Friends,
I hope that all is well with you and yours, and that this e-mail finds you on a boat with shoddy connection, in the tropics, three months after I sent it.
In today’s premium-only newsletter, we answer the question whether adaptive strategy is difficult to use, and reveal more about the new book. Also, Nike’s DTC problems, the Fed’s desperate need for training in adaptive strategy, 2008-reminiscent signs in the US housing market, and why you should not trust companies that tell you to trust them.
Now accepting keynotes for 24Q4-25Q2
Every year for the last decade or so, I have created three main presentation decks. For 2025, however, I have (for the first time) added a fourth due to popular demand. They are:
What to Do When You Don’t Know What to Do: How to turn change into a competitive advantage. (Based on the new book by the same name.)
Pushing the Envelope: How to create and nurture an innovative organization.
Resilient Retail: How to survive and thrive in the modern marketplace.
The Unknowable Unknowns of Artificial Intelligence: How to manage a risk that is inherently undefinable.
If you want to book me for your event, corporate speaking slot, or workshop, merely send me an email. To make sure I am available, please do so at your earliest convenience; my availability is limited and the schedule tends to fill up fast. More information may be found here.
A couple of updates before we go-go
Midsummer with the family was lovely. Nothing more to say, really.
The concert with Tool was too. It is a genuine privilege to see Danny Carey play drums; a master, in the proper sense of thew word, of his craft. Utterly mesmerizing; the most impressive thing I have ever seen in music.
A couple of weeks ago, I noted that the Being Human podcast was going down the toilet, as it had moved on from proper guests to featuring an “angel intuitive” who helped people “hear and see” not merely angels but also “Buddha, Sai Baba, Mary, Plato, Thích Nhât Hanh” and “passed-over loved ones”. This week, they brought on a woman who spoke about “mastering the dreamscape” and “astral travel”. Oy vey.
I mean, sure, one should keep an open mind. But not every opinion is equally valid, particularly if it happens to be entirely incoherent to the known facts of the universe. The first question that the host ought to ask is what is more likely - that the laws of nature have been temporarily suspended in your favor, or that you are under a misapprehension?
Meanwhile, Steve is off giving a keynote in Fiji. I am not saying, I am just saying: if there is an organizer in the Maldives, Mauritius, or on Hawaii, I am literally just an email away.
Right here.
Just waiting by the keyboard.
Rrrrrrriiiiiiight heeere.
Anyway.
Moving on (in more ways than one).