high shoulders, meltdown, not an experiment.
Jul 07, 2026
Hi 👋, welcome back to our 41st edition 🙌.
“In chaos, there is fertility”.
Anais Nin
Leadership: high shoulders.
Sahil Bloom told a great story about him and his father. He wanted desperately to join a baseball team when he was a child. He tried out and fell just short of getting selected. Once home, instead of telling him they were wrong and he was great, his father levelled with him and said, “I know you’re upset, but there are three things the coaches said you needed to work on. Let’s go out this Summer and work on them. Together”. He did, and years later got a scholarship to play baseball at Stanford. He calls this the High Shoulders Theory, which he classifies as High Expectations, accompanied by High Support. As Sahil outlines, you need both. High expectations without support breeds resentment. High support without expectations, breeds complacency.
A thought for leaders: Great leaders, the ones that really transform people’s lives and make a difference, provide High Shoulders. Isaac Newton talked about standing on the shoulders of giants, but for mentees to stand on them, the giants need to bend down. Sahil suggests great leaders need to “Stand tall. Bend down. Lift. Repeat.” Simple stuff. But how many people in your life do you remember doing that? Not many, probably. The world needs more leaders that do. Do you?
Resilience: meltdown.
In the era of AI, organisation design will increasingly be a huge challenge. Rishad Tobaccowala warns us that we need to prepare for the coming organisational meltdown. Enormous change is happening quickly, across the board (pun intended). He outlines 6 provocations about this, but two stuck out. One that “Jobs are a silly phase that work is going through”. Another that “before the end of the decade, the majority of your talent will be fractionalised and agentic – and many will sit outside your organisation”. Jobs and work are uncoupling, he says. And in this new frontier, jobs as containers of responsibilities, with tight descriptions and responsibilities, may no longer be fit for purpose. Something more fluid, and outcome-based, may be coming.
A thought for leaders: How are you rethinking your organisation design? Some are taking radical steps like merging IT and HR. A recent IBM study found that 75% of companies surveyed now have a Chief AI Officer. Are you rethinking people, processes, and cultural transformation? But also, are you rethinking your own path? How will your career evolve? How do the drivers of fractional, fluid and agentic affect your job or role? What could that help you do or achieve? The new tech is rolling over you; are you going to be a part of the steamroller, or the road?
Culture: not an experiment.
Scott Nolan, entrepreneur, CEO and ex-SpaceX employee, was recently interviewed about his time working at SpaceX. He joined as an intern in 2003. With 30 employees. It now employs over 22,000 people (vs NASA’s 35,559), it just IPO’ed raising $86 billion at a valuation of $1.77 trillion, minting over 4,400 employee millionaires, and birthing a trillionaire (briefly). Whatever you think of Elon, it’s impressive. Scott broke down his memory of day 1. On the employee handbook, at the top of page one, in bold lettering, was a single line that read “This is not a science experiment”. He went on to say that the cultural software that ran the company was cost-adjusted performance. Go quickly, and optimise the system to deliver the most performance for the lowest cost. That was the plan. That’s what they did. And it delivered incredible results.
A thought for leaders: Organisational culture can fall into the trap of a vague moral ambition or compass. Soft, generic, and sentimental. In reality, culture is the engine of an organisation. SpaceX were hiring engineers, rocket scientists, data analysts. All of whom were a particular type. They wanted to make things. Not to mess about. Or get mired in politics or bureaucracy. The signal from day one, page one was clear. This is not an experiment. You’re expected to make things happen. We will make things happen. A strong, authentic statement that understood its audience. Does your culture lay things out as clearly? What would your single line equivalent be?
Podcast: EP 70 – Confessions of a Guru: Part 3 – Can You Handle the Truth?
In this episode, Ian explores one of leadership’s hardest questions: are we really prepared to hear the truth?
Drawing on a client experience, he reflects on why organisations often say they value honesty, authenticity and change, but struggle when uncomfortable truths begin to surface. It’s a timely companion to this month’s themes of High Shoulders and Not an Experiment, reminding us that great coaching, strong cultures and meaningful change all begin with the courage to face reality.
A timely reminder that leadership isn’t about protecting comfort. It’s about creating the conditions where truth can be spoken, heard and acted upon.
You can listen to it here.
You can follow Flow Group on LinkedIn here.
Hope you enjoyed it, and please share your thoughts in the comments section below.
P.S. This month’s featured artist is Nuno Serrão. In All Islands are Mountains (featured above), Serrão focuses on the contrasts of Portugal’s transforming landscape, confronting the subtle unease that emerges during long journeys. In a time when everything is fast and direct, Serrão wonders if we are gradually losing the ability to recognise what we leave behind on the journey. Enjoy!
