We help leaders grow the capacity to contend with uncertainty & complexity.
Sapling Studio was created to provide a space to inquire and study how to lead and follow well in complex and uncertain times.
Connect strategy & leadership
Contending with uncertainty and complexity requires good leadership and strategy, and for that we need to go to basic principles: Trust and meaning.
These are not found in documents or structures, but rather in relationships that help us develop and honour our intent.
We are not a business school or a consultancy.
We are a studio.
We believe that leadership can be learned (and studied), but it cannot be taught theoretically or outsourced.
The most effective way to learn about leadership is to practice leading and following in groups, and reflect together to make sense of these experiences. Which is not easy when performance matters and time is a constraint.
That’s why we created a leadership studio. A space and an innovative approach in which one can observe and participate in leadership and followership in order to learn and transform.
Articles & Case Studies
Too often we see the problem as the person.
A few years ago I worked in an organisation where two key members of the senior executive team “wouldn’t talk” to each other. It seems cr...
Feb 22, 2024 / Read More
The forgotten question of strategic narrative: Who are we becoming?
A good enough strategy will have some basic elements.
Feb 19, 2024 / Read More
If not me then who? The opportunity to lead change is now.
About a year ago, I interviewed half a dozen independent federal candidates to the Australia parliament (most of them women) that were un...
Feb 13, 2024 / Read More
We were changing corporate history, but we were stuck.
In the early 2010s I worked on what our boss referred to at the time as the “biggest transformation of an Australian corporation.” The tr...
Feb 05, 2024 / Read More
Leading in an (Art)ificial World
It’s sometimes hard to find words when we encounter something new and unfamiliar. It takes work to give name to an experience if it doesn...
Aug 10, 2022 / Read More
When my dream job became virtual
Over the last decade I have been redesigning my life to do work that is meaningful to me. I did it by experiment. I tried many things, an...
Apr 18, 2020 / Read More
Making to think — a strategy style for the changing times.
Strategy is sometimes equated with something conceptual and separate to action. The language that describes it is full of cerebral words ...
Nov 26, 2015 / Read More
Strategic change is always personal
“What business are we actually in?” — I heard the CEO of a large manufacturing company ask this question of his team in the middle of a w...
Oct 14, 2015 / Read More