The Unified Business Field Theory

If you've read my articles on systems, frameworks, and diagnoses, you might have a picture of me: the detached critic, the blueprint architect. You wouldn't be entirely wrong. My passion is for building rational, high-integrity systems.

But you might also have felt a distance. That the models, for all their utility, felt like a critique of you and your team's reality. That is my failure of communication, not your failure of understanding.

So, let me be clear about what I believe, starting with the most important part: I too, am wrong. I have built flawed systems. I have misapplied what later became core principles of mine. The frameworks I write about are not monuments to my correctness; they are my evolving toolkit for fixing problems, including as antidotes to mistakes I have made or participated in.

No tool, however sharp or well-intentioned, is worth anything without trust. So, before another diagram, here’s what I believe:

1. I believe in well-calibrated tools. The frameworks I write about—the Theatre of Progress, the Bridge and Buck, Stigmergy—are not commandments, but diagnostic lenses. They exist to solve one universal human pain: the exhaustion of working hard in a system that fights your progress.
2. I believe the highest-leverage work a leader can do is to design an environment where doing the right thing for the customer, the company, and the colleague is the same action.
3. I believe ultimately in the value of the quality result we build together, not being personally vindicated. I am here to solve the problem, not to win the argument. I am comfortable being wrong. I have been overruled and, upon seeing the data, changed my mind.
4. I believe I am fallible, and still growing. I do not always have the definitive ‘right answer.’ I will continue to grow, just as you will. I will continue to learn; from those around me, from my experience, and from the successes and failures my work creates. I will continue to write more articles and methods documenting these. Solving problems will never end, and I will keep documenting my methods of doing so as I uncover them.

This note is an invitation to see the intent behind the jargon. Not as a unified theory, but as a shared language, offered in the spirit of solving one universal problem: the exhaustion of doing good work in a system that works against you.

A Note on my Writing Style

My articles are intentionally dense, metaphorical, diagnostic, and often contrarian; I do know this style can feel alienating. They intentionally use isolationism—diagnosing a professional pathology in a vacuum—as a rhetorical device. This is for clarity of solution, not a denial of your reality. If you see yourself or a colleague in a “Faux Executive” or a “Hostile Habitat,” it is not a condemnation. It is an invitation to examine the system that encourages those traits. People are rarely one-dimensional; systems often are.

My writing is an expression of my core values: a belief in rational systems, a defence of empiricism, and a conviction that we can build organizations where integrity is designed-in, not heroically summoned.

This approach, I realize, can create distance. It can make me seem like an external critic diagnosing a patient from behind glass. That perception is the elephant in the room, and it is one I must address directly.

The Criticisms Are Reasonable (But Here Is What They Miss)

As my writing circulates, several criticisms reliably surface. These are not individual misunderstandings, but are honest reactions to the real friction that occurs when abstract principles meet complex reality. If we’re to build something better, we need to stare at these tensions together, not as my flaw versus your view, but as design parameters for our work.

Between Precision & Accessibility

The Tension: Specialized language creates an in-group and an out-group.Terms like ‘Stigmergy’ or ‘Variance Trap’ can feel like academic gatekeeping. When you’re in the daily grind, it’s like being handed a linguistics textbook when you asked for a wrench.

Navigating It Together: I use precise language because vague terms are the currency of misalignment. We cannot diagnose a systemic pathology with the same clichés that built it. My goal is to provide specific, surgically targeted critiques and evaluations of systemic failures. Once shared, this vocabulary allows us to pinpoint failure and fix it permanently. The first challenge to solve together is building a shared, precise vocabulary that describes our system’s ailments without becoming its own barrier.

Between Systems & People

The Tension: Diagrams of “Input-Output Architecture” and a solely rational actor model can feel cold, as if reducing passionate teams to cogs. It risks erasing the loyalty and spirit that actually make work meaningful. This abstraction is necessary to see the pattern, but it is dangerous if mistaken for the whole truth.

Navigating It Together: In some ways this is paradoxical. I believe the only way to honor and protect human potential is to ruthlessly examine the system that contains it. A bad system will burn out the best people. It is intentional that I do not have models analysing the individuals within a system: people are far too complex, nuanced, and multi-dimensional for the type of sweeping systemic patterns I diagnose broadly, and this nuance is foundationally important. The systems within an organization should serve the human and the business simultaneously, not the business at the expense of the human. Our joint task is to ensure the system we design channels human energy into creation, not survival.

Between Renovation & Demolition

The Tension: Diagnostic labels like 'Faux-Executive' and the clinical tone can make this feel like a blueprint for a purge, first by diagnosing the diseased tissue, then removing it. For those who have succeeded within the current rules, this work can feel like a direct threat to their professional identity.

Navigating It Together: This is the heaviest tension to hold. My target is never the person; it is the protocol that rewards them. However, I am an architect, not a therapist. When a structure is unsound and renovation necessary; there is inevitably some disruption. Some roles will change, and this will be difficult for some people. Our shared responsibility is to ensure the rationale is transparent (the "Change Ambition Audit"), the transition is acute not chronic (the "Cut-Off Moment"), and the new foundation is stable enough to deserve the talent that builds upon it. The goal is professionalizing the system, not purging people.

Between Principle & Prescription

The Tension: I write principles, not playbooks. Frameworks like the "Law of Change Proportionality" can be mistaken for rigid blueprints, seeming to ignore our unique history, culture, and magic. None of my work is a finished blueprint, but they are possible tools to call upon.

Navigating It Together: I provide the periodic table, not the recipe. The foundational "elements" of trust, transparency, proportionality, and feedback are universal. The compound, however, our unique system of shared values or a company’s unique culture, are ours to design together. My role is to help us see why our current compound is unstable and what reactions might create resilience. The "magic" is what we create within the bounds of a coherent system. Chaos is not a culture; it is the raw material from which culture is deliberately formed.

Between Transparency & Trust

The Tension: “Click-to-audit” data and radical transparency can feel like a panopticon; a tool for high-resolution blame rather than empowerment. The "Single Source of Truth" can become the "Single Source of Fear," and metrics without true understanding can be their own source of fragility.

Navigating It Together: Transparency without psychological safety is indeed weaponized anxiety. The covenant we must build is this: data is for debugging the system, not judging the person. The “click-to-audit” feature is a promise—if a metric feels wrong, you have the right and tool to trace its lineage. It transfers power from the interpreter of reports to the collective understanding of reality. The goal is to collectively submit the system to scrutiny.

The Work Is In The Tension

The criticisms of my work are fair. It can feel academic, reductionist, or disruptive. Here’s what I ask: what if that tension is necessary?

Imagine a bridge. The cables pull against each other to create stability. My frameworks are those cables—principles like transparency, proportionality, and clear feedback. They create healthy tension against the forces of chaos, ambiguity, and misalignment.

This isn’t my theory replacing your culture. It’s providing structural integrity so your culture can thrive safely. I’m not here to give you a philosophy. I’m here to be your architect-for-hire, helping you fit the scaffolding so the building you want—clearer, fairer, more resilient—can stand on its own.

My loyalty isn't to the scaffolding. It's to the building. And I'm comfortable getting my hands dirty, revising the plans, and learning from what we build together.

The Elephant in the Room

You do not have to like me. We do have to figure out how to work together. My loyalty is to the quality of the end result, not to being personally vindicated. I am comfortable being wrong. I submit my work for anonymous QA. I have been overruled and, upon seeing the data, changed my mind.

But I am also persistent. At various points in my career I have spent 17 weeks running entering the same room each Monday to defend a single employee from a bad metric because it was the right thing to do. I have walked into war rooms as the most junior leader and been handed the marker because I could synthesize the chaos and implement the solutions alongside the CTO. I have simultaneously waded through balance sheets of prestigious institutions trying to avoid insolvency and spent an entire day doing the laundry in a hotel I managed because I forgot to schedule housekeeping staff. Yes, I have solved problems across industries, but I absolutely and vehemently reject any mythology of infallibility. I am not successful because I alone have the best ideas, but because I am exceedingly capable of honest reflection, deep all-defining pragmatism, and continuous evolution. My commitment is to the integrity of the system we’re building, and I will not be moved by obscurity or obfuscation. In my life as a consultant, I have navigated nearly every form of resistance. Polite deflection, data fog, political gatekeeping, outright hostility, and everything in between. These are not new obstacles, they are simply signals that someone fears the loss of something a broken system granted them. My role is to prove that a better system offers something more valuable: genuine impact, sustainable growth, and the quiet pride of work that makes sense.

I am not going anywhere until the job is done. And the job is never “implement my model.” The job is “alongside you, build an organization that is clearer, fairer, smarter, and more resilient than the one we have today.”

The frameworks are the reusable, calibrated scaffolding. The 'Bridge and Buck' is the load-bearing design. The 'Law of Change Proportionality' is the safety audit, but the building is yours. My value is in helping you fit them together so the structure stands long after the scaffolding is gone.

This article is likely one of the few that will remain ‘alive.’ My philosophy will evolve, as will my expertise and experience. I will come back to this to add criticisms that I receive to the list and to share my perspective.