Stuck strategy? Don’t push harder. See clearer.

In public sector leadership, momentum can be mistaken for progress. The default is to act - to decide, deliver, implement - even when the path is unclear.

But in complex systems, speed can obscure insight. Urgency can become a form of avoidance.

What if the real work isn't to move faster, but to see more clearly?

It's been a while since I've written here.

I've spent the early part of this year doing what I often encourage the leaders I work with to do - stepping back to reflect. Not to disengage, but to make better sense of what's emerging. Around me, and within.

I've been sitting with complexity. With questions that confound. And amidst a full calendar of strategy and leadership work, one thread has quietly woven its way through: In the rush to act, we often overlook the quiet discipline of noticing - yet it's often what enables the most strategic shifts.

From that space, one thing is becoming clearer: The quality of our leadership - and our strategy - depends less on what we know, or how fast we act, and more on how we see.

"To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work." — Mary Oliver

When Slowing Down Creates Breakthrough

Earlier this year, I worked with a government department that had been stuck for over a year - unable to reach agreement on the future of a critical service.

The group was diverse and divided — not just in views about the issue, but about how the conversation itself should be held.

We didn't push for resolution. We slowed down. Reconnected. And helped the system begin to see itself — not just its parts, but the relationships between them and the patterns that had formed and were forming.

By creating space to listen, relate, and reflect, something shifted. The group left with a clearer shared understanding and renewed energy to move forward together. That clarity has sustained.

They didn't force alignment — they created enough space for shared meaning to emerge naturally.

Why Seeing Matters in Our BANI World

As Ron Heifetz reminds us in his work on adaptive leadership, not all challenges can be solved with existing expertise. Many require a shift in perspective — and that shift often begins by stepping back.

We often think the complexity is out there — in policy, in process, in people. But frequently, it lives in how we're seeing, thinking, and relating. In the assumptions we've stopped noticing. In the stories we forgot we were still telling.

As Donella Meadows taught us, the deepest leverage for change lies not in new policies, but in shifting the mental models beneath them. That's not always comfortable. But it's where real progress becomes possible.

Otto Scharmer describes this as learning to 'see our seeing' - a capacity that becomes increasingly vital in our brittle, anxious, non-linear, and incomprehensible (BANI) world.

Three Questions to Expand Your Seeing

• What becomes visible when we loosen our grip on certainty?

• What if clarity isn't about removing ambiguity — but learning to see within it?

• What do we notice when we listen not just with our minds, but with our whole selves?

"There is a conversation in the room that only these people at this moment can have. Find it." — adrienne maree brown

Introducing the Strategy + Sensemaking Lab

This is the work I'm holding in the new Strategy + Sensemaking Lab - a one-day intervention designed for complex public sector environments.

It's not about rushing toward answers. It's about creating the conditions for sharper seeing, deeper insight, and more adaptive paths forward - together.

The lab creates a space where fragmentation can become wholeness, where conflict can transform towards collaboration, and where stagnation can find momentum again.

If you're navigating something complex - a persistent tension, a fragmented collaboration, or a strategic issue that feels stuck - perhaps what's needed isn't just a sharper strategy, but sharper perception.

The alchemy of real change happens not when we push harder against resistance, but when we see with fresh eyes what's actually happening in the system.

And as always — if this resonates, I'd love to hear from you.