Karl A L Smith

human knowledge belongs to the world

Executive Leadership

Why Do We Assume Organisations Need To See Everything?

Modern organisations are built around visibility. We monitor. We analyse. We track. We measure. We justify these activities as necessary for security, compliance, operations and customer service. But what if we’ve mistaken visibility for necessity? For decades, digital systems have…

Why Does Every Digital Interaction Leave a Trail?

Every time we interact online, a record is created. A login. A purchase. A search. A message. A click. Most of us accept this as a normal part of digital life. But why? Why should every interaction generate a permanent…

Why Is My Identity Stored Everywhere Except With Me?

Every few weeks another organisation asks me to prove who I am. My bank knows. My employer knows. My insurer knows. My airline knows. Government departments know. Countless websites know. The obvious question is: Why is my identity stored in…

Why Am I Expected to Trust Everyone?

Every person knows this feeling. You book a holiday. You open a bank account. You use a mobile app. You join a loyalty programme. You visit a website. Each interaction comes with an invisible transaction. Your information in exchange for…

Servant Leadership Experiments in Ways of Working Book

Servant Leadership is not just another fad in business its a critical component of successful adoption of Business Agility. The book covers experiences and anecdotes describing 15 years of implementing Servant Leadership in high pressure, results oriented work environments. It…

True Leaders grow up Emotionally

As leaders we often review our actions against our intent, sometimes we are assured we did the right thing, other times we accept we did not and more often than most people want to admit we bluff our way through and hope no one noticed (they always do).

Ego Ideas and the Failure of Design Thinking

Design Thinking is Not a Design Process for Designers it’s for Executives Like many great ideas that come along Design Thinking has been perverted into a one size fits all toolkit. The inception of Design Thinking as a light weight…