Why subscribe?
About
I spent years as a criminal investigator. I learned that when something goes wrong, the obvious explanation is usually wrong, the official story is usually incomplete, and the people closest to the problem usually know more than they’ve been asked.
Now I write about why work doesn’t work.
Training that doesn’t change behavior. Processes that look good on paper and collapse in practice. Transformations that get announced, celebrated, and quietly abandoned. Teams that know exactly what’s broken but can’t get anyone to listen. The gap between how things should work and how they actually do.
This publication is where I work that territory in public.
What I believe
Three things, repeated often enough that you’ll recognize them by the third post:
The system is working exactly as designed—just not for you. Workplace dysfunction isn’t accidental. It’s the predictable output of structures doing what they were built to do. If you don’t like the output, investigate the system.
Definitions matter. Most organizational conversations fail because the participants are solving for different problems under the same name. Shared language is the precondition for shared action. Skip it and you’ll spend a year fixing something that was never collectively defined.
Treatment without diagnosis is malpractice. Most workplace advice prescribes before it examines. This publication does the opposite. The diagnosis is the work.
Who it’s for
If you’ve ever sat in a meeting thinking what the fuck is happening?—you’re the reader.
More specifically: managers, operators, L&D leaders, internal consultants, founders whose orgs have outgrown them, and senior practitioners inside complex organizations. People with enough agency to act and enough proximity to the work to see what’s actually broken. People who are tired of frameworks that don’t survive contact with reality.
This isn’t for executives looking for a pep talk. It isn’t for thought leaders looking for the next buzzword. It’s for the people doing the work, who can see the gap, and who want sharper tools for naming and understanding it.
What you’ll get
Three kinds of posts, depending on what the moment calls for.
Diagnostics. Closer-read pieces that take a specific phenomenon—a survey, a corporate ritual, a piece of management orthodoxy, a news story—and unpack what’s actually happening underneath it. Less here’s my opinion, more let me show you what I see. These are the posts where I do the careful work: name the thing, examine it, propose what’s really going on.
Observations. Shorter, voice-forward pieces. Satirical riffs, absurdist takes on workplace rituals, the kind of writing that’s funny because it’s true. Not every dysfunction needs a 2,000-word investigation. Some of them just need to be named out loud, with the right amount of contempt.
Rants. Direct argumentative pieces about what’s wrong with the modern workplace. Sharp, opinionated, take-a-position writing. These are the posts where I stake a claim, invite disagreement, and try to give you language for what you’ve already been feeling but haven’t said yet.
Different registers, same worldview. All three are downstream of the same three convictions stated above: that systems produce what they’re built to produce, that definitions are the precondition for shared action, and that prescription without diagnosis is malpractice.
What you won’t get is a Monday-morning action list at the end of every post. Sometimes the diagnosis is the deliverable. Sometimes the observation is. Sometimes the rant is. The work of acting on any of it belongs to you, in your context, with your knowledge of your own organization.
Who I am
Former criminal investigator. Now a performance consultant working with enterprises on training, capability building, and customer education. I have an EdD, which means I’ve read the research; I have the field experience, which means I know when the research doesn’t survive contact with the floor.
I write here because the most interesting problems in my work don’t fit into a client engagement. They fit into the long form, the satirical jab, the argument I can’t make from inside the room. This is where I make them.
Subscribe if that sounds useful. Unsubscribe the moment it doesn’t.
Get full access to the newsletter and publication archives.
Stay up-to-date
Never miss an update—every new post is sent directly to your email inbox. For a spam-free, ad-free reading experience, plus audio and community features, get the Substack app.
