July 2026
Go Straight On
Hi, welcome to my MonthNotes — reflective notes looking back over the past month, loosely based on a set of questions which help me reflect. They’re my own personal notes, views, etc.
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Regular structured reflection increases happiness, productivity and job performance and decreases the likelihood of burnout. And the process itself of writing these notes helps me.
“We’re still right here in the center of it all. Nothing changes but the scenery.” Hungry Paul
1. What gave you hope?
- The long-delayed ‘Hillsborough Law’ finally being approved by MPs. Hopefully it will actually become law later this year.
2. What did you experiment with?
- Writing a poem (I think it’s probably over 30 years since I’ve done that)
3. What helped you?
- Discussing team coaching with Fiona Siseman and hearing about her experience coaching at Spotify.
- Meeting up with Matt Barker to discuss high performance coaching
- Meeting up with Abi Blakeslee to discuss coaching & training people in different settings about regulating their nervous system
- Meeting up with Alex Martynov and learning about focusing* in coaching and integrating the principles of Internal Family Systems into coaching*
- Meeting up with Anne Kennedy from the Association for Coaching to discuss enabling a team coaching culture
- Reading Rebecca Rutschmann on AI in coaching (in Coaching Perspectves, Issue 50):
“AI operates within a fundamental constraint: it responds to what is said. It cannot sit with what is not said. It cannot feel the slight shift in energy when a client’s passing comment carries far more weight than the words suggest. It cannot hold the silence that sometimes does more work than any question. It cannot rupture, and repair, and have that repair deepen a relationship into something the client has never quite experienced before. It cannot be genuinely affected by what it witnesses. And that genuine affectedness is doing invisible and irreplaceable work in every coaching conversation that contains it.
The relational container is a feature of good coaching. The specific human quality of being witnessed, challenged, and cared for by another person who is also, in some sense, changed by the encounter, is the medium through which coaching works. This cannot be replicated by a system that, however sophisticated, is ultimately pattern-matching on language.”
“People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” Teddy Roosevelt (cf‘Expertise without empathy is just noise.’)
4. What made you proud?
- LeapSpace won the 2026 CODiE Award for Best Generative AI Solution. This achievement follows a rigorous evaluation process that included expert judging by industry leaders and technology practitioners. It reflects the excellence and innovation of the team and the impact of Elsevier’s research-grade AI solution built for trust, transparency, and complex research workflows. The judges’ feedback highlighted many of LeapSpace’s strengths:
“The product look and feel was awesome, filled with rich functionalities for a user/researcher at academia or industries.”
“Great product for the research and academic community, reducing barriers to entry and continuation in research.”
- Elsevier had some great results for the first half of the year: a step up in growth,* driven by higher value add solutions and supported by increasing pace of new product introductions*
- Elsevier Mexico has been certified by Great Place To Work, and Elsevier India has been re-certified for the second consecutive year. ‘Great Place To Work’ is a global authority on workplace culture, with certifications based entirely on employee feedback.
5. What concepts did you learn?
- ‘Temporal awareness’ (HT Brene Brown)* — the ability to understand and manage time horizons, gauge how much time you have to act under pressure, and maintain perspective against changing circumstances. (“How much time do I really have here? How do I slow down my team without losing a sense of productive urgency?)*
- ‘Symphonic awareness’ (HT Brene Brown) — Dan Pink poularized this concept in his book A Whole New Mind. It’s the ability to combine separate, unrelated pieces into a whole which is greater than the sum of its parts.
- ‘Plant blindness’* — a lack of interest, awareness and appreciation for plants in urban societies (HT Chloe)
- ‘Nature deficit disorder’ —the negative effects on mental well-being and behavioral problems that result from a lack of time outdoors
6. What frameworks did you learn?
- The THINK framework — a structured approach to help communication by encouraging you to think before communicting:*
- Deloitte identified six signature traits of inclusive leadership
- ‘HALTS’ — this acronym stands for: Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired, Sick, Stressed. Some people use the shorter version HALT.* These factors, which are often hidden, affect how we behave and act, and can compromise our decision making, particularly when we’re under pressure (aka ‘Red’). So this tool can act as a checklist,* reminding us to pause and if necessary address these states and shift out of them before we then proceed and act/make our decisions from a more balanced state (aka ‘Blue’).* For me, this is a great addition to my Red2Blue coaching toolkit.*
7. What else did you learn?
- When you’re working with AI, it’s useful to bear in mind the Elephant-Goldfish Model (HT Dave Rensin)*
- McKinsey are predicting that “protecting cognitive capacity as a strategic organizational resource will increasingly differentiate organizations that adapt, innovate, and thrive through change.”*
- A few years ago (in 2023), Kim Scott reframed her concept of ‘radical candor’ as ‘compassionate candor’.*
- ‘Hardening your heart’ is a traditionally seen as a sin in Judaism
(HT Dr Jeffrey Rutstein). As part of Yom Kippur and its preparation on Erev Yom Kippur, Jews traditionally ask for forgiveness for “the sin we have committed before Thee by hardening our hearts”.* - A pair of new check-out questions for a team:
“Where are we in tune?’ & ‘Where are we out of tune?’
- There seem to be an increasing number of signals of a growing demand for nervous system-informed coaching,* based on the links between a leader’s regulation and high-performance outcomes. Even McKinsey are talking about “when leaders regulate themselves and strengthen relationships, organizations hold together under strain. Decisions move faster and land better, disagreement sharpens thinking without turning personal, and new ideas surface rather than shut down.”*
“You cannot manage other people unless you manage yourself first.”
Peter F. Drucker (HT Jeremy Hunter)
8. What did you get reminded of?
- Regulating your nervous system isn’t just a personal wellness practice — it’s also a core leadership function. As management consultancy Egon Zehnder puts it in the HBR, “Organizations that take this need seriously will unleash a new level of performance by enabling their leaders, and their cultures, to operate with greater regulation, connection, and care.”*
“Under stress, people do not default to their best thinking but instead revert to their most practiced and primitive survival strategies”*
- The value of the situational leadership model: I realised with a particular group of people I was working with that I was operating in one style (‘delegating/empowering /monitoring’), and I needed to adapt and operate in a style that was more aligned to their level of ‘performance readiness’.
- The importance of investing in and supporting managers — they’re the #1 factor in burnout, enjoyment, and retention.
- Katzenbach and Smith’s ‘Team Performance Curve’ doesn’t apply to teams consisting of people who share the same specialist skills (aka ‘extra-dependent teams’), and trying to make such a team work together more can be counter-productive.*
- Working in the House of Lords
- When I was given the advice “slowly slowly catchee monkey,” by David Natzler, before he was appointed the Clerk of the House of Commons, Parliament’s most senior legal and constitutional adviser.
- Meeting Sir Richard Wilson in the Cabinet Office in my first year as a crown servant on the Fast Stream programme, when he was Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Home Civil Service, shortly before he retired and was made a Life Peer — this month he gave his valedictory speech in the House of Lords. This was part of my training at the Civil Service College, where I also met Peter Hennessy, who gave his valedictory speech in the House of Lords* just a couple of months ago.
- ‘Action creates clarity’ (HT Yullia):
“As you start to walk on the way, the way appears” Rumi
9. What books did you read?
- Strong Ground, by Brene Brown
- Using Polyvagal Theory to Optimize Healthcare Excellence, by Randy Brazie, Geoffrey Vanderpal, and Abi Blakeslee
10. What poems touched you?
(Note: I don’t like poetry.)
- ‘Be ahead of all parting, as if it had already happened,’ by Rilke (aka Sonnets to Orpheus, Part II, Sonnet XIII)
- ‘All at once,’ by Clint Smith
- ‘Let the quiet come,’* by Henry Shukman*
- ‘The Seed Inside of Us,’ By Hetty Monksea
- ‘Bluebells,’ by Hetty Monksea
- ‘The Heart is a Tricky Customer,’ by Hetty Monksea
- ‘Heart Dance’, by Hetty Monksea
- ‘One train may hide another,’ by Kenneth Koch (HT Alex Martynov)
- ‘Vermeer,’ by Wisława Szymborska
- ‘Hat,’ by Shel Silverstein (HT Tom Geraghty):
11. What was fun?
- Watching ‘La Petite Bande’* at the Alliance française in Cambridge
- Ali G making a come back — at Wimbledon.
- Hearing Mark Moore’s story about nearly doing a house music album with Prince in 1989. He then played an unreleased demo that Prince had recorded and sent to him at that time
- Meeting up with friends to see The Tempest in the gardens of one of the Cambridge colleges, even though it poured down with rain!
- Going to the Blue Ball Inn in Grantchester for the first time
“Life is not measured by the number of breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.” Vicki Corona* (HT Thomas Gartenmann)
12. What did you enjoy?
- Seeing colleagues in Germany
- Watching the Wimbledon tennis finals
- Watching Leonard and Hungry Paul
- Eating a plum for the first time this year
- Eating blackberries for the first time this year, at Milton Country Park
- An evening by the river at Grantchester
“A leaf of grass is no less than the journey work of the stars.” Walt Whitman*
13. What are you looking forward to in August?
- A holiday in Ireland
- Going to watch cricket — England vs Pakistan, in a test match at Lords
