Fiona McSheehy

But fixes designed in isolation can create delays for other teams, undermine consistency or governance, and hide wider costs. Before acting, McSheehy asks: how does this support the organisation's overall purpose, what dependencies does it create or disrupt, what precedent does it set, and what unintended consequences might it create elsewhere?

Transport booking systems redesigned for an emergency response that then disrupted longer-term programmes; local procurement or staffing arrangements that solved one problem while creating governance, equity or operational problems elsewhere.

The piece argues for deliberate assumption testing, early involvement of the right stakeholders, and explaining how a local decision connects to a wider direction.

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Overlap is often assumed to create resilience, but under pressure it can do the opposite: decisions slow and nobody owns the outcome.

• McSheehy's answer is to define purpose, interfaces, decision rights and collective accountability so people can work with them.
• They also warn against redesigning everything at once, favouring the most critical overlaps first, then testing and adjusting.
• People, they note, can become attached to roles and ways of working that no longer serve the organisation.

Large emergency responses where teams from inside and outside an affected country were deployed rapidly, all with good intentions and capable people, until duplication and blurred responsibility made accountability harder to pin down.

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In McSheehy's account, information depersonalises difficult decisions: conversations shift from defending positions to solving problems, resistance becomes easier to address, and leaders can explain why they chose a path and what would show it needs to change. They ask what has been tried before, what worked, what failed and why, and which assumptions might be wrong.

During the outbreak of civil war in South Sudan, the expectation was to establish direct programming, as would normally happen in an emergency.

• But other agencies already had capacity to deliver directly, while McSheehy's organisation had an established logistics pipeline that could bring emergency supplies into the country faster than others.
• The decision was not universally welcomed at the time.

McSheehy says information does not remove uncertainty or replace judgement: leaders still decide without perfect information. But it gives them a stronger basis for explaining the choice and the indicators that would prompt a change of course.

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In high-pressure operations, reach, complexity, staffing and financial responsibility grow before systems and structures exist.

• McSheehy argues this is not necessarily a planning failure; the danger is denying the gap.
• Growth puts pressure on decision-making, communication, governance, finance, oversight and people.
• Staff usually feel the strain before systems visibly fail, through rising confusion, blurred roles, multiplying workarounds and fragmented communication.
• McSheehy asks what must be standardised immediately, what can stay flexible, which short-term risks are manageable, and which temporary measures are acceptable until stronger systems arrive.

Finance directors managing a USD 5 million portfolio of multi-year programmes finding themselves managing USD 50 million of short-term projects; office managers supporting 20 staff suddenly arranging accommodation, transport, office space and logistics for another 30 to 40 people, as budgets doubled, tripled or quadrupled in a short period.

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Those closest to delivery see bottlenecks, the informal relationships that make a system function, dependencies other teams rely on, and small changes with large unintended consequences.

• McSheehy draws a clear line: co-creation does not mean surrendering leadership responsibility.
• Leaders still set direction and make decisions people disagree with; involving people does not give everyone a veto.
• The distinction is between consulting people about a decision already made and involving them early enough to influence how it will work.

A new online procurement and supply-chain process that looks efficient on paper but fails immediately where internet connectivity is unreliable; systems built for long-term development programmes that do not retrofit cleanly to fast-moving humanitarian responses.

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Roles rarely capture the full range of what people bring; once structures harden, those capabilities become invisible. McSheehy argues leaders should make them visible and deploy people by strengths, experience and potential impact rather than title alone, while keeping expectations explicit, managing workloads and respecting formal responsibilities.

During emergency responses, McSheehy found logistics staff with finance experience, programme managers with construction backgrounds, administrative staff with critical IT skills, and staff who spoke less common languages that suddenly became central to negotiations.

McSheehy advocates using structure intelligently rather than bypassing it: formal responsibilities still have to be honoured, and the approach depends on trust, clarity and accountability.

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McSheehy treats it as a challenge of leadership discipline: assumptions break down quickly, and norms around hierarchy, decision-making and accountability vary even within a single organisation. Their answer is not to smooth out difference but to create enough clarity, consistency and fairness for difference to coexist productively, with everyone understanding what success looks like, how decisions are made and which standards apply regardless of role, background or location.

A career leading large teams across different cultures, disciplines and professional backgrounds, where what felt obvious to one person was unfamiliar or uncomfortable to another and shared standards had to be made explicit.

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Start here if you want the single clearest demonstration of the judgment behind the rest of the posts.

This is the most concrete piece in the set because it walks through an actual decision rather than a principle.

• During the outbreak of civil war in South Sudan, Fiona writes, the expectation inside the organisation was that it would set up its own direct programming, as it normally would in an emergency.
• Other agencies already had the capacity to deliver directly, while Fiona’s organisation had an established logistics pipeline that could move emergency supplies into the country faster than anyone else.
• The decision to play to that strength instead of building parallel programming was not universally welcomed at the time, but Fiona says it proved right.
• The post generalises from the example: evidence does not remove judgment or uncertainty; it depersonalises difficult conversations, shifting people from defending positions to solving problems.
• The writing stays close to what was decided and why, which makes the argument land.

For brands planning a campaign

Strongest candidate for a thought-leadership piece or panel on decision-making under uncertainty: the South Sudan example gives an editor a specific, self-contained case, and Fiona can speak to the counterintuitive choice not to do the obvious thing.

Read this first if you want the core argument that connects most of the other posts.

The post starts from an ordinary observation and makes it uncomfortable: local change is where urgency sits, because the teams closest to the work spot duplication and friction first.

• The risk comes when those local fixes are designed in isolation.
• Fiona gives two examples: transport booking systems redesigned around a single emergency response that then disrupted longer-term programmes, and local procurement or staffing arrangements that solved one problem while creating governance, equity or operational challenges elsewhere.
• The sharpest line is the paradox: the more effective a local solution appears, the harder its wider consequences are to recognise.
• The post ends with questions leaders should ask before acting, turning the argument into something readers can apply.

For brands planning a campaign

Useful for content aimed at change leaders in large or federated organisations; the local-versus-system tension is an easy hook for a co-authored article, webinar or diagnostic tool.

Open this if you want a practical view of why collaboration can quietly erode ownership.

Fiona describes large emergency responses where teams are deployed rapidly from inside and outside the affected country.

• The friction that follows, they argue, is not about capability or commitment but overlapping responsibilities.
• They have worked where several capable teams were responsible for closely related work; over time, duplication crept in, responsibilities blurred and accountability became harder to pin down.
• The counterintuitive claim is that overlap is often assumed to create resilience, but under pressure it can do the opposite.
• The answer is not redrawing an org chart but creating clarity people can work with: purpose, interfaces, decision rights and collective accountability.
• Fiona also names the human dimension—people become attached to roles and ways of working that no longer serve the organisation—and recommends prioritising the most critical overlaps rather than redesigning everything at once.

For brands planning a campaign

Good source material for consulting content on operating models, matrix structures or role clarity; the concrete failure mode—overlap looks like resilience until pressure hits—is a usable argument for a client-facing piece.

Best starting point for a reader assessing expertise in rapid growth and operational strain.

The post draws on specific numbers from emergency responses Fiona led, making it unusually tangible.

• Finance directors managing a USD 5 million portfolio of multi-year programmes could find themselves managing USD 50 million of short-term projects; office managers supporting 20 staff could suddenly be arranging accommodation, transport, office space and logistics for an additional 30 to 40 people.
• Budgets could double, triple or quadruple in a short period.
• The argument is that scaling before systems are ready is often unavoidable in high-pressure environments; the real risk is pretending the gap does not exist.
• Growth pressures decision-making, communication, governance, finance, oversight and people.
• Staff usually feel the strain before systems visibly fail: confusion rises, roles blur and workarounds multiply.

For brands planning a campaign

The most quotable piece for a campaign on scaling and operational readiness; the concrete budget and headcount figures give an editor real texture rather than generic growth talk.

Read this for a position on co-creation, consultation and leadership authority.

Fiona describes a familiar pattern: strategies, systems and structures are designed first, and the people expected to make them work are brought in afterwards.

• The examples are operational and specific: systems built for long-term development programmes do not retrofit cleanly to fast-moving humanitarian responses, and a new online procurement and supply-chain process can look efficient on paper but fail immediately where internet connectivity is unreliable.
• The people closest to delivery can see bottlenecks, informal relationships that make the system function, and small changes with large unintended consequences.
• Fiona draws a clear line: co-creation is not consensus; leaders still set direction and make difficult choices, and involvement does not mean everyone gets a veto.
• The distinction that matters is between consulting people about a decision already made and involving them early enough to shape how it works.

For brands planning a campaign

Suited to a campaign on change communication or employee engagement; the distinction between co-creation and veto gives a clear, defensible angle for a workshop or article.

A useful entry point for readers interested in capability, development and deployment rather than structure.

The post opens with a tension organisations recognise: they talk about talent gaps while underusing the talent they already have.

• Fiona’s examples come from emergency responses where structures could not flex quickly.
• They found logistics staff with finance experience, programme managers with construction backgrounds, administrative staff with critical IT skills, and staff who spoke less common languages that suddenly became critical to negotiations—capabilities invisible on the organisational chart.
• The argument is that roles rarely capture the full range of what people can do, and effective leadership means making those capabilities visible and deploying people by strengths and potential impact rather than job title alone.
• Fiona is clear about the guardrails: expectations must be explicit, workloads managed and formal responsibilities cannot simply be ignored.

For brands planning a campaign

Fits a campaign on talent strategy or workforce agility; the concrete examples—logistics staff with finance experience and language skills becoming critical—give a content partner vivid, non-abstract material.

Start here if the reader's interest is culture, inclusion or leading across geographies.

McSheehy reframes multicultural leadership as a discipline, not simply a matter of communication or cultural awareness.

• Drawing on a career leading teams across different cultures, disciplines and professional backgrounds, they argue that assumptions break down quickly when those backgrounds mix: what feels obvious to one person may be unfamiliar or uncomfortable to another, and norms around hierarchy, decision-making and accountability vary even within a single organisation.
• The answer is not to smooth out difference but to create enough clarity, consistency and fairness for differences to coexist productively.
• McSheehy sums up the approach in three priorities: purpose matters more than process, behaviour matters more than personality, and consistency matters more than style.
• This is the most values-driven post in the set, with fewer named examples than the others.

For brands planning a campaign

Best suited to content on inclusive leadership or global team management; the three-line priority statement is a clean, quotable anchor for social or event material.

The risk is designing changes in isolation.

• They describe transport booking systems redesigned for an emergency response that disrupted longer-term programmes, and local procurement or staffing arrangements that solved one problem while creating governance, equity or operational problems elsewhere.
• The more effective a local fix looks, the harder its wider costs can be to see.

Before acting, McSheehy asks how a change supports the organisation's overall purpose, what dependencies it creates or disrupts, what precedent it sets beyond the team and what unintended consequences it might create elsewhere.

For brands planning a campaign

Useful for advisory or thought leadership on change governance and operating models, showing how local initiatives connect to wider organisational direction rather than becoming standalone fixes.

Examples: Source 1

They argue the answer is not to redraw the organisational chart but to create clarity people can work with: purpose, interfaces, decision rights and collective accountability. They also advise against redesigning everything at once, recommending that leaders address the most critical overlaps first, then test and adjust.

For brands planning a campaign

Relevant to consulting on matrix organisations, operating models and role design, with a concrete way to discuss the trade-off between collaboration and accountability.

Examples: Source 1

During the outbreak of civil war in South Sudan, the expectation was to establish direct programming, but the evidence pointed to using an established logistics pipeline to bring emergency supplies into the country faster than other agencies could.

• The decision was not universally welcomed at the time.
• They say grounding change in evidence shifts conversations from defending positions to solving problems, and helps leaders explain why they chose a path and what would show it needs to change.

Asks what has been tried before, what worked, what failed and why, and which assumptions might be wrong.

McSheehy is explicit that evidence strengthens judgement rather than replacing it, and that leaders still have to decide without perfect information.

For brands planning a campaign

Supports advisory or thought leadership on decision quality, assumption testing and change governance, with a clear position: evidence is a leadership tool, not a guarantee of outcomes.

Examples: Source 1

Finance directors managing a USD 5 million multi-year portfolio could find themselves managing USD 50 million of short-term projects; office managers supporting 20 staff could be arranging accommodation, transport and logistics for 30 to 40 more people.

• They argue that scaling before systems are ready is often unavoidable; the real risk is pretending the gap does not exist.
• People usually feel the strain before systems visibly fail, through confusion, blurred roles and multiplying workarounds.

Asks what needs standardising immediately, what can stay flexible, which short-term risks are manageable and which temporary measures are acceptable until stronger systems exist.

For brands planning a campaign

Directly relevant to consulting on scaling, operating models and finance or operational resilience in fast-growing organisations, including public services and scale-ups as well as humanitarian operations.

Examples: Source 1

They treat it instead as a leadership discipline.

• Norms around hierarchy, decision-making and accountability vary widely, even inside a single organisation, so leaders need enough clarity, consistency and fairness for differences to coexist productively.
• Their shorthand: purpose matters more than process, behaviour more than personality, and consistency more than style.

For brands planning a campaign

Gives a firm a clear angle on global team leadership and inclusion, grounded in operating discipline and clear standards rather than generic culture messaging.

Examples: Source 1

In stretched emergency environments, they found logistics staff with finance experience, programme managers with construction backgrounds, administrative staff with critical IT skills, and speakers of less common languages who became central to negotiations. They argue leaders should make those capabilities visible and deploy people by strengths, experience and potential impact rather than role title alone, while keeping expectations explicit and workloads managed.

McSheehy frames this as using structure intelligently, not bypassing it; formal responsibilities still have to be respected.

For brands planning a campaign

Useful for talent, workforce planning and capability content, especially when making the case for skills-based deployment during rapid change or capacity strain.

Examples: Source 1

People closest to delivery see bottlenecks, the informal relationships that keep systems functioning, dependencies other teams rely on, and small changes with large unintended consequences. They distinguish consulting people after a decision has been made from involving them early enough to shape how it will work.

Brings delivery teams in early to improve solutions, surface risks and build ownership, while leaving direction-setting and difficult choices to leaders.

McSheehy states that co-creation is not the same as consensus and that involvement does not give everyone a veto.

For brands planning a campaign

Strong basis for thought leadership on change implementation, employee engagement and operating-model design, with a practical distinction between late consultation and early involvement.

Examples: Source 1

They argue that a functional structure creates accountability, but the outcomes that matter commercially — qualified pipeline, complex deals, customer onboarding, account expansion — depend on work crossing several teams.

• Each function can perform reasonably well while the end-to-end process still performs badly.
• McSheehy's account of overlapping teams, blurred responsibility and accountability that's hard to pin down is the same diagnosis in different language.
• Both call for purpose, ownership and clear interfaces rather than a redrawn chart.

Presicci's material is rooted in revenue, sales leadership and where AI agents should sit inside execution, organised around frameworks and competency models the reader can request. McSheehy's work comes from humanitarian and emergency operations and stays closer to first-person judgement under pressure, with fewer formal models.

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McSheehy's warning that a well-intentioned local fix can create costs elsewhere applies the same idea to change rather than reporting. Both write to prompt better decisions, not better presentation.

Jagger's subject is corporate real estate, workplace strategy and ESG reporting under the revised European standards, and the posts are shorter, led by direct questions to the reader. McSheehy writes long-form change and scaling analysis built from field operations, with a named example carried through the argument.

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Gilmurray also writes long-form analysis of organisational effectiveness, argues that leaders should judge what should no longer exist rather than what is easiest to count, and tests a proposed change against efficiency, resilience and value together instead of cost alone. Both use named cross-sector examples to make an abstract point concrete and close with questions readers can apply to their own organisations.

Gilmurray's angle is strategic subtraction and AI-era transformation, supported by research references, a published guide on strategic intelligence and a weekly newsletter. McSheehy's focus is change and scaling, illustrated by first-person operational examples from emergency responses rather than external studies.

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Presicci's two posts stay within the go-to-market function: they argue that managing only through functions leaves end-to-end outcomes unowned, map three to five GTM processes from outcome to owner to task to hand-off, and decide which tasks stay human-led, which an AI agent can run within clear boundaries, and which work best as a shared system.

• Presicci has also set out an eight-area sales leadership competency model, offered as a one-pager and a longer guide.
• A firm whose clients are sales, enablement and revenue-operations leaders, and whose angle is redesigning commercial work around AI agents, would get a more directly usable framework from Presicci than from McSheehy.

The scope is narrower and the format more prescribed.

• Fiona McSheehy's posts do not cover organisation-wide change governance, matrix accountability or scaling public-sector or humanitarian operations—the areas their examples address.
• Their posts also carry direct commercial calls to action: a webinar registration and an offer to send the competency one-pager.
• A collaboration would read as co-marketing around a proprietary model rather than as an independent expert voice.
• Where they offer a first-person decision narrative with figures, they offer a method and a gated asset.

Examples: Source 1 · Source 2

Jagger's two posts work the same evidence-first seam as McSheehy's, but in a property and ESG setting: they ask which ESG priorities buildings and workplaces can meaningfully influence, what evidence is already collected across a portfolio, and where ownership, measurement or action is missing.

• They frame the revised European Sustainability Reporting Standards as a prompt for better decisions rather than a publishing exercise.
• A firm advising on healthy buildings, portfolio strategy or ESRS readiness would find Jagger's subject matter closer to a campaign aimed at those clients than McSheehy's change-and-scaling material.

This is a domain trade, not a like-for-like swap.

• McSheehy's posts say nothing about scaling operations, overlapping teams or change leadership, so a firm focused on how an organisation changes would lose the operational case detail they provide.
• Both posts promote a named proprietary approach—the GROW ESG Alignment method at a named consultancy—so a collaboration would look more like co-marketing a productised service than independent commentary.

Examples: Source 1 · Source 2

Gilmurray's strategic subtraction piece runs a triple test—efficiency, resilience and prominence—then sets out six ways to subtract, with named examples (IKEA's printed catalogue, Zipline's medical drone deliveries in Rwanda, Estonia's once-only data principle, AWS abstractions) and a reference list of published research.

• It argues that cutting starts with budgets while subtraction starts with work, the same underlying point as McSheehy's warning that a local fix can create costs elsewhere.
• Gilmurray also publishes a book, a newsletter and a podcast, so formats beyond a co-authored article are already established.
• The subject—what work no longer deserves the organisation's capacity—sits directly beside a campaign about scaling.

McSheehy's material is more prescriptive and framework-led, with an explicit commercial tail: the article closes on a paid book, a free two-chapter preview, a subscription newsletter and an audio show.

• A collaboration would sit alongside a product funnel.
• They argue from published research and third-party company examples rather than from having run the operations described—the mirror image of their trade-off: they bring first-hand decision detail but no published book or multi-format library.

Examples: Source 1