just won’t shift, despite clear plans, skilled teams, and good intentions. A transformation that looked great on paper goes nowhere. A process improvement initiative sparks passive resistance. A strategy is communicated...
by Mark Harling | Jul 7, 2025 | Blog
It’s a situation I often see when working with leadership teams inside well-intentioned organisations. They’ve recruited skilled professionals who are collaborative and well-aligned. But when it comes to solving complex problems or adapting to change, the organisation...
by Mark Harling | Jul 4, 2025 | Blog
The Case of the Unfriendly Slug: Why Your Organisational Map Might Be Holding You Back (And What to Do About It) In my last two posts, I shared how organisational transformation often fails because leaders are navigating with outdated, incomplete, or misleading maps,...
by Mark Harling | Jul 1, 2025 | Blog, UK
“Strategy” and “Alignment” sound like consultant-speak. But they’re not. They’re just names for very practical things. Strategy is simply thinking long-term about what you want to achieve, with a plan to get there. It’s not a daydream. It’s a destination with a...
by Mark Harling | Jul 1, 2025 | Blog
Change is hard, especially in organisations where culture, processes, and human dynamics collide. Over the years, I’ve guided companies through transformations, and one truth stands out: you can’t manage what you don’t understand. Here’s a quick overview of what I’ve...
by Mark Harling | Jun 30, 2025 | Blog
Do you ever feel like your organisation is constantly stuck on a hamster wheel of false choices? Centralised vs. Decentralised? Innovation vs. Stability? Short-term results vs. Long-term vision? People vs. Profit? We treat these as problems to solve by picking one...
by Mark Harling | Jun 23, 2025 | Blog
Over the past few months, I had the privilege of supporting a visionary tech company during a critical leadership transition. Unlike many organisations focused on replacing cogs, they recognised that filling a role was not about finding an identical spare part – it...
by Mark Harling | Jun 11, 2025 | Blog
How can we encourage our operational leaders to think more strategically? This question has been on my mind recently, particularly after reading some new research on the subject. One notable finding is that: 97% of senior executives rate strategic thinking as the most...
by Mark Harling | May 9, 2025 | Blog
This year at the CREA Conference, I had the privilege of sharing a meal with Guy Aznar. For those unfamiliar, Guy is a pioneer in applied creativity—a French psychologist who founded Synapse in 1966, the first French organization dedicated to creative thinking. He...
