THE BLOG

Not-knowing is what fills the afternoon, and the research says the body objects to it more than to the bad outcome. Four ways people pay to make it stop, what each one costs, and the four moves that reduce the tax instead of disguising it.

These two roles get described as two rungs of one ladder. The research describes two different jobs, each made in a pairing with one particular person. Ten live adverts for the role, read and counted, agree on two things out of twenty.

What to go and get, where this role actually leads, and the two questions that decide whether one of them will work. With a free check that gives you four readings rather than a score, and printable pages to take into the conversation.

Two hundred and fourteen things arrived overnight, four of them say urgent and two of those are newsletters, and you are not reading any of it so much as deciding what each one will cost the person you support. Running an executive's inbox is one of the highest-trust tasks in any organisation and one of the least examined. Here is the research on what the glance costs, what urgent really encodes, how to triage, what delegated access does to trust, and how to write in somebody

Burnout does not always look like collapse. Mine answered emails, signed contracts and delivered on time. My own account of carrying too much for too long, with the research beside it: the pattern that keeps working, why the face is the expensive part, and what actually helped.

Forty minutes for a supplier review, a standing one-to-one that has not changed its agenda since March, and the one thing the year has to produce sitting in a Friday slot that has moved four times. The research on chief executive time use, meeting load, fragmented attention and the shape of the working day says an executive's week is where strategy gets decided. Here is what that means for the person who holds the diary, with an audit you can run in an afternoon and a tool th

In 2023 I published the advice everybody gives about meetings. Then I read the research. The brainstorm produces half the ideas, the slides do not matter, and the two levers that count are decided before anyone walks in.

Confidentiality, no peers, and being mistaken for the role: the loneliness is built into the job. The evidence says building a bigger network is the weakest lever available, and there is one relationship that actually helps.

The most famous decision fatigue study is probably measuring something other than decision fatigue, and the theory underneath it did not survive replication. Here is what did, and the three questions worth asking at ten past four.

Six things about impostor syndrome that get repeated constantly, including by people who mean well, and including at various points by me. Here is what the evidence actually says instead, and the one intervention with real support behind it.

Every assistant has a sentence they have been carrying. The research on how managers receive what they are told says where to say it, what shape to give it and when, and what the extra asks are doing to you in the meantime. A landing test, a three-line script with a builder, an expectations ledger, and the line.

A task list is the inaccurate description of your job, not the modest one. Three of the four kinds of work you do go missing every time you describe yourself. Here is how to put them back.

There is almost no peer-reviewed research showing that risk registers work. Not that the evidence is mixed. That there is barely any. Here is what the evidence does support, and what to run instead.

The meeting summary arrives at 6.02, accurate and missing the one thing that mattered. The research on generative AI at work covers which assistant and chief of staff tasks are exposed, who gained in the field experiments and where AI made people worse, how skills fade when a tool does them, when people trust a machine over a person, and the human work that remains, with a check that tells you whether to automate, augment or keep a piece of your work.

Most boundaries in this work do not break. They drift, one reasonable yes at a time, until the favour becomes the job. The research on role definitions, unwritten deals, job creep, assertiveness and consistency explains why the edges of a role sit in two heads, which negotiated deal quietly adds unpaid overtime, why dependable people are handed more and credited with less, and how to hold a line warmly and repair it when it slips.

Somebody without a title says the thing everyone has been circling, the room nods and moves on, and three weeks later a senior colleague says it and it happens. Influence without authority runs on rules most people have never been shown. The research on who a group follows, speaking up so it is heard, framing and timing an issue, persuasion with its real effect sizes, small wins and coalitions shows how people with no positional power move things.

A new executive, a bigger role or a restructure can ask you to change almost everything about how you work, and the question arrives on the train home: am I still me? The research on authenticity at work says feeling like yourself is partly a reading you can move, that adapting pays and also charges interest, and that the part of you that travels is your reasons rather than your methods. Here is what it found, and how to grow without losing yourself.

Close enough to know about the scan on Thursday, far enough to take the edge in the voice in front of six people. The research on the hedgehog dilemma at work covers why closeness and distance pull at once, what a workplace friendship gives and costs, what to share and when it backfires, the cheaper way to carry someone else's feelings, the rules for private information, and how trust forms at speed, with a check that reads where your three dials are set.

A demanding task really does lift a low mood, which is exactly why keeping busy makes such a comfortable hiding place. The research on avoidance, distraction, workaholism and busyness as a status symbol shows when stepping away from a feeling is wise, when it quietly costs you, and how to tell the difference, with a tool for the EA or Chief of Staff whose job rewards being endlessly useful.

Have you got a minute is never a minute. The research on venting says letting off steam does not let it out, that going round in circles with a colleague brings closeness and keeps the stress going, and that the listener's response decides whether talking leads to recovery. Here is what that means for the EA or Chief of Staff who is so often the person people bring things to, with a tool to tell whether a conversation is moving or circling.