Trigger Strategy is now Tentacles

105: We've rebranded... Trigger Strategy is now Tentacles by Crown & Reach

Sat, 07 Jun 2025 10:59:16 GMT

Hands up, who else loves a spot of brand-flavoured navel-gazing?

Two years ago we picked the company name Trigger Strategy Group in a last-minute scramble for our first client project. The name has, shall we say, one or two issues. (On the upside, it was a perfect example of Hard Test Easy Life: if you can make something work despite its flaws, you know you might be onto something.) But it was about time we gave things some proper thought.

How naming a company in 20 minutes can haunt you for 2 years
The surprising violence baked into “trigger strategy” (thanks, game theory)
The difference between command, control, and cephalopods
What bees, psychiatric hospitals, and chatGPT have in common

In short, our company is now called Crown & Reach, and our podcast is called Tentacles.

Why? To find out, you'll have to listen...

References:

Hard Test Easy Life https://triggerstrategy.substack.com/p/stop-polishing-turd-products-with
Innovation Tactics Pip Deck https://pipdecks.com/products/innovation-tactics
Dave Kang's Octopus Life https://davekang.substack.com/
Taylorism - Frederick Taylor’s scientific management model
Coherent Heterogeneity, a concept from complexity thinking https://cynefin.io/wiki/Common_fallacies
Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Other Minds by Peter Godfrey-Smith
Crown & Reach Website https://crownandreach.com/

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

104: Snakes in a cave, or why biases aren't bugs

Sun, 18 May 2025 15:13:15 GMT

In which we sit in the garden, roast gently in the sun, and talk about cognitive biases, Panglossian optimism, Russian roulette, snakes on planes, and why most design is... fine actually. A very one-take kind of episode. Leaf-in-coffee energy throughout.

Confirmation bias affects individuals. But if you want to harm an entire organisation, you need validation.
You can be right, they can be right, or (more likely) you’re both missing something and a third way exists.
Heuristics are usually good. It’s when you step into a new context that they betray you.
Change start with acceptance. Weirdly, that’s when things can shift.
Almost everything on our shelves is poorly designed in some way ... and yet it’s still there.

Links, Ideas, and People Referenced

Gary Klein – firefighter heuristic/pattern recognition story – more at https://youtu.be/QKpMLYwLRR4?si=8ie9txFbL__Q88gI
Daniel Kahneman – cognitive biases, focusing illusion
Nora Bateson – snake instinct, context-specific intuition
XKCD’s "10,000" Comic – https://xkcd.com/1053/
Taylor Pearson on Ergodicity – https://taylorpearson.me/ergodicity/
Prisoner's Dilemma – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma
Candide by Voltaire – Dr. Pangloss and "all for the best" satire
Gary’s Economics (YouTube) – https://www.youtube.com/@garyseconomics
Oliver Burkeman – stress, lateness, perspective
10–10–10 Rule – “Will I care in 10 minutes, 10 months, 10 years?”

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

103: Competence, control, and consequences

Sat, 10 May 2025 13:42:19 GMT

You were hired to fix it. You did! Customers are happier. The company made millions. Your reward? They shut it all down.

We sit on a garden bench and talk about those times when you feel like you're being punished for doing your job well.

It turns out you can't mostly change a narrative with data. Your choices are power, influence, or acceptance.

We share real stories, reflect on past mistakes, and explore safer (?) ways to inspire change when truth-telling gets you sidelined. Along the way: multiverse mapping, toddler psychology, and why the best performing landing pages often don't stay live.

Books & Articles:

Stealing the Corner Office by Brendan Reid
Power: Why Some People Have It—and Others Don’t by Jeffrey Pfeffer
Why Design is Hard by Scott Berkun
Why Your Org Doesn’t Want Optimization to Succeed by Andrew Anderson
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
Ramit Sethi’s framing: “If someone is succeeding doing something that looks stupid… what do they know that I don’t?”

Frameworks & Tools:

“Show the thing to change the thing” – concept from John Willshire
Wardley Mapping
Multiverse Mapping (Trigger Strategy Substack)
Play the hand you're dealt – "Don't start with what you want people to do. Start with what people want to do." – Dave Trott

Character References:

Wormtongue and Gandalf (Lord of the Rings) – models of influence

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

102: Road Signs, Rapid Prototypes, and Productive Confusion

Sat, 26 Apr 2025 19:44:34 GMT

While sipping homegrown bay leaf tea, we explore how road signs, surprises, and deliberate confusion can unlock better thinking.

From missing signs under railway bridges to the tangled journey of Google Glass, we trace how aporia — the ancient art of being productively confused — can help you build faster, align better, and see the hidden struggles that are gonna derail your projects.

Why some signs should disappear to make things flow better
How "productive confusion" can trigger better decision making
What Google Glass, magic roundabouts, and fast food kitchens have in common
How to rapid prototype a billion-dollar product... with clay and wire
The curse of "pseudolignment" and how to catch it before it wrecks your team
The Align-o-matic: an emerging tool to help you spot hidden assumptions early

Linky goodness:

Magic Roundabout (Swindon, UK): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Roundabout_(Swindon)
"A symphony of efficiency, not a waste of motion" from The Founder: https://youtu.be/F-7cjdtrQ9Y?si=3eyzPlVq71Ws-R8o
Tom Chi rapid prototyping: https://youtu.be/d5_h1VuwD6g?si=h29WjP8xvX3vxPak
Rory Sutherland on defensive decision-making: https://fs.blog/defensive-decision-making/
Zeigarnik Effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeigarnik_effect
We may have confused Zeigarnik with Ovsiankina: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ovsiankina_effect

Innovation Tactics cards we mentioned:

Language Market Fit: front | back
Solve for Distribution: front | back
Hard Test Easy Life: front | back
Time Machine: front | back

Get your copy of Innovation Tactics: https://pipdecks.com/products/innovation-tactics

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

101: What's NOT emergent?

Sun, 13 Apr 2025 07:23:53 GMT

We often talk about things being emergent in business, strategy, and life at large.

The problem is, emergence can be kind of a pain to wrap your head around. And we were wondering: what if the starting point is what's NOT emergent? Does that help clarify what IS emergent?

So we sat down in the garden and chatted it through.

We landed on the discipline of conversion rate optimisation as an example of a business area where an understanding of emergence (and its opposite, if you could call it that) is fundamental to success or failure.

Our conclusion was that it was indeed a helpful conversation, but we want to know – what do you think?

Linky goodness:

Andrew Anderson's website: https://testingdiscipline.com/
Andrew Anderson's story about Comic Sans: https://cxl.com/blog/organizational-push-back/
Dave Snowden and Cynefin: https://cynefin.io/wiki/Cynefin
Signals, Stories, Options: https://triggerstrategy.substack.com/p/signals-stories-options
Pivot Triggers: card front | back
Multiverse Mapping: card front | back
Tom's Pip Decks card deck, Innovation Tactics: https://pipdecks.com/products/innovation-tactics
Master Multiverse Mapping (online course): https://multiversemapping.com/
Episode 39 about Bounded Applicability https://shows.acast.com/triggerstrategy/episodes/663109cbcff31b0012ae9306

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

100: Done 100 Thing!

Sat, 22 Mar 2025 17:42:32 GMT

We made it to 100!

Corissa and Tom look back over the year and a bit of podcasting and talk about what they've learned, some anecdotes, and some highlight episodes from along the way. They talk about allowing something to unfold into what it's meant to be, rather than trying to force a specific framework or result.

Expect some of the usual themes: constraints, complexity, experimentation and psychology. And shout outs to Anna Brook, Louis Childs, Paul Tevis and all our lovely listeners.

Linky goodness:

Visakan Veerasamy's Do 100 Thing: https://www.visakanv.com/blog/do100things/
Venkatesh Rao's Portals and flags: https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2014/06/25/portals-and-flags/
Dave Snowden's Cynefin framework: https://cynefin.io/wiki/Cynefin
Henrik Karlsson's Unfolding: https://www.henrikkarlsson.xyz/p/unfolding
Tom in JP Castlin's Strategy in Praxis: https://strategyinpraxis.substack.com/p/triggers-and-pivots

Episodes mentioned:

006: OKRs, moon landings and oil fires: https://shows.acast.com/triggerstrategy/episodes/663109cbcff31b0012ae9327

018: a blustery annotated reading - A/B testing ain’t for settling your disagreements: https://shows.acast.com/triggerstrategy/episodes/663109cbcff31b0012ae931b

019: North Star Metrics and Framework - are they “dumb”?: https://shows.acast.com/triggerstrategy/episodes/663109cbcff31b0012ae931a

032: How Capable Leaders Navigate Uncertainty and Ambiguity - an annotated reading - Part 1: https://shows.acast.com/triggerstrategy/episodes/663109cbcff31b0012ae930d

039: Bounded Applicability: https://shows.acast.com/triggerstrategy/episodes/663109cbcff31b0012ae9306

040: Why isn’t [Role] doing what I think they should?: https://shows.acast.com/triggerstrategy/episodes/663109cbcff31b0012ae9305

043: Do 100 Thing: https://shows.acast.com/triggerstrategy/episodes/043-do-100-thing

044: The one with the bees: https://shows.acast.com/triggerstrategy/episodes/044-the-one-with-the-bees

053: Smell the roses: https://shows.acast.com/triggerstrategy/episodes/053-smell-the-roses

058: Reflections from UX London: https://shows.acast.com/triggerstrategy/episodes/058-reflections-from-ux-london

060: Chesterton's vestigial doorman: https://shows.acast.com/triggerstrategy/episodes/060-chestertons-vestigial-doorman

061: Tumbling into the Vision Chasm: https://shows.acast.com/triggerstrategy/episodes/061-tumbling-into-the-vision-chasm

069: The alignment problem (not the AI alignment problem): https://shows.acast.com/triggerstrategy/episodes/069-the-alignment-problem-not-the-ai-alignment-problem

070: Lobster dinner with a toddler: https://shows.acast.com/triggerstrategy/episodes/070-lobster-dinner-with-a-toddler

081: Alignment alignment alignment: https://shows.acast.com/triggerstrategy/episodes/081-alignment-alignment-alignment

086: How big things get done (part 1): https://shows.acast.com/triggerstrategy/episodes/086-how-big-things-get-done-part-1

090: Should changing your mind mean changing your past work?: https://shows.acast.com/triggerstrategy/episodes/090-should-changing-your-mind-mean-changing-your-past-work

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

099: Setting stable signals in a chaotic context

Sat, 08 Mar 2025 13:52:30 GMT

We talk about signals. Specifically, how can you settle on success signals when your wider context is always changing?

We talk about a small example: setting Pivot Triggers for our Multiverse Mapping course, while our context is always changing in terms of overall cashflow. When the runway is tight, we wish the course would hurry up and sell more, but how do we avoid over-reacting or putting all our eggs in one basket?

We map that onto what happens in organisations when they need a new value stream to spool up quickly, how they can set unrealistic expectations, and how you can use something like Multiverse Mapping to figure out what's reasonable, and something like Pivot Triggers to help avoid sunk cost bias without having to be "the negative one".

Linky goodness:

J P Castlin's Strategy in Praxis
Gary's Economics – interview with Krishnan Guru Murthy
Intro to Multiverse Mapping
Master Multiverse Mapping
Notes on Chasm Crossing – a "better" version of the S-curve, because it shows the dip you'll feel in the early part of the curve
Signals > Stories > Options
Episode 095: Enshittification

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

098: Product Market Procrastination

Mon, 03 Mar 2025 15:02:35 GMT

With one exercise, we can't predict whether your startup will succeed, but we can reliably predict if you're going to fail through procrastination.

In this episode, we talk about mental blindspots. Corissa and Tom rib each other about their own mental blindspots. And we discuss how to pronounce the word "satiety".

"It's more comfortable to fail when it's something you yourself have caused than when you fail at the hands of something that's outside your control." – Corissa

“Hmm, I dunno, do you have any solutions that involve me doing everything 100% exactly like I'm doing it right now, and getting better outcomes?” – from Experimental History's So you wanna de-bog yourself.

Can you detect any of these mental blindspots in yourself?

Linky Goodness:

Finish Your Projects - great, if winding article that inspired this episode
So you wanna de-bog yourself - awesome article
Time Machine exercise Front | Back
Snyder's Law neatly encapsulates one way founders procrastinate
Episode 077: Do you have to spend years in the pain cave?
Can you stop the pendulum swinging? – where both ends of the pendulum swing encourage procrastination because they give you the illusion (or fact) of control and are comfortable to an MBA-worldview
Belief Whack-a-mole from David McRaney is in either You Are Not So Smart or How Minds Change ... anyone know for sure?
Load bearing copes from Visakan Veerasamy

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

097: Can you persuade a non-unfolder to try unfolding?

Sun, 23 Feb 2025 12:50:49 GMT

A lovely, meandering conversation about the nature of success, the binds we often put ourselves in and more.

Along the way, we touch on maverick musicians, maddening constraints, and McDonald's coffee.

Linky Goodness:

Henrik Karlsson's note: https://substack.com/@henrikkarlsson/note/c-95418840
My note on his note: https://substack.com/profile/2368401-tom-kerwin/note/c-95543621
Paul Millerd's Pathless Path: https://newsletter.pathlesspath.com
Notes on an introduction to Christopher Alexander: https://www.edovanroyen.com/p/notes-of-ryan-singers-introduction-to-christopher-alexander

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

096: Estuarine vs Multiverse Mapping

Tue, 11 Feb 2025 14:29:50 GMT

In this one, we answer a question:

"I recently attended your Intro to Multiverse Mapping event and really enjoyed it. I'm also looking into Dave Snowden's Estuarine Mapping and noticed on your website that you facilitate that as well! What's the difference between Multiverse and Estuarine Mapping?"

Linky goodness:

Estuarine Mapping resources
Master Multiverse Mapping
Bent Flyvbjerg's How Big Things Get Done in episode 86 and episode 87

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

095: Enshittification

Tue, 04 Feb 2025 10:08:00 GMT

Corissa and Tom talk through some examples of enshittification and the opportunities hidden within!

Linky Goodness

Cory Doctorow and Enshittification
Adam Mastroianni and Experimental History – and the article we were referencing a lot
The pile of sand and the edge of chaos
Douglas Squirrel's Three Laws of AI
Hiut Denim – Do One Thing Well
Ben Mosior's Learn Wardley Mapping
Innovation Tactics card deck

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

094: Honest Prioritisation Matrix

Wed, 29 Jan 2025 15:56:36 GMT

We discuss the Honest Prioritisation Matrix

For some reason, the podcast description space here doesn't like images, so you can see it in this article about OKRs: https://triggerstrategy.substack.com/p/okrs-sound-good-but-they-dont-work

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

093: On being intentionally confused

Thu, 23 Jan 2025 10:11:14 GMT

“How wonderful that we have met with a paradox. Now we have some hope of making progress” – Niels Bohr

In this episode, we answer a question from friend of the pod, Brian: "Have you discussed that bit about being intentionally confused before? I am intrigued."

We talk about why you might want to trigger intentional confusion (aporia) and what the risks can be.

And we talk about how to trigger intentional confusion by zooming in or out – to get more specific or more abstract. And also by collectively making predictions to generate error signals that we can't ignore.

Linky Goodness

Episode 088: Complex isn't the same as complicated
Master Multiverse Mapping
Specificity and the power to judge startup ideas - Liron Shapira
Three Future Frames by John V Willshire of Smithery

“Always design a thing by considering it in its next larger context – a chair in a room, a room in a house, a house in an environment, an environment in a city plan.” ― Eliel Saarinen

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

092: Twenty Twenty (Meta) Four

Sun, 05 Jan 2025 20:21:14 GMT

Brief notes today. This is kind of a wrap up of 2024 but not like others.

TL;DR: a garden decking disaster becomes a meaningful framing for rearchitecting our business.

What metaphor can you use to reframe your 2024?

Linky Goodness

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

091: Antifragile Prioritisation

Thu, 26 Dec 2024 13:23:42 GMT

A lot of tech companies have bought into the idea of Build > Measure > Learn.

But the "Build" bit always takes longer than anyone's anticipating, so the "Measure" and the "Learn" get squeezed out.

Even though many of the people working in that system aren't happy that they're building crap and would love to be measuring and learning.

In this episode, we talk about using Multiverse Mapping to help you prioritise your work so you benefit from uncertainty instead of being blown up by it.

With real world examples, references to angry Lebanese people, a detour through performance management and another celebrity monster,

We get back to Antifragile Prioritisation at 23:10.

At the beginning of any project, we know the least we'll ever know about this project. So we should assume that we're going to learn important things as we do the project. But you can't just wait until you know the answers, because you'll only learn them through doing the project.

Expirere: you need either experience or experimentation.

In brief: create a model for how you're going to succeed, break that down into a level of granularity where you can identify critical behaviours, identify where you're facing the most uncertainty, then probe there first. Sounds trickier than it is – if you use Multiverse Mapping it's quite simple.

Uncertainty is not the same as risk – uncertainty is generative, so you'll often get new, exciting ideas by running into the uncertainty. AND you'll also reduce your risk.

And then we kinda debate around how much of the process of Multiverse Mapping can be explicit vs implicit. You do need to create a record for accountability, but don't make the mistake of trying to write down everything. Like all processes that support emergence: it's not that everything will just happen by itself, it's that you make something explicit and you get a happy side effect of updating lots of your tacit (shared) understanding.

And we talk about using your Multiverse Map to set Pivot Triggers, which enable you to talk more strategically with stakeholders.

And so you won't be doing Build > Measure > Learn – you'll be doing all three at the same time.

Finally, we talk about using Multiverse Maps at a higher level of granularity to help you decide between different strategies.

Linky Goodness

Master Mutliverse Mapping: https://triggerstrategy.com/multiverse-mapping
Satirical Skin in the Game review: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/feb/25/skin-in-the-game-by-nassim-nicholas-taleb-digested-read
One of Luca Dellanna's introductions to antifragility: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MS1CqSfxF4o
Estimating Complexity by Liz Keogh: https://lizkeogh.com/2013/07/21/estimating-complexity/
Vaughn Tan's Generative Uncertainty: https://vaughntan.org/generative-uncertainty

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

090: Should changing your mind mean changing your past work?

Fri, 20 Dec 2024 13:08:32 GMT

If you're someone who puts ideas out into the world, how do you manage the fact that you change your mind over time? What if someone comes across an article or podcast you no longer agree with and takes the wrong idea from it?

Should you maintain a living knowledge base or leave a trail of past articles like breadcrumbs in the forest?

Does the burden of assessing information fall on the author or the reader?

And what if the problem is that your material references someone who now you realise is not great?

We think through all this and come to a tentative conclusion, for the moment at least.

Linky goodness:

Annotated reading of A/B tests are not for settling your disagreements (podcast)
Demolish your Creative Block with Graham Linehan and the Power of the SFD (article)
Innovation Tactics (Tom's card deck)
When your hero is a monster (YouTube video)

Gaiman's Law:

“Remember: when people tell you something's wrong or doesn't work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.” – Neil Gaiman

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

089: The dance of feedback

Fri, 13 Dec 2024 11:38:35 GMT

"Every student is looking for a great teacher. What a lot of students don't realise is that every teacher is looking for a great student." – Ron Leslie

We're talking here about a dance workshop Corissa attended. But really this is about how to seek out and handle feedback in all kinds of situations.

How do you evaluate whether feedback is helpful or not?
How do you handle feedback or advice that's not constructive?
What do you do with people who throw their opinions around confidently even though they're wrong?
Challenges in evaluating your own level of experience or skill
When you ask for feedback, do you really want to learn – or do you secretly want to be validated?
Two ways to receive feedback badly
Choosing a team based on their ability to take feedback on board
An example of a teacher deliberately showing a class that they don't know as much as they thought
Feedback is taken differently by professionals vs hobbyists
Putting yourself out of your depth to trigger your lazy brain to want to put the effort in to learn
Some teachers/bosses are trying to challenge you; others are abusive
Some options to try if you want to challenge yourself more

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

088: Complex isn't the same as complicated

Fri, 06 Dec 2024 10:08:33 GMT

"We often give building a house as an example of something in the complicated sphere. But then we talked in recent episodes about the nightmare build of the Sydney Opera House – that was complex, but people were treating it like it was complicated. What's the difference? What makes one complicated and one complex? Is it a sliding scale from one to the other? How do you know which realm you're in?"

This broad question comes up a lot when people encounter complexity.

Hello again, Cynefin
The phase shift from complicated to complex
You're not "in" any domain: instead, you decompose a project or situation into smaller chunks, distribute those chunks into domains, and then you can use applicable methods
Then your job is to move those chunks from one domain to another – like constraining something complex and unpredictable so you can make it more predictable for you
Estimating Complexity by Liz Keogh: have you done this before?
Light switches vs electricity substations vs energy markets vs power failures.
Fun with etymology
"An aeroplane is complicated; a mayonnaise is complex"
The role of connectedness
Global warming and a social ice age
Many folks are intuitively good at handling complexity without knowing all the words and that's OK
Processes and procedures to make things less unpredictable ... until they stop working
Methods to achieve the liminal complex to complicated phase shift
A Simon Wardley example of waste in an organisation
The surface layer of a thing is not necessarily everything that thing does
Boeing and the slip over the cliff from Clear to Chaos
Chesterton's aeroplane seat
Seeds vs Soil
The liminal complicated zone where experts disagree and people have Opinions.
If there's disagreement about an element of a project, decompose it until the disagreement goes away
Is there always a level of decomposition where you stop disagreeing?
Football example ...
Jefferson Fisher's courtroom example ...
The move into Aporia and the EU Field Guide for Managing Complexity

Linky Goodness

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

087: How big things get done (part 2)

Tue, 03 Dec 2024 10:08:53 GMT

More thoughts from How Big Things Get Done while on the way to brunch.

(You'll need to have listened to part 1 for some of the references in here.)

The fight between data and stories
Jimi Hendrix's Electric Lady recording studio
Sounds obvious that you should think slow act fast, but most projects don't go like that
The political utility of sunk cost bias
Tom dramatically underestimated how long it would take to make his Innovation Tactics Pip Deck
Robert Caro dramatically underestimated how long it would take to write The Power Broker
Internal forecasting vs Reference Class Forecasting, and the problem of uniqueness bias
Forecasting and iterating a solo jazz dance workshop ... based on Ashtanga yoga
Master Multiverse Mapping and fighting the Inherent Bigness of Ideas by asking, "how could we deliver the value to one person, right now?"
Forecasting example: how long will kitchen remodelling take?

Linky Goodness

How Big Things Get Done by Bent Flyvbjerg: https://sites.prh.com/how-big-things-get-done-book
Innovation Tactics by Tom Kerwin: https://pipdecks.com/products/innovation-tactics
The Power Broker by Robert Caro: https://www.robertcaro.org/the-power-broker
Lindy Hop classes – https://swingshiftlindyhop.com/
Master Multiverse Mapping Course: https://triggerstrategy.com/multiverse-mapping
The Inherent Bigness of Ideas: https://shows.acast.com/triggerstrategy/episodes/065-the-inherent-bigness-of-ideas
Trigger Strategy Group: https://triggerstrategy.com

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

086: How big things get done (part 1)

Sun, 01 Dec 2024 12:11:59 GMT

Tom finally read this book about mega projects and was surprised to find how relevant it was to the kind of work we do.

Including:

stories of the Bilbao Guggenheim vs Sydney Opera House
a reference to Bernard's Watch
contrasting processes for "think slow build fast"
Pixar Planning
Snowflake Method and Unfolding
Links with Multiverse Mapping

Linky goodness

How Big Things Get Done by Bent Flyvbjerg: https://sites.prh.com/how-big-things-get-done-book
Master Multiverse Mapping Course: https://triggerstrategy.com/multiverse-mapping

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

085: High on agency?

Tue, 19 Nov 2024 10:08:58 GMT

“grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” – the Serenity Prayer

The concept of “High Agency” burst into the online leadership conversation in recent years. And it sounds good, doesn’t it? Who wouldn’t want to be high agency? Who wouldn’t want to have high agency employees?

As with many such “obviously good” concepts, turns out it’s not that simple.

In this episode, Corissa and Tom also look at the other side of hopes for high agency.

We talk about how some leaders might wish for high agency employees, but would balk at what a very high agency employee would do in reality.

And we talk about what you need to know if you’re an employee being expected to demonstrate more agency.

And we signpost a whole load of lovely rabbit holes to go explore.

“imagine that I could sell you a magic pill and you could give it to two of your employees and overnight they would suddenly become high agency. What would be the first thing you’d notice was different when you went into work the next day?”

Linky Goodness

Mushfiqa Monica Jalamuddin - the Estuarine coach you’re looking for
Estuarine Mapping
Multiverse Mapping (free course)
Venkatesh Rao’s Gervais Principle
Jeffrey Pfeffer’s Leadership BS
Brendan Reid’s Stealing the Corner Office
Luca Dellanna’s 100 Truths You Will Learn Too Late

Timecodes to help you navigate

00:00 Introduction

00:28 What is High Agency?

01:10 The Serenity Prayer

02:00 Estuarine Mapping is the Serenity Prayer in map form

03:45 High agency as a positive trait … & its permeation into leadership mythology

04:06 “Sound like a challenger, but be an obedient drone”

06:20 Perhaps it’s about not waiting for permission, while also not doing silly things

08:09 Tools to create higher agency if you want that – including Multiverse Mapping

13:01 What if the traits we want in leaders are not the traits that get you promoted?

17:31 A magic question for you to use

18:34 What would have to be true for that stupid thing to make a lot of sense?

19:42 “You can choose the game you play, but not its rules”

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

084: Isn't the SenseMaker collector negatively biased tho?

Wed, 13 Nov 2024 16:46:33 GMT

Surveys are almost always biased in several ways, notably both the way questions are asked but also sample bias: who in the population even answers surveys?

In this episode we discuss: is the SenseMaker collector we shared biased just the same as any other survey? And if so, is that a problem? And if so, what can we do about it?

Plus stories about skullduggery in presenting data, hiding gorillas in radiologist scans and the "magic" or standard questions:

What's similar, different and surprising?
What, so what, now what?

Linky goodness:

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

083: Unfolding ideas over ideating features

Tue, 05 Nov 2024 15:32:13 GMT

It's a rain-soaked chat this time as Tom and Corissa wander through Bournemouth in a downpour.

We tackle a thought-provoking LinkedIn question from WP Engine's Jason Cohen – a question about how to listen to customers when they ask for features.

00:29 LinkedIn inspiration and the big question we're tackling today

02:28 Customer feedback creates an apparent puzzle

03:40 Mistakes we've made by asking people what they want

05:14 Secret 1: what do people already do?

07:37 Secret 2: imagine your company is a big metal box

10:50 You're always limited by your own internal perspective, and that's OK

16:51 Secret 3: there's no such thing as a feature

19:48 The story in your customer's head is different from the story in your head

20:18 Don't make things look simpler than they are

20:48 "Feature" is just a label to make your own life easier

21:41 Secret 4: build as little software as possible to enable the most behaviours that create value

23:32 When customers are reduced to a metric

24:18 Why an Impact/Effort Matrix to decide on features will fool you

27:32 Real-world example: a Calendly integration project

33:33 Unfolding ideas by soaking in rich customer context

36:25 SenseMaker for generating insights in a very different way

38:30 When you try to make too much explicit, you get in trouble

Jason's original post

"Ask a customer if they’ll use a feature…

They say “yes” but don’t use it.

Ask them to name a feature they actually want and there’s the “faster horse” problem of incremental improvement instead of vision.

What’s the answer? Just “gut feel” and sometimes you’re right?"

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

082: 2D Comparison

Tue, 29 Oct 2024 16:17:56 GMT

Jamie asked: "anyone got good exercises for evolving your brand (and in particular visual identity) in-house? Did I remember you (Tom & Corissa) mentioning an exercise like clustering examples into "we want to be more like this" vs "we want to be less like that"?"

So we wanted to give the exercise we designed its own special episode.

Time and again, we saw projects get in a pickle when people tried to choose adjectives to define things like brand qualities, tone of voice, product principles or corporate values.

This kind of ambiguous, subjective stuff is impossible to define perfectly with words, especially upfront.

You could choose to work with a grizzled expert who can read between the lines of what you're saying to intuit what you really want.

But if you're on a shoestring and want to figure out this kind of thing with your team, then the exercise we share in this episode is for you.

Here's simplified instructions on a card: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/2rjpbrj1vqklcfc8glgw8/Sense-2D-Comparison-Back.png?rlkey=71v3muppoho2pnac2v9b9luim&dl=0

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

081: Alignment alignment alignment

Wed, 16 Oct 2024 11:20:10 GMT

We talk about alignment. Especially, we talk about relaxing our beef with the word alignment, and embracing the reasonable desire for alignment.

00:00 Welcome!

00:28 Alignment in companies

00:49 Challenges and misconceptions about alignment

04:07 Coherence vs. alignment; JP Castlin's ABCDE framework, and one line in the sand vs two lines in the sand

08:27 A real-world example of a misaligned project

10:38 Strategies for effective alignment, including "via negativa" alignment

12:52 Aligning teams with reality as well as intent

13:25 The role of the "strategy whisperer"

13:47 Empowering teams to find alignment

13:58 Back briefing for effective communication

16:13 Understanding the need for leadership governance vs the needs of teams

17:30 Challenges with leadership expectations

19:49 Navigating company growth realities

20:37 Dropping our beef with alignment and going vegetarian

23:34 Are you clearly a berry? Clear communication taps the forager's gathering instinct

24:41 Exploring alignment beyond the team

25:42 Final thoughts

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

080: What the heck's goin' on in tech?

Tue, 08 Oct 2024 16:59:39 GMT

The world of digital/tech is going through "a moment" just now at the end of 2024.

And we've launched a project to share and explore diverse perspectives from across the tech world, using a particular tool and methodology called SenseMaker. The goal is to showcase the diverse range of perspectives and stories of the moment in a way that's normally impossible.

Some topics:

Why is Tom so excited about SenseMaker?
Who sees the gorilla?
Contrasting Likert scales versus triads and dyads
How standard "feedback surveys" are ruined by averaging and dominated by recency bias and the Halo Effect.
Cynicism about the annual 360 feedback game
What if feedback could be descriptive instead of evaluative? And real-time instead of averaged over 6 months?
Beef with the "product trio" concept
A few nuggets we've picked up in the early data.
Our plans for open sense-making workshops
Patterns of care and rule-following in healthcare
Vector change using "more stories like these, fewer like those"

Want to see the responses we've collected?

Take 10 minutes to share your experience, and you'll be able to opt in to access all the responses at the end.

👉 https://bit.ly/stories-from-tech

Thank you for contributing ❤️

Linky goodness:

How to use a new generation data collection and analysis tool? https://thecynefin.co/how-to-use-data-collection-analysis-tool/

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

079: Speculative use cases

Fri, 04 Oct 2024 15:56:11 GMT

We talk about a question posed in Innovation Tactics Slack - about a stakeholder who’s skeptical that design research can help with genuine innovation, and wants to create speculative use cases instead.

Topics we touch on:

Are speculative use cases a "thing"? Is it helpful to imagine people doing something that's just not happening today? Like, 500 years ago, nobody got their shoelace trapped in an escalator. In 2003, nobody was planning out how they'd price their product on the App Store.
Is it reasonable to be skeptical about design research?
What do you do when you're working with someone who's already decided what they want and isn't interested in evidence?
Radical repurposing as an alternative – follow the pathfinders
Snowmobiling as a possible approach – remix the adjacent possible
Jamming with your stakeholder to understand and clarify (with the side effect that you might expose gaps or incoherence)
Bias in research

Some quotes:

"Getting a shoelace trapped in an escalator - that's not a thing that happened 500 years ago."

"Just doing something because you think it's cool is totally valid as a way of operating a business"

"Everyone who has a brilliant idea thinks that their idea is the next big thing. And everyone but one in a million is wrong about that. And even the one in a million tends to be wrong about exactly how it's going to work."

"Play Doh was invented, not as a toy for kids, but as a putty for removing coal soot from walls. It was repurposed into the kids' toy after people stopped having coal fires"

"You're very unlikely to invent something novel that works. You're very likely to find somebody doing something novel that you can scale."

"You can absolutely go and do the best interviewing in the world and not come back with anything that's going to be a breakthrough innovation for your company. It may be that your company is not positioned to make a breakthrough innovation."

"this is the trap that so many people fall into and I've heard it more times than I can count. It's that need to educate the market. Do not, do not try, red flag, back away slowly or run, run speedily off into the distance."

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

078: Criticisms of selling before building

Tue, 01 Oct 2024 15:52:30 GMT

In the last episode, we introduced Rob Snyder's framing of finding your repeatable case study instead of building your tech product.

This time, we step back into the Pain Cave to talk through some of the criticisms that Rob (and we) often face when we suggest the approach we do.

We think they're misunderstandings of what we're advocating, but they're also sound points.

First, we consider the scolding that we should follow a proper research and design process and build the right thing at high quality from day one, not throw spaghetti at the wall. Sometimes this is true, but sometimes it's just not possible.

Second, we face the fear of selling "vapourware" – nobody wants to follow in Elizabeth Holmes' footsteps, promising stuff that can't be realised (Theranos). Absolutely right! But that's not at all what we're recommending.

And all this brings us to the concept of Bounded Applicability. No ideas are suitable for all projects, products, etc. So how can you think about what's appropriate in a given situation?

Linky goodness:

Bounded Applicability: https://shows.acast.com/triggerstrategy/episodes/663109cbcff31b0012ae9306
My diagram showing some methods' Bounded Applicability: https://www.notion.so/Pitch-Provocations-54ad05d5740e451db0fa82479debeb91
Previous episode about Rob Snyder: https://shows.acast.com/triggerstrategy/episodes/077-do-you-have-to-spend-years-in-the-pain-cave

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

077: Do you have to spend years in the Pain Cave?

Fri, 27 Sep 2024 09:08:45 GMT

Welcome to listeners who've been referred by Rob Snyder of Path to Product Market Fit!

In this episode, we talk about Rob Snyder's core ideas for founders and consider the interplay with our thinking. As ever, you'll hear some stories from our pasts, some methods to try, and some background noises from blustery Bournemouth.

Why no, you can't break down your idea into a set of clean hypotheses to "validate"
Why you want to ship a case study instead of shipping code
Can you bypass the Pain Cave if you have a Time Machine?
How to spot founders who are going to drag you deep into the Pain Cave
How to use Pivot Triggers to scaffold doing the case study approach instead of writing all the code
Introducing "unfolding" as a way to design buildings, businesses, even lives
How to save face while taking the risk of looking silly (won't you get cast out from polite society?)
Is the optimisation game dying?
A puzzle: what do you do when you care about building a business you'll love working in more than you care about just building a business?
Do we need to go deeper into the Pain Cave?

Linky goodness:

Rob Snyder's Path to Product Market Fit
Innovation Tactics: https://bit.ly/innovation-10
Solve for Distribution: Front | Back
Time Machine: Front | Back
A great article that references Christopher Alexander's Unfolding

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

076: Surviving survivorship bias

Wed, 25 Sep 2024 16:49:50 GMT

Survivorship bias is unavoidable. By default, we see what survives and not what doesn't. This is OK but it creates the risk that we take the wrong lessons from the survivors.

In this episode, we talk about how we might mitigate the downsides of survivorship bias. We touch on a bunch of topics:

rejecting simplistic Sinekisms
theory-informed praxis, rather than copy-pasting patterns across contexts
challenges to Estuarine Mapping
zero-sum games
bounded applicabilty – asking when something doesn't apply, or who shouldn't use a thing
Double Diamonds
Shiny Frameworks
Portfolio of small bets in parallel – as a way to optimise for survival
And an invitation to you: what are we missing? How do you handle survivorship bias?

Linky Goodness

Bounded Applicability: https://shows.acast.com/triggerstrategy/episodes/663109cbcff31b0012ae9306

Trigger Strategy website: https://triggerstrategy.com/

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

075: Effectual thinking vs causal thinking

Fri, 20 Sep 2024 16:20:38 GMT

We recorded this one on a whim and we didn't have our microphone with a little hat on it, so the wind noise makes a guest appearance. Apologies – return to quality sound soon.

Corissa grabbed a snippet from an article:

Over at one of my favourite blogs, Common Cog, Cedric Chin writes that there is a style of thinking that is reliably exhibited by successful entrepreneurs. It is called effectual thinking, and it's the type of improvisatory, reality based thinking that follows the question, what effects can be produced with the spread of resources in front of me? He contrasts this with causal thinking, which is the opposite pattern, looking towards an ideal outcome and then trying to work backwards to derive the actions required to eventually bring about that future.

And this inspired us to talk through effectual thinking. We go on a blustery journey through chefs in high-end experimental kitchens, John Boyd's Snowmobiling, Mr Beast, Steve Jobs, Estuarine Framework and Small Bets.

The big question: can effectual thinking give you a happier, healthier way to operate, or is it just the case that, as Andrew Wilkinson put it, "most highly successful people are “just a walking anxiety disorder, harnessed for productivity”?

Linky goodness:

Sasha Chapin's article: https://sashachapin.substack.com/p/our-perfume-line-is-here

Cedric Chin's Common Cog: https://commoncog.com/when-action-beats-prediction/

Vaughn Tan's Uncertainty Mindset: https://uncertaintymindset.org/

Snowmobiling podcast episode: https://shows.acast.com/triggerstrategy/episodes/072-granularity-part-2-snowmobiling

Do 100 Thing podcast episode: https://shows.acast.com/triggerstrategy/episodes/043-do-100-thing

Innovation Tactics: https://bit.ly/innovation-10

Small Bets: https://smallbets.com/

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

074: Self-deception, secret strategies and non-violent communication

Tue, 17 Sep 2024 10:45:03 GMT

A live thinking through of the next chunk in our series of articles about the Vision Chasm – that gulf between the glorious future people are talking about and the reality of where you are today.

In this episode we look at situations where a Vision is unreachable because it's actually deceptive – either deliberate deception to keep everyone looking the other way while people deploy a secret strategy; or accidental self-deception because your reality has shifted but your narratives haven't caught up.

We talk through a few stories from our past.

1) A company workshop where trying to crystallise a vision of the future fell apart - because nobody was ready/able to be honest about the true direction of the company. Still clinging to a cultural heritage that was no longer a fit for their market position?

2) A deep misunderstanding between a C-suite and design team – talking past one another because we were operating in fundamentally different worlds. A third party was able to show us why we were stuck in loggerheads. Looking back, we can see how daft we were being. But could we have done things differently at the time?

3) How the misunderstanding played out when the C-suite brought in an external agency. In one way, it was a disaster that made a mess and broke some hearts. In another way, it was a success that broke the deadlock and massively moved things forward for the company.

References:

Vision Chasm Part I: https://shows.acast.com/triggerstrategy/episodes/061-tumbling-into-the-vision-chasm
Vision Chasm Part II: https://shows.acast.com/triggerstrategy/episodes/066-feeling-the-edges-of-the-vision-chasm
2D Comparison / Card Sifting method:

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

073: Brat summer for billionaires

Fri, 13 Sep 2024 09:08:33 GMT

All credit to friend of the pod Pete Shaw for the "Founder mode sounds like brat summer" observation.

Founder Mode triggered a beefstorm on LinkedIn, so we take a little stroll around the topic and share our takes. 3 parts nuance, 2 parts spicy, 1 long run-on sentence where Tom gets lost and forgets what he was trying to say.

Topics include alignment, coherence, intuition, taste and more.

References:

Paul Graham's Founder Mode
Our article We need to talk about Airbnb

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

072: Granularity part 2 – Snowmobiling

Tue, 10 Sep 2024 12:32:21 GMT

In this episode, we zoom back in time to a situation when a load of meetings were frustrating people at this one company. Tom used Snowmobiling with a small team to break down the meetings into smaller pieces and then remix those pieces in a new way. We share some of the details and pitfalls along the way.

This same decompose/recombine approach can be used in lots of different situations where you need to find something new. Because everything new is really just novel recombinations of existing stuff.

We read out the steps on the Snowmobiling card (Innovation Tactics) – the exact instructions you can follow to harness the power of the remix.

References:

Everything is a Remix
Austin Kleon's Keep Going
John Boyd's Destruction and Creation
Snowmobiling card from Innovation Tactics: Front | Back
Innovation Tactics: https://bit.ly/innovation-10

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

071: Granularity part 1 – decomposing people via ASHEN

Tue, 13 Aug 2024 15:27:04 GMT

Today, we start by adding some corrections to terminology we used in episode 70, which will be confusing if you haven't listened to that one. But it doesn't take long, and then we get into our main topic, which is granularity. When you work with too coarse a granularity, you can find yourself stuck or confused about what to do. When you work with too fine a granularity, you can quickly find yourself overwhelmed, drowning in data, paralysed by too many options. The magic is to find the sweet spot, where you break things down just enough to create good options for action.

We talk through ASHEN as a typology for decomposing people or roles to a more legible and actionable level of granularity, and Corissa tries it out for real with one of her old bosses.

Links

ASHEN on the Cynefin wiki: https://cynefin.io/wiki/ASHEN

Article about stages of companies vs different people's natural propensities: https://newsletter.thewayofwork.com/p/stage-fright

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

070: Lobster dinner with a toddler

Sat, 10 Aug 2024 14:52:28 GMT

Q. What do these three situations have in common? Taking a friend for a lobster dinner, business strategy workshops, and personal coaching.

A. They all feature in this episode as examples of how constraints, constructors and actants play out.

The main chunk of this session is us talking through Tom's personal experience being 1:1 coached using Estuarine Mapping. We found this enormously enlightening, and we're excited to share.

If you've been looking for definitions or examples of constraints, constructors and actants, then you're in the right place.

Links and resources:

The article about unfolding: https://www.henrikkarlsson.xyz/p/unfolding
Coach Mushfiqa: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mushfiqajamaluddin/
More about Estuarine Mapping: https://triggerstrategy.com/estuarine-mapping-2-half-day-pre-strategy-workshop-for-execs

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

069: The alignment problem (not the AI alignment problem)

Tue, 06 Aug 2024 09:08:17 GMT

In which we coin the word "bungus" ...

If you've ever complained about misalignment, or rallied people with the cry that "we need to get aligned", then this one's for you. Of course the feeling of alignment is a pleasant one, but what if you're in one of the situations where seeking alignment is actually hurting you?

Corissa and Tom unpack the concept of alignment, including some discussion about different kinds of alignment and misalignment, some stories from the real world about situations where strategic misalignment can be good, and some references to our episode about the bees (episode 44: https://shows.acast.com/triggerstrategy/episodes/044-the-one-with-the-bees)

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

068: Modest visions vs sci-fi visions

Fri, 02 Aug 2024 09:08:27 GMT

In which Corissa and Tom explore more nuances and wrinkles to do with vision and strategy, with examples, metaphors and practical tips.

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

067: Coping with "I'll know it when I see it"

Tue, 30 Jul 2024 09:08:04 GMT

Tom had a coaching call with someone who had been on the hook to run a one day workshop. A one day workshop that was expected to both work as a team building exercise AND deliver a complete new concept to go ahead and build. And it was sorta vague what that concept would be. What could go wrong?

Sometimes, you can get a clear, crispy brief. But often, you can't. It's more of an "I'll know it when I see it" situation. It's tempting to try asking more questions, trying to pin people down to get a clear brief before you start making anything. But that doesn't work. Often people can't tell you exactly what they want, until you give something to them and they can tell you, "not that".

One of the issues is about the tricksiness of language. You can't satisfactorily constrain creative work using adjectives. We share one of our favourite exercises for handling this.

Another issue is that you can't get people to predict what's going to make them say, "that's it!". We share some thoughts for how you can quickly and efficiently share ideas for them to react to.

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

066: Feeling the edges of the Vision Chasm

Fri, 26 Jul 2024 09:08:57 GMT

This is one of our "thinking about things in real time" episodes. Tom & Corissa talk through the next part of the Vision Chasm blog series. For nearly an hour!

We talk about when visions are good actually, as well as when they aren't, and when we could hold many visions lightly instead. And we explore the challenges of doing that.

We look at the squickiness of emergent strategy through lots of examples and stories.

We refer to a post by Stephanie Leue that does a great job of capturing what it feels like when you're in the weird reality distortion of the Vision Chasm: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/activity-7211982950198894592-jQsX?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

... but we don't agree with her prescription for fixing the problem.

We criticise the common approach to strategic "wisdom" that won't say this out loud but implies, "if you don't know what to do, then just try knowing what to do instead!"

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

065: The inherent bigness of ideas

Tue, 23 Jul 2024 09:08:00 GMT

When something that starts small becomes bigger and bigger, we can lose sight of what we were trying to do in the first place. We talk through some examples: from workshops, from designing flyers for dance classes, and from Lego bridges.

The trick is subtraction. The knack is knowing what to subtract.

"When putting on accessories, take off the last thing you've put on." – Coco Chanel

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

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064: Problems get replaced by better problems

Fri, 19 Jul 2024 09:08:01 GMT

Tom & Corissa talk about how understanding and tackling problems requires more than just a linear approach, like is often inferred through something like the Double Diamond. A bunch of metaphors, real world examples and other fun in this one. We also offer practical tips for engaging with solution-oriented colleagues and suggest some methods and recipes to see and solve more problems differently. Plus: a somewhat tortured supermarket metaphor.

00:00 Welcome to Trigger Strategy Podcast

00:11 Dental adventures

00:31 Exploring problems and solutions

02:09 The arrogance of designers

02:54 The horse poo problem

06:12 The Double Diamond design process

13:32 The Iron Triangle and trade-offs

14:37 Abductive logic and interconnected systems

19:49 The over-reach of the Enlightenment

20:13 The secret life of trees

21:12 Complex vs. complicated problems

22:33 Problem "validation"

24:16 The supermarket metaphor

28:34 Be more Cal Newport by putting solution recipes first?

33:25 What to do with solutionizing colleagues

38:34 Wrapping up in utopia

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

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063: Good stress / bad stress

Tue, 16 Jul 2024 09:08:29 GMT

We talk about the good and the bad sides of stress. We tend to treat stress as a negative, but sometimes stress is helpful, and sometimes you want to provoke stress deliberately. But be careful.

References:

Happiness Lab with Dr Laurie Santos

The Experience Machine by Andy Clark

Estuarine Mapping – find links and resources at triggerstrategy.com

That clip from Apollo 13: https://youtu.be/ry55--J4_VQ?si=FV3l_OZJklkmm-aS

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

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062: When good research is seen to create waste

Fri, 12 Jul 2024 09:08:17 GMT

We explore the story of a classic zombie project: where the team had the evidence they needed to know that a project was doomed, but carried on with it for 6 months anyway. These happen all the time, and we spend a few minutes unpacking the dynamics behind the trap. We also share some thoughts for how to ease open the jaws of the trap.

We also reference Annie Duke's book Quit

And Set Your First Pivot Triggers, available via a link here: https://pivot-triggers.com/

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

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061: Tumbling into the Vision Chasm

Tue, 09 Jul 2024 09:08:48 GMT

Strap in for some high-quality sleep deprived thinking out loud.

We talk about the standard approach towards vision and strategy in organisations, and we challenge it. With some stories of past triumphs and pratfalls based on setting vision and suggest of alternative ways to go about Doing Strategy.

We refer to some LinkedIn posts during this chat ... here they are!

Dr Jabe Bloom's post: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jabebloom_scanning-the-future-requires-a-diversity-activity-7211396177232060417-kCeb?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

Stephanie Leue's post: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/activity-7211982950198894592-jQsX?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

John Cutler's post: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/johnpcutler_theres-a-big-thing-missing-in-most-it-starts-activity-7212101683579953153-55qS?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

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060: Chesterton's vestigial doorman

Fri, 05 Jul 2024 09:08:42 GMT

Today, we talk about the appendix, fences, SaaS for lawyers, putting Shoggoth in a box ... and more.

Some links we mentioned:

Why aren't smart people happier and how that relates to well-defined problems: https://www.experimental-history.com/p/why-arent-smart-people-happier

Explainer on LLMs and why they probably won't take your job: https://cyberneticforests.substack.com/p/a-hallucinogenic-compendium

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

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059: How can I help someone to "get" it?

Tue, 02 Jul 2024 09:08:00 GMT

This one's quite focused on business and building products ... OR IS IT?

In this one we respond to a question that Tom's received from several people recently. We'll call one of them Dave. Dave has a friend who has a big product idea they want to build, or big business project they want to do. The plan Dave's friend has landed on is to do the whole thing (how hard can it be anyway?) and then receive the (as yet unspecified) rewards. And Dave wants to know: how can I help them see that's not the only way, that they'll probably fail, and that there's a better way ... without being preachy or lecturing them?

We talk about the impossibility of reasoning someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into, and share a few ideas for thought exercises that can help Dave figure out what flavour of situation he's dealing with.

For example, the "I'm going to A even if it means I never B" exercise and the Time Machine selling manoeuvre.

We also talk about "the inherent bigness of ideas", about dogfooding when you're not actually a dog, and the shocking distribution of returns for start up entrepreneurs.

Beans and noses: https://articles.centercentre.com/beans-and-noses/

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

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058: Reflections from UX London

Fri, 28 Jun 2024 09:08:29 GMT

This is kind of a follow-up to our previous episode that was recorded before the UX London conference. With the whirlwind of travel and baby-care, this was the first chance Tom & Corissa have really had to talk about the conference, and we captured it for the podcast too.

In our longest episode yet, we touch on Pitch Provocations, Multiverse Mapping, Zenko Mapping, rewilding, research repositories, behavioural design, regulations, stories, metaphor, communication, collaboration, validation, information architecture, design systems AND MORE. Whew.

Also lots of shout outs and thanks to folks who gave talks and workshops, including Serena Verdenicci, Luke Hay, Emma Boulton, Dr Harry Brignull, Ben Sauer, John V Willshire, Tshili Ndou, Alicia Calderón, Stéphanie Walter, Peter Boersma and Brad Frost ... and the folks who curated, helmed and scaffolded a great few days: Jeremy Keith, Louise Ash, and many other awesome folk from Clearleft.

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

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057: But who's this talk really for?

Tue, 25 Jun 2024 09:08:42 GMT

This is one of those where you walk along with Tom and Corissa while we're trying to figure something out. This time, Tom's giving a conference talk next week (which is last week from the podcast's perspective). He knows what he's talking about, but there's TOO MUCH of it! We try to figure out the one point he wants to make and why someone should care. Do we manage to tame this unruly topic or does it get away from us? You be the judge ...

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

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056: Technical language – a doorway or a barrier?

Fri, 21 Jun 2024 09:08:25 GMT

Tom saw a discussion on LinkedIn about why Cynefin hasn't caught on in some scenes. One take was that it's the "academic, technical" language that puts people off. Corissa has lots of experience of the power of simplifying your language from her background in copywriting, and especially usability testing her copy. On the other hand, weird new words can provoke weird new ways of thinking ... but it's also easier to dismiss weird things if you don't like their implications. Perhaps there's no right answer.

We talk about our experiences getting to grips with ideas like Cynefin, our experiences sharing such ideas with others, and we even talk about a dance class to explain the idea of the disposition of a complex adaptive system.

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

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055: Existential despair in the chasm

Tue, 18 Jun 2024 09:08:03 GMT

Spoiler alert: when I shipped an idea in an hour it did not meet the pivot triggers I'd set for the probe. That was one of a whole array of probes we've been putting out into the world here at Trigger Strategy Group. The general sense we've been picking up is that we haven't nailed our positioning yet. That's normal for a business in the early days like ours, but figuring this stuff out is emotionally challenging. We talk through some of the journey we've been on, an epiphany we've had, and where we're thinking of probing next.

For more on the original idea, check out:

the podcast episode: https://shows.acast.com/triggerstrategy/episodes/663109cbcff31b0012ae9311
and the YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0Kma97f9v4

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

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054: The unofficial rules of the road

Fri, 14 Jun 2024 09:08:21 GMT

Corissa recently re-learned to drive and noticed links between the stresses on the road and the stresses in the office. So we talked it through. We touch on the difference between complicated and complex, and between uncertainty and risk. When do you follow the rules in the highway code, and when do you muddle through and figure it out on the way?

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

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053: Smell the roses

Tue, 11 Jun 2024 09:08:13 GMT

Short little punchy one today: we bumped into one of our dad friends, who told us a lovely story about a parenting moment that was also a great example of emergent strategy and exaptation (radical repurposing).

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

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052: OMF: Opportunity, Method, Format

Fri, 07 Jun 2024 09:08:02 GMT

Tom has a challenge: to convince Corissa that something called "Opportunity Method Format" is actually interesting and useful. We talk about examples like printing flyers to publicise dance classes and building MVPs in digital product companies. Tom reckons using these layers can help you make your experiments more effective for learning what you need to learn faster. Does Corissa agree? You'll have to listen to find out. And let us know: were you persuaded?

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

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051: The MVP Death Spiral

Tue, 04 Jun 2024 09:08:01 GMT

Of course it makes sense to build only exactly what customers will value – the Minimum Viable Product. Unfortunately, it's not quite that simple in practice, and chasing the MVP dragon leads many a team into a life-sucking vicious cycle.

There are a bunch of common conditions that lead teams into the MVP Death Spiral, from narratives about how product works to the very concept of features.

If you've ever had a debate about MVPs — or felt that particular feeling of despair as yet another MVP fails to land with customers — then this episode is for you. Feel free to think of it as an MVP for some ideas that can free you from the dreaded Death Spiral. Wrapped in shiny paper with a big bow.

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

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050: Rumination, instinct and the fundamental attribution error

Fri, 31 May 2024 09:08:30 GMT

HALF WAY TO DO 100 THING!

One night, Corissa messaged Tom:

"It’s often unhelpful to get trapped in simple stories, but how do you know when to trust your gut? Our instincts aren’t always wrong. And pushed too far, obsessing over telling lots of different stories (overthinking??) could also become a trap in its own right?"

Today, we tell some stories, and we talk about how to get untrapped.

Overthinking vs underthinking. Rumination vs experimentation. Gut instinct vs rational consideration.

When are you telling too many stories? When are you not telling enough? We talk through this question, and share ideas for how you can escape from all the traps.

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

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049: To SWOT or not to SWOT?

Tue, 28 May 2024 09:08:45 GMT

In SWOT analysis, you list your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.

Maybe you love it? Maybe you hate it? We've been in the second camp for a long time, but it was worth revisiting our thinking about the method. If it's so terrible, how come it's so enduring? Maybe there's some good in it? Or maybe our concerns and criticisms are warranted.

Strap in as we walk and talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly of this simplistic strategy 2 by 2.

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

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048: Conceptual Models

Sat, 25 May 2024 17:51:21 GMT

This one's definitely designer-centric. And it's pretty hard to explain without visuals, but we give it a good go.

Tom talks about the shift that conceptual models enabled for him. When he was a younger designer, he often struggled to articulate design decisions, struggled to defend elements of the design that were crucial for things to be coherent, and constantly butted up against technical architecture that made it weirdly hard to design easy-to-use software. Once he figured out how to make and socialise a conceptual model, and then evolve the design around it, everything got way easier.

We talk through what a conceptual model helps you do if you're designing a software product or service, how you can use them to diagnose tricky problems, and share some references to help you get started.

References:

OOUX by Sophia V Prater

UX Magic by Daniel Rosenberg

Domain Driven Design

Elements of Product Design by Jamie Mill

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

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047: Shifting the evolutionary potential of the present

Fri, 17 May 2024 14:00:04 GMT

In this one, we talk about complexity in parenthood and in business. In both cases, there are plenty of people willing to sell you "the way" in their book. And there are millions of books that disagree, so anyone can cherry pick one that fits what they would like to be true. This is what you get when you try to treat a complex, dispositional system as if it were ordered and causal. And it's why so many of the efforts to determine what is the "best" way to parent, or run a business, or live a good life, end up inconclusive, contradictory and confusing. We talk about how we cope with all this.

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

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046: Enabling constraints

Tue, 14 May 2024 15:52:26 GMT

Some constraints are limiting, some are enabling. But what's the difference? What if most constraints are both at the same time? (Depending to some degree on your perspective.) We talk through lots of examples of constraints from design and Twitter poetry, through Lindy Hop and yoga, all the way into business breakfasts and research operations.

We reference a book by Alicia Juarrero. we can't remember the title during the podcast. It's Context Changes Everything: https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262545662/context-changes-everything/

We also reference some past episodes where we talk about emergent properties and hint at constraints – check out episodes 10, 11, 12 and 14 in particular. But if you listen to most of our episodes we bet you'll find examples of constraints and emergence :D

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

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045: When stories are helpful delusions

Fri, 10 May 2024 09:20:22 GMT

Our jumping off point today was a video from YouTuber Caroline Winkler about making friends as an adult. She instructs us to tell ourselves that when someone doesn't want to be your friend, it's always something practical in their life: they're too busy, they're about to move away, things like that. And it left us wondering: but what if it IS you? We've all met people we didn't like. What if you're a person someone doesn't like?

But hey – perhaps it's helpful to hold on to the delusion that it's never about you? What we call "distribution" is a painfully slow, ambiguous investment. Maybe we need some delusion to carry on when it feels like a slog? Maybe that's healthy? But then how will you know if it is in fact you?

We unpack more stories that might be going on when we can't seem to find friends or customers. Whether you're trying to make bookish friends at a gabba rave, or trying to find customers for your achingly cool new startup, this one's for you x

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

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044: The one with the bees

Wed, 08 May 2024 21:51:35 GMT

Important note for this episode: scientists have recently discovered that humans are in fact not exactly the same as bees. But we don't let that stop us taking some metaphorical lessons from our tiny, stinging, honey-making buddies. We share some cool bee facts, and consider how we could be more bee in our lives and businesses.

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

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043: Do 100 Thing

Tue, 07 May 2024 13:45:23 GMT

Wanna be a YouTuber? You have to make a lot of videos. Wanna be a blogger? You have to write a lot of articles. Wanna be a startup founder? You have to make a lot of sales. For lots of goals in life and business, there's at least one necessary (but not sufficient) activity that you need to do over and over again. So you need to be able to do it a lot. At least 100. In this episode we talk about why this approach works and how it's different from more common styles of business objective.

PLUS: new recording setup! What we were using before has just shut down so please bear with us as we figure out new tools.

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

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042: Helping to euthanise a startup

Tue, 30 Apr 2024 14:02:08 GMT

In which we talk about how energy gradients affect the chances of a strategy succeeding, and imagine people pushing concrete wheels around. Tom shares the story of a client and how energy gradient thinking got them to finally identify the thing that was stopping them from making sales. It’s a cautionary tale and an encouragement for you to think about energy gradients sooner rather than later.

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

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041: Nuance, absolutes and shiny suits

Thu, 25 Apr 2024 12:58:12 GMT

Can you get through life without ever oversimplifying something? If not, when is it OK? And what does that have to do with parenting, politics and pole-climbing professionals?

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

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040: Why isn’t [Role] doing what I think they should?

Sat, 20 Apr 2024 09:37:10 GMT

We talk about a post that Tom saw in Reddit: a Product Manager complaining about the designers they worked with (shock horror!). The underlying vibe of the complaint looked eerily similar to many situations we’ve both seen. And the responses in the Reddit thread tended to jump to mono-perspective “root cause” type reasoning (also a familiar pattern). So we took a few minutes to break down the situation from different angles, unpacking more of the conditions and dynamics that might be modulating the situation. Note: the specifics of this situation are quite product/design-specific, so bear with us if we slip into jargon. Because we suspect the general dynamics at play will rhyme with situations you’ve found yourself in. Let us know: what dynamics or conditions do you think we missed? Plus: towards the end, we share Jabe Bloom’s Ideal Present exercise, which is a collaborative and multi-perspective approach to managing the evolutionary potential of the present. Here’s the link we mentioned to a video where Ben Mosior walks you through the exercise in 5 minutes: https://www.youtube.com/live/19KUsV_qeyk?si=r4hOSMZ_CtFTvCcS

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

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039: Bounded Applicability

Wed, 10 Apr 2024 10:44:35 GMT

How come your favourite methods don’t always work? We know one-size doesn’t fit-all, and we know that it depends on context … but *how* does it depend on context? We’ve been exploring a framework or model that can help iron out the fiddliness, and today we talk through some of the ideas, introducing a sort of spectrum that covers what we might call Solution Oriented — Outcome Oriented — Emergence Oriented (though we don’t use exactly those words in the conversation). It’s a bit of a meaty one today, enjoy!

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

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038: Creativity, innovation and a flawed coffee machine

Mon, 08 Apr 2024 17:27:33 GMT

How do you know if you're being creative or innovative? Does it even matter? We talk about art, business, feathers, and Corissa's fury with an underperforming coffee machine that set her on a path of creativity or innovation or maybe something else entirely ... and if you have a story of creativity or innovation you’d like to share, record it here: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/trigger-strategy/message

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

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037: How Capable Leaders Navigate Uncertainty and Ambiguity - an annotated reading - Part 6

Fri, 29 Mar 2024 16:44:21 GMT

We made it! The sixth and final episode in the series where we read through prompts from an article and talk about what they mean to us. In this episode, Plant Seeds — Watch Them Grow, Tailor Ways of Working and Facing Uncertainty. We encourage you to think about them too! We also talk through some important notes that apply to this whole series at the very end. If you’d like to share a short reflection with us, please record one here: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/trigger-strategy/message. And if you’d like to follow along with the original article: https://cutlefish.substack.com/p/tbm-274-how-capable-leaders-navigate

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

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036: How Capable Leaders Navigate Uncertainty and Ambiguity - an annotated reading - Part 5

Tue, 26 Mar 2024 17:53:53 GMT

The fifth and penultimate episode in the series where we read through prompts from an article and talk about what they mean to us. In this episode, Accept Diverse Strengths and Skills, Collaboratively Sense and Shape, and Coherence vs. Alignment. We encourage you to think about them too! If you’d like to share a short reflection with us, please record one here: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/trigger-strategy/message. If you’d like to follow along with the original article: https://cutlefish.substack.com/p/tbm-274-how-capable-leaders-navigate

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

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035: How Capable Leaders Navigate Uncertainty and Ambiguity - an annotated reading - Part 4

Mon, 25 Mar 2024 10:55:28 GMT

The fourth in the series where we read through prompts from an article and talk about what they mean to us. In this episode, Both/And, Intervene Safely, and Abduction and Intuition. We encourage you to think about them too! If you’d like to share a short reflection with us, please record one here: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/trigger-strategy/message. If you’d like to follow along with the original article: https://cutlefish.substack.com/p/tbm-274-how-capable-leaders-navigate

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

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034: How Capable Leaders Navigate Uncertainty and Ambiguity - an annotated reading - Part 3

Thu, 21 Mar 2024 09:45:33 GMT

What do leaders who are skilled at navigating complexity know how to do? What do they do differently? What would you observe if a leader had these skills? These were questions Tom and John Cutler asked themselves when they co-wrote this article that got a lot of people talking: https://cutlefish.substack.com/p/tbm-274-how-capable-leaders-navigate. The article contains 18 prompts to trigger reflection. This is the third in the series where we read through the prompts and talk about what they mean to us. We talk through 3 more patterns: Patience and Self-Repair, Anticipate Effects, and Curiosity and Light Touch. We encourage you to think about them too! If you’d like to share a short reflection with us, please record one here: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/trigger-strategy/message.

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

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033: How Capable Leaders Navigate Uncertainty and Ambiguity - an annotated reading - Part 2

Thu, 14 Mar 2024 16:49:10 GMT

What do leaders who are skilled at navigating complexity know how to do? What do they do differently? What would you observe if a leader had these skills? These were questions Tom and John Cutler asked themselves when they co-wrote this article that got a lot of people talking: https://cutlefish.substack.com/p/tbm-274-how-capable-leaders-navigate. The article contains 18 prompts to trigger reflection. This is the second in the series where we read through the prompts and talk about what they mean to us. We talk through 3 more patterns: Identify Plausible Contributors / Multiple "Causes”, Power of the Present, and Blend Diverse Perspectives. We encourage you to think about them too! If you’d like to share a short reflection with us, please record one here: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/trigger-strategy/message.

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

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032: How Capable Leaders Navigate Uncertainty and Ambiguity - an annotated reading - Part 1

Wed, 13 Mar 2024 12:52:21 GMT

What do leaders who are skilled at navigating complexity know how to do? What do they do differently? What would you observe if a leader had these skills? These were questions Tom and John Cutler asked themselves when they co-wrote this article that got a lot of people talking: https://cutlefish.substack.com/p/tbm-274-how-capable-leaders-navigate. The article contains 18 prompts to trigger reflection. This is the first in a series where we read through the prompts and talk about what they mean to us. We encourage you to think about them too! If you’d like to share a short reflection with us, please record one here: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/trigger-strategy/message. In this first episode, we talk through the first 3 patterns: Accept We Are Part of the Problem, Encourage New Interaction Patterns, and Patient Divergence. We also reference a lovely series by Hazel Weakly where she’s started to reflect on the questions: https://hazelweakly.me/blog/observations-of-leadership-part-one/

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

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031: Probabilistic Parenting - is it a thing and how does it map onto work?

Sun, 10 Mar 2024 17:10:52 GMT

We talk about boundaries, commandments and socialisation. If right and wrong isn’t always set in stone, how do you encourage people to think creatively while also not becoming a pariah?

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

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030: We need to talk about “mindsets”

Sat, 02 Mar 2024 16:11:02 GMT

We talk about the fallacy of mindset, and the inevitable failure when you focus on trying to change someone’s mindset. We also consider what you can do instead, including the magic pill test, and changing affordances, assemblages and agency (cf. Dave Snowden). This has been relevant for some recent coaching clients and is a common sticking point in change management work.

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

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029: Communication is lossy - and that’s OK

Sun, 25 Feb 2024 14:04:21 GMT

What’s in your head is perfectly clear, but then you have to use a string of words to communicate it to others. And the words can trigger different ideas in their heads. It’s kind of amazing that we can communicate at all! Today we dig into some typical confusions, challenge one “fix” that can feel helpful while actually making things worse, and then suggest a few alternative approaches that really do help.

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

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028: Ship an idea in an hour?

Wed, 21 Feb 2024 21:15:54 GMT

Tom compulsively makes Multiverse Maps in Miro during meetings - and it seems to help people clarify things and take action. Why not put an offer out there to see if more people would like it? We talk about what that was like and challenge you: what could you ship in an hour? Here’s the article we talked about: https://open.substack.com/pub/maybeuseful/p/i-want-to-start-a-business-but-i … and here’s the LinkedIn post: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/tomdkerwin_can-i-ship-a-new-business-idea-in-an-hour-activity-7164298372110041088-Cxgl?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

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027: Are you rushing to tie your shoelaces?

Wed, 14 Feb 2024 14:52:48 GMT

“Slow is smooth; smooth is fast” - we talk about this Marine mantra and how it relates to tunnel vision vs. expanded awareness in our personal and work lives. We’ve found this a transformational lens in our strategy and sense-making work — as well as our personal lives — and we hope you will too. Let us know!

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

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026: Is your marketing funnel killing your offer?

Wed, 14 Feb 2024 12:08:04 GMT

A Hard Test is when you strip away all the accoutrements of what a product or marketing set up “should” look like, so you can distil out the absolute core. How do customers CHOOSE the value you promise, and how do they USE you to get that value? If that core doesn’t fundamentally work, all the fancy visuals and words in the world won’t help. But if the raw, distilled core works, you can be confident that building more around it will make it better and better. We talk about applying the Hard Test philosophy to your marketing and sales funnels in a way that’s so simple - and so terrifying.

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

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025: Change, ready-ing and a caterpillar with wooden wings

Sat, 10 Feb 2024 09:41:12 GMT

What if the theory of change we often try to impose on ourselves and our organisations is actually counterproductive? Is actually blocking what needs to happen for change to occur? We talk about a LinkedIn post Tom shared that stopped Corissa in her tracks, including a story about a woman who found herself giving back borrowed books. Here’s the link to the post, including a trail to get to Nora Bateson’s full essay, Ready-ing: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/tomdkerwin_an-essay-on-readying-tending-the-prelude-activity-7160987048626057216-ZZy9?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

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024: Should CEOs be making day-to-day decisions?

Fri, 09 Feb 2024 17:23:11 GMT

There’s a view of leadership that puts the CEO at the helm, steering the ship with their decisions. This view is becoming seen as “zombie leadership”. There’s another view that the CEO should normally be making no ground-level decisions, only connecting people. The dynamic between decisions and no-decisions varies at different scales of org and in different contexts. That’s what we’re talking about today. If you’d like to share your take, please drop us a note: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/trigger-strategy/message

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

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023: Creating Customer Conversations

Mon, 05 Feb 2024 22:48:21 GMT

Today, we talk about a course that Tom is putting together in collaboration with Dave Grey’s School of the Possible. It’s very much us figuring things out live, explaining the School and then talking through my aims and ideas for the course. If the course sounds interesting to you, we’d love to chat more and help you figure out if it’ll be a good fit.

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

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022: Disconfirmation Bias - do this innovation tactic live with us in under 15 minutes

Thu, 01 Feb 2024 11:48:59 GMT

What’s the biggest risk you need to tackle for an idea you’re working on right now? Today, we walk you through a quick exercise that will reveal the next step you need to take. This is one of the 54 cards in Innovation Tactics: bit.ly/innovation-10

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

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021: The perils of “should”

Wed, 31 Jan 2024 11:19:17 GMT

Do you should all over yourself? Do you have unconscious rules for what other people should be doing? Today, we look at where “should” turns up in matters personal and business, with a spotlight on Donald Miller’s Story Brand framework, and a side quest into bloviating YouTubers.

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

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020: Product discovery depends on you building a model (of your coherent theory of value)

Wed, 31 Jan 2024 10:38:33 GMT

Off the back of an excellent coaching call, we share one thing we’ve found that makes all the difference for UXRs (and product people in general) who need to sift through mountains of observations to find the insights that matter. In our experience, it’s not enough to have documents or a repo etc. - instead you need to build a model. We talk all about what this might mean for you and some of the pitfalls that we’ve seen teams get stuck in. Here’s the link to the Innovation Tactics card we reference: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/40drbzxvy9c4zpuf8q523/Focus-Solve-For-Distribution-Back.png?rlkey=1dka88ysgqcix5x8v4dkivzv7&dl=0

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

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019: North Star Metrics and Framework - are they “dumb”?

Tue, 30 Jan 2024 13:36:27 GMT

In today’s walk, we respond to a question about Cedric Chin’s feisty claim that the “North Star Framework is dumb”: (https://www.linkedin.com/posts/cedchin_im-thinking-of-writing-a-follow-up-post-activity-7157641902496870400--59g?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios). One of our friends asked, “is it though? I’ve found North Star metrics to be useful in working with complex adaptive systems - to give a sense of direction without limiting adaptation. What’s your take?” We break down the metrics and the framework and when they may be useful or not. Do we think they’re dumb? You’ll have to listen to find out!

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

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018: a blustery annotated reading - A/B testing ain’t for settling your disagreements

Mon, 29 Jan 2024 14:51:16 GMT

Warning: we lost the little foam hat off the microphone, and this makes wind noise much more audible than usual. If you can cope with the audio, you’ll hear Tom read out an article from 2017 that he no longer fully agrees with. We dive into several related topics around the know-ability of future outcomes, the prevalence of Underpants Gnomes, and our past experiences trying to make stuff better without really understanding what we were doing. What still holds up What’s different now? If you’d like to read along (and see the picture of the digger) here’s the link: https://tomkerwin.substack.com/p/a-b-testing-aint-for-settling-your-disagreements-3653285a4377

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

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017: You can’t leap directly from data to actionable insights - a live annotated reading

Sun, 28 Jan 2024 10:50:30 GMT

We’re trying something different in this episode. Tom reads out one of his old articles and we discuss our questions and issues as they arise. The article is an early version of his thinking about Signals, Stories, Options, which we talked about in episode 016. Does he still agree with everything? What would we change now? Can we describe a diagram in audio? If you want to read along with us, the article is: https://tomkerwin.substack.com/p/are-you-trying-to-leap-directly-from

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

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016: Signals, Stories, Options - how to avoid getting trapped by simple stories

Sat, 27 Jan 2024 15:12:18 GMT

Corissa interviews Tom about the Signals > Stories > Options framework that appears (as “Anatomy of an Insight”) in his Innovation Tactics card deck. We get into how the concept of telling more stories can free you in both your personal and work lives and Tom shares some of the people who influenced his thinking as he traveled through the wilderness of narrative fallacy.

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

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015: Continuously discovering beef on Linkedin

Fri, 26 Jan 2024 15:23:31 GMT

Everyone knows you should stay out of social media beefs, so we’re going against all common sense and wading in. This showdown between two camps has been a long time coming: should research be democratised, or does that only devalue research? Recently one populariser of democratisation has become a bit of a scapegoat. We think the debate on social media lacks nuance (surprising precisely nobody) and so we try to dig into some of the layers of nuance we can see, and have lived through ourselves.

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

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014: Emergent Properties, Self Care and Leaf-Cutter Ants

Wed, 17 Jan 2024 13:53:40 GMT

What’s an emergent property? We take a tour through this sometimes confusing aspect of complexity theory, sharing some practical examples. Ant hills are emergent, but in a different way from human complex adaptive systems because of the 3 “I”s. We talk about how to manage the evolutionary potential of the present, changing conditions to allow emergence to happen, rather than setting explicit targets and instructions. Also: why adjectives are death.

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

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013: How experiences shape us

Tue, 16 Jan 2024 14:08:49 GMT

We share small experiences from our careers that fundamentally changed the way we think about the world. Topics include tacit knowledge, retrospective coherence, the pain and pleasure of glimpsing reality, and the Cynefin framework. And we suggest two tiny little exercises you can try today that might just change you. Dare you to try one!

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

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012: Psychological safety is an emergent property

Tue, 16 Jan 2024 14:08:41 GMT

Psychological safety has been a bit of a buzz term for years, since Google’s internal research. We talk about what it means in different companies, and our own past experiences. We discuss how it’s not something you can simply choose to have, but an emergent property of many aspects of a given context. What does this mean for fostering psychological safety where you are? You’ll have to listen to find out :)

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

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011: Make stand ups useful with coherent pitches

Tue, 16 Jan 2024 14:08:23 GMT

Stand ups are common in tech companies, but are often inefficient and confused - often little more than “busyness theatre”. Leaders need to know what’s going on somehow, but stand ups and progress updates are mostly bad ways to achieve this. We talk about the worst stand ups we’ve experienced, and suggest a couple of simple tweaks we’ve used to make stand ups and progress updates way more effective.

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

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010: Rules, norms, heuristics and a stacking block toy

Tue, 16 Jan 2024 14:06:29 GMT

When do you need to follow the rules and when should you break them? When are rules not rules? We share some experiences from our pasts and talk about how to shape your environment for innovation.

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

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009: Using Pitch Provocations to poke the market - Part 3

Tue, 16 Jan 2024 14:04:31 GMT

We get practical about how to create your pitch provocations fast and how to write them effectively. Then we talk about what’s next - testing the market, and learning what it’ll really take to deliver.

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

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008: Using Pitch Provocations to poke the market - Part 2

Tue, 16 Jan 2024 14:02:06 GMT

We pick up from where we left off last time, and talk about what you do once you’ve got some signals from your pitch provocation sessions. Also: how do you find people to do those sessions with, what makes pitch provocations hard, how to work around those mistakes, and how do you know who to listen to? Part 3 coming soon x

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

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007: Using Pitch Provocations to poke the market - Part 1

Tue, 16 Jan 2024 13:59:43 GMT

Many founders think “figure out how to build it, then figure out how to market it” but in our experience, it’s much more effective to move the “figure out how to market it” and do that right away. What founders who do this find is that they quickly get much clearer about what to build (and what not to build) too. And one of the fastest ways we’ve found to do this is using Pitch Provocations as parallel safe to fail probes. Today, we talk about why and how.

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

006: OKRs, moon landings and oil fires

Tue, 16 Jan 2024 13:57:14 GMT

Following on from Tom’s Substack pieces about OKRs, we talk about some of the issues with OKRs, when they can work, and what to do if you’re in a situation where they don’t work but you have to use them anyway.

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

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005: The bucket of features problem

Tue, 16 Jan 2024 13:54:40 GMT

We talk about the bucket of features problem, common to startups and corporates alike. What gets so many smart, brilliant people stuck in this problem? And we share a way to get out of the bucket too.

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

004: Beans, noses, elephants and startups

Tue, 16 Jan 2024 13:51:54 GMT

How many times do you watch while someone puts a bean up their nose? That’s the question we go at today, Tom working through a frustrating client engagement.

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

003: Startups, assumptions and coaching

Tue, 16 Jan 2024 13:50:13 GMT

1) Can big company “A players” do scrappy startups? 2) Assumption mapping - does it work? Can you make it work? 3) Coaching vs tricking people into thinking your idea is theirs … spicy!

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

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Why your stakeholders will only ever know it when they see it

Tue, 20 Apr 2021 12:44:57 GMT

In school, and in countless articles, we’re shown a way that design and copy “should” work. Not only does this not match the way design and copy actually work, it’s built on false underpinnings. In this episode, we explore this common frustration and consider what designers and copywriters might practically do about it.

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What ‘The Control Heuristic’ means for design research

Tue, 13 Apr 2021 10:44:34 GMT

A quick informal chat about Luca Dellanna’s book. We hash out why people tend to put off design research and noodle about how we might adjust that.

Trigger Strategy Podcast has evolved into Tentacles – the podcast from Crown & Reach.

You can find all our latest episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/tentacles

... and more information about our work and resources at crownandreach.com

... and you can contact us through tentacles@crownandreach.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.