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How Much Would It Take For You to Bring This Back from Overseas?

January 28th, 2026

[Picture: Showing approximately 30 items of paper, cardboard and plastic]

On a recent volunteering trip, I brought back the above recyclables from France. Would you have done the same, or would you have had to be paid to do so? If so, how much would you need to have been paid?

Pause for a moment to answer. If you like, you can select your amount by CLICKING HERE and then view what others have selected by CLICKING HERE.

By explaining the motivations behind my actions, this article will consider the concept of ‘wicked problems’ and the mindsets that can arise when facing them. It also aims to provide a useful perspective on crises.

Agency Being at the Root of a Crisis

My volunteering centred on assisting people who are seeking asylum from conflict and persecution. Such a situation often prompts me to consider the interplay between individual and collective responsibility. When is an issue an individual problem? When is it societal? Or is it invariably a mix of both?

As the waste bin at my lodgings started to fill up, I considered this interplay within the context of the environmental crisis. I use the word ‘crisis’ intentionally, as I find the word’s etymology helpful. Crisis stems from the Greek, ‘krisis’, which means, ‘turning point’, or ‘decision’. I find this meaning helpful when it comes to the damage humans are causing to the wider environment, as it signifies a degree of agency. We can decide to take a different turn, so our actions are more resonant with a sustainable future.

mch’s_ Four-Fold Approach and its Directors

mch’s ‘Four-Fold’ Approach to Business aims to give equal importance to the following four aspects: client service, our people, the environment and broader society. A practical application of this approach is that I used train, ferry and bike as my means of transport to and from volunteering, as these forms have the lowest carbon footprint.(1) For a business like mch, decisions relating to modes of transport are some of the most environmentally impactful it regularly has to make. Consequently, it makes sense to prioritise consideration of the environment in such decisions. However, I am not mch’s only Director. As mentioned previously, a Garibaldi fish and a wildflower meadow are also nominal Directors. For more information on these Directors CLICK HERE. Increasingly, they have advocated for prioritising the environment in other decisions. One of these is recycling.

In Calais, France, where I was volunteering, recycling locations for cans and bottles were ubiquitous. However, I couldn’t locate anywhere to recycle paper or plastic. Knowing that such options exist back home, I decided to keep all the recyclable paper and plastic that I was consuming and recycle it when I returned.

My decision to bring back my recyclable waste made me reflect on whether the decision was the most impactful. If recycling is important, would my time have been better spent writing to the local authorities in Calais asking them to expand their recycling provision? Alternatively, should my focus have been on not purchasing items with such packaging in the first place? Or should it have been on all of the above?

Mindsets, Wicked Problems and Clumsy Solutions

From my coaching work, I’ve become aware of the loaded nature of the word, ‘should’. If you take the view that we are composed of many ‘parts’ or ‘characters’, invariably the parts of ourselves that use the word, ‘should’, are not our best selves. The parts that use, ‘should’, often view the world from a perspective of fear, inadequacy and/or scarcity. I call these parts of myself my saboteurs, or alternatively my chimp.(2) Whilst their intent is positive, to the extent that their motivation is to keep me alive, they often inhibit my ability to thrive. In my case, they often surface when levels of ambiguity and complexity spike. They become appealing to listen to because they provide a (false) certainty/definitiveness with respect to my actions; what I should do.

If I recognise this, provided my saboteurs/chimp are not too strong, I can accept and be at peace with the fact that I am likely to be dealing with a ‘wicked problem’.(3) A wicked problem is one which has no definitive answer, no matter how much you analyse, experiment and reflect. The best you can hope for is a ‘clumsy solution’, one which comes from remaining playful and curious and experimenting with a variety of ‘semi-answers’. In my case, I’m comfortable with my decision. My fellow Directors, the Garibaldi fish and the wildflower meadow, are not the most talkative, but I generally get an intuitive sense they’re comfortable with the company’s actions too.

I’d be interested in your views though, so please do share what you’d do by clicking here and if you want to find out what others think, click here.

Footnotes and Signposts

(1) The term ‘carbon footprint’ was developed by two academics, William Rees and Mathis Wackernagel in the 1990s. Interestingly, it was popularised by the petrochemical company BP. I find it curious that a framework encouraging individual responsibility for environmental impact was promoted by a company whose core operations unavoidably have a massive impact on the environment.

(2) For more information on the concept of saboteurs and chimps I’d recommend the work of Sharzid Chamine and Steve Peters respectively.

(3) For an in-depth exploration of wicked problems and clumsy solutions click here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281357989_Wicked_problems_and_clumsy_solutions_The_role_of_leadership

Wicked Problems: How Values Both Create Tension and Offer a Way Forward

July 18th, 2023

I have written previously about the importance of values: both personal and organisational. Clarifying and prioritising values forms a key part of mch’s advanced leadership programmes such as its Source of Leadership. Their inclusion stems from the finding that clarity of values helps with decision making. The relevance to leadership becomes apparent if you subscribe to the following definition;

‘Leadership is about deciding what to do and then articulating the decision well to those who matter.’

Another key advocate of values is Brené Brown. In her book, Dare to Lead, she sets the challenge of not only identifying your values, but prioritising them, so that one value trumps all others. In my view, the importance of this exercise stems from the reality that life is messy. It’s uncertain, complex and often ambiguous. Consequently, situations can arise where upholding one value comes at the cost of not upholding another.

I’ve found prioritising my values a very difficult exercise: I started doing so in early 2021 and have yet to reach a consistent answer. In early 2023, I was reminded of the exercise and why it’s important. In early March, I was practicing my usual routine of yoga, exercises and a walk every morning, together with running three to four times a week and cycling once a week. By the end of March, I could barely walk 200m. My balance, strength and suppleness had disappeared. My fine motor skills were compromised, such that I could barely write or type. I had constant pins and needles in my hands and feet, which made sleep difficult. Furthermore, I didn’t know why any of this was happening.

To cut a long story short, towards the end of April, I was sitting across the table from a couple of neurologists at my local hospital. To try and diagnose the problem and thus (hopefully) develop a treatment plan, three tests were scheduled. The test with the longest wait could be done (quicker) privately, or through the publicly funded National Health Service (NHS). Done privately, the test would still be done in a public hospital and performed by a doctor who also worked for the NHS. Fortuitously, I had sufficient savings to afford a private test.

Cue a tension between two of my core values: health and equality. Going private was the obvious decision if I was to prioritise health. Being seen in weeks, rather than months would enable a quicker diagnosis, ending the uncertainty and allowing treatment to start sooner. However, if the specialist did not test me privately, it’s very unlikely that they would spend that time twiddling their thumbs. Instead, they would have more capacity for their NHS work. Thus, in my view, prioritising equality would mean choosing to wait along with most other patients. Given the limited number of specialists, it was hard not to conclude that accessing provision privately comes at the cost of increased waiting times for NHS patients. In the end, I waited and was seen on the NHS. I was comfortable living my value of equality, at the expense of health, by waiting a couple of months, rather than a couple of weeks. However, would I have been comfortable if the wait had been four months, or six months, or a year?

In my view, the scenario I faced is an example of a ‘wicked’ problem: one with no clear solution, regardless of the level of knowledge and expertise that can be brought to bear. With wicked problems there is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ answer and its often difficult to even classify options as better or worse than one another. In the event of ‘better’ options emerging, their status as ‘better’ can be very fleeting, as there are numerous competing variables and the significance of each is often continually changing. Wicked problems are invariably fluid. When the educationalist, Laurence J. Peter, was quoted as saying that;

‘Some problems are so complex that you have to be highly intelligent and well informed just to be undecided about them.’

I believe he was referring to wicked problems.

Some may say that wicked problems illustrate the limits to which values can help with decision making. On reflection though, once I’d received all the facts and expertise I could, I think values, together with my intuition, offered the only way to make decisions I was comfortable with. Furthermore, I believe another core value was underpinning my decision making and, in some ways, arbitrating the tension between my values of health and equality. That value is integrity. To me integrity is being honest and truthful to oneself. I like the researcher, Brené Brown’s definition of integrity;

‘Integrity is choosing courage over comfort …. it’s practicing your values, not just professing them.’

With my scenario, integrity provided clarity in relation to how I would discern ‘success’, when the ‘story’ which was my illness came to an end one way or another. Regardless of the diagnosis and subsequent impact on my life, success would be recalling the decisions I made and then being comfortable looking at myself in the mirror, because I’d been honest with myself about what was most important and I’d acted accordingly when each decision needed taking. Crucially, I believe integrity and its ‘signpost for success’, would have enabled me to be more at ease with changing my mind, if key variables, like waiting times, had changed significantly.

I hope you do not have to go through a similar experience to get clear on your values. Do you know your values though? Can you prioritise them? The following links can help identify your values:

https://www.mindtools.com/a5eygum/what-are-your-values

The above link asks you to consider times when you were happiest, proudest and most fulfilled. It also features a list of common values that you may find helpful to select from.

https://www.lifevaluesinventory.org/

This link allows you to take a free questionnaire designed to identify your values.

Having identified your values, I would encourage you to embark on Brené Brown’s challenge to identify your number one value. Considering scenarios that test one value against another is often an effective (albeit challenging) way to do so. In my case, perhaps integrity is a higher value to me than either health or equality. Or perhaps the relative importance of values is situational. I wonder what Brené Brown’s view would be on that?!

All the best with your journey.

Leadership Insights from My Sabbatical

May 11th, 2022

As part of my sabbatical I conducted some work shadowing and had the privilege of shadowing or conducting in depth interviews with:

• A dairy farmer
• A clinical psychologist
• The owner of a construction company
• A charity CEO
• A fundraising team of a national charity
• A CEO of a social enterprise
• A priest

I knew these people personally or professionally and consciously chose to shadow a diverse range of people and professions. The only qualification was that I considered each individual to be consistently successful in their roles (using an ad hoc mix of subjective and objective measures).

The motivation for the shadowing was a genuine interest in fundamental questions, such as:

• Why do people do what they do?
• What does it take to be consistently successful in a role?
• Are there any common characteristics in top performers, regardless of their role?

Here are just three of the insights I gained from the experience.

1. The Importance of Purpose

A trait shared by all I shadowed was that their purpose was bigger than themselves. For example, when I asked the dairy farmer why he did what he did, he responded;

“I’m part of a story …. to make organic farming mainstream.”

He went on to say;

“My role is to ensure that if a cow ever leaves my herd, they do so in the best possible health.”

Given the costs of organic dairy farming are often double non-organic farming, but you can rarely charge double the price at the point of sale, there is an explicit need for innovation and consistently high performance. Also, if you do your very best to ensure cows stay fit and healthy, they’re more likely to produce good yields of milk. Both these factors are likely to improve the financial bottom line. However, for the farmer I shadowed, the financial benefits genuinely seemed to be an ancillary benefit to his primary goals of promoting organic farming and taking care of his cattle.

2. Values as a Driver

In many cases I was struck by the clarity of values and the lengths some of the individuals would go to live by them. To illustrate, the clinical psychologist I interviewed had worked with victims/survivors of rape. She was appalled by how often they were poorly treated by the court system. What she was observing ran completely counter to her value of justice.

Her response? Whilst still holding down a full time job as a clinical psychologist, she spent several years completing a law degree on evenings and weekends. This enabled her to engage with the legal profession, to bring about much needed change, in ways that wouldn’t have been possible if she weren’t a lawyer herself. Values drove outcomes.

3. Balancing Enough with Constantly Striving

One of the CEOs I shadowed had led their organisation through a period of expansion. As a result, the organisation’s Board felt it appropriate to award them and their senior leadership team and salary increase, in recognition of their increased remit and responsibilities. While the CEO did not oppose the increase for their team, they did not accept their own salary increase. Instead, they requested that their increase was reinvested into the organisation. This request was actioned very discreetly.

For me, this was someone who had taken the time to reflect on what was enough for them financially and then lived within those parameters. While at a micro level, I believe it sets a very important example for society as a whole, if we are to have a sustainable future. I also think that this individual understood that while their salary prevents them from feeling unappreciated, it does not provide reliable ‘fuel’ for continually striving to improve.

More than anything, the successful people I shadowed were humble. They were very aware that they would never be the finished article as a leader/practitioner, but they were deeply, intrinsically motivated to continue on the journey of improvement.

Helping Us All by Addressing the Leadership Imbalance

May 1st, 2020

Recently, I attended a research event that explored the experiences and challenges women face in transitioning to senior leadership roles in fundraising. The title of the excellent research says it all:

‘Missing Out: Understanding the female leadership gap in fundraising’

Four issues struck me in relation to the current leadership imbalance, which I believe are relevant to almost all sectors, not just fundraising:

(i) Sexism

(ii) A Lack of confidence/Imposter syndrome

(iii) Short-termism and its impact on strategy and culture

(iv) Perspective: unrealistic expectations as to what is ‘enough‘

In this blog, I aim to elaborate on these four issues and highlight what can be done to address them.

Sexism

At times, being at the research event proved very uncomfortable for me, as a man. The stories shared about sexism were loathsome and the extent to which gender stereotyping takes place (75% of female fundraisers have faced gender stereotyping in their role) was deeply saddening.

What can be done? I have three suggestions:

Raise awareness amongst male leaders and trustees

Awareness of the problem is the first step to addressing it. I felt it was a shame that, at the launch event, which was attended by around 100 people, the number of men in the room was in single figures. Consequently, make it your goal to share the report with at least three male leaders you know.

Create opportunities for male leaders to be the ‘odd one out’

Privilege can be thought of as anything you take for granted. While I like to think that I have always been egalitarian, this value was sharpened during my role as Chief Executive of the Australian aboriginal organisation, Rumbalara. During my tenure, being on the receiving end of racism, sexism and ageism increased my appreciation of its impact. Furthermore, it was hugely valuable to simply experience what it’s like to be in the minority. It made me appreciate that being in the majority was something I had taken for granted.

Let’s be optimistic and postulate that the behaviour of some male leaders is down to ignorance, rather than malice. To address the ignorance, training in areas such as unconscious bias can be very helpful. However, I believe it would also be incredibly valuable if experiencing being the ‘odd one out’ became a standard part of any man’s induction into a leadership role. Such experience does not have to be as dramatic as being seconded to an aboriginal organisation on the other side of the world! There are numerous ways of surrounding yourself with people who are not like you. Simply going to events which are almost exclusively attended by women can be enough.

For leaders more broadly, spending time in institutions, societies or even pubs that have a very different social and economic demographic to the ones you usually frequent can be insightful. If possible, going to parts of your town/city where your skin colour puts you in a minority can have an equally powerful impact.

Measure It

A key aspect of high performing teams is what is termed ‘psychological safety’. An overview of this term can be found here. In short though, if you feel you have psychological safety in a group, you feel able to be candid and honest. You feel the team has a positive regard for you and is sensitive to your emotions. Equally, you have a positive regard for the team and are sensitive to the moods of others. A key characteristic of teams with ‘psychological safety’ is equal ‘air time’: no one consistently speaks more in meetings than anyone else.

Do your teams have equal air time? How can you find out? Technology can help. Apps like GenderAvenger can be used to analyse how much time men and women are talking for in a typical meeting. A consistent imbalance could open up a useful conversation.

Confidence and Imposter Syndrome

A lack of confidence and/or a sense of imposter syndrome were also raised at the research event. In my role as deliverer of The Institute of Fundraising’s Future Leaders Programme, this is something I see a lot (in both men and women). The Future Leaders Programme is designed to help those who have either just started a formal leadership position, or for those who are at a career crossroads and are asking themselves:

Do I want to take up a formal leadership position?

What does authentic leadership look like for me?

Find a Good Boss

How can a lack of confidence/imposter syndrome be addressed? In my experience, the most effective way is to ensure it doesn’t arise in the first place! I’ve observed hundreds of staff members who’ve caught the syndrome and hundreds who have not. While correlation does not always equal causation, the most common distinguishing feature of those without the ‘disease’, is that they have a great boss. Consequently, when applying for a role, be sure to interview your boss as much as they are interviewing you. Speak to those who are/have been managed by them. How effusive are they about working for them? A significant number of ‘lukewarm’ appraisals should be taken as a warning sign.

Find Yourself a Mentor or Coach

A detailed review of both mentoring and coaching is a blog post in itself, but an insight into both can be found by clicking here. Essentially, both can cultivate the new mind-sets and behaviours required to be more confident. A mentor does not have to be some sort of oracle; some of my most valuable mentors have been peers. While coaching can incur a cost, the impact of a good coach should repay such an investment many times over. The key to either is simply to ask and give it a go.

Become a Trustee

Becoming a trustee is an opportunity to take on a genuine, but collective, leadership role. In doing so, many realise how much they already know and how much value they can contribute in a leadership role. The experience also proves incredibly valuable if you decide to take up a permanent leadership role, as such roles are very likely to require significant Board engagement.

Short-termism and its impact on strategy and culture

It’s commonly cited that many senior leadership roles are incompatible with caring responsibilities, and more fundamentally, with a balanced life. The reluctance of many organisations to allow part-time, shared and flexible working is often cited as a leading cause of the problem. Currently, since women are more likely to take on caring responsibilities, they are most impacted by the relative scarcity of the above practices.

In my view, the conversation needs to change. Currently, it often focuses on the difficulties and challenges of implementing flexible working practices. Instead, let the facts speak for themselves. Not only does flexible working lead to happier, more loyal staff, it leads to more income. In short, if you want to maximise your organisation’s impact to its stakeholders and beneficiaries, then flexible working should be the default way in which you work.

However, I think a more fundamental change also needs to take place, one in which organisations deprioritise short term targets and reprioritise longer term aims. Consider the following thought experiment:

A charity is recruiting for a new Director of Fundraising. Having completed the final round of the interview process, two candidates have performed equally well. Candidate A is female, recently married and has stated that they would like to start a family soon. Candidate B is male, has two adult children and has had a vasectomy to prevent having any more children. I realise it’s unlikely that the recruitment panel would ascertain this information, but for the basis of this thought experiment, let’s assume they have!

If the charity’s sole measure of success for fundraising is whether it achieves its ambitious 18 month target, then based purely on the above facts and criteria, selecting Candidate B would be the rational choice. This is because, given everything else being equal, Candidate B has a lower risk of taking extended time off in the next 18 months. Given the prioritisation of a short-term target, the potential impact of such a risk is significant. I realise that if the charity made their recruitment decision on this basis, it would be acting unlawfully (based on UK employment legislation). Unfortunately though, in my experience, this thought experiment is often played out in real life; it’s just that assumptions replace facts.

However, if the charity’s measure of success for fundraising is to hire and retain exceptional people and see fundraising income grow over a 10 year period, then Candidate B loses his preferential status. In addition to being more egalitarian, this approach also avoids the dangers of short termism and excessive goal setting. While such dangers are well researched and documented, many leaders remain unaware of them. Therefore, such information needs to find its way into more Board meetings and interview panels. Consequently, set yourself the goal of sharing this research with at least two Boards you know.

Perspective: unrealistic expectations as to what is ‘enough’

The last issue is the most fundamental. I believe we need to recalibrate our individual and collective sense of what is ‘enough’. As a former Chair of a social enterprise, I always asked the CEO to work with the team to satisfy themselves (not me or the Board) that the strategy we had collectively developed was achievable in the time we’d set aside. I did not prescribe how this should be done, only that it was conducted and that ultimately the team was confident the strategy was achievable. Conducting such a ‘sanity check’ seemed like common sense: there’s no point in committing to a strategy that staff don’t have confidence in achieving. However, many people have commented on how rare it is to conduct such an exercise. Sadly, it’s all too common to hear a training participant, or someone I mentor, articulate being asked to achieve more and more challenging targets with fewer resources. At the same time, they have incredibly high expectations in their role as a parent, partner, friend, sibling, son or daughter. Consequently, they often feel overwhelmed and unhappy.

The root cause of this dynamic is the expectation that we can always and should always ‘have it all’. I believe such an expectation is both pernicious and unachievable. We need to be kinder to ourselves. ‘It’s OK to be not OK’ and ‘done is often better than perfect’ are mantras I’d like us all be comfortable embracing. In my view, learning to have a genuine appreciation for having ‘enough’, rather than ‘it all’, is not a sign of defeat, but the way to sustainable contentment and success.