Selected Articles
Experiences & observations
A collection of articles drawn from my career, everyday encounters and life beyond work — and what they’ve taught me about people, service and the workplace.
Customer & Value
People & Leadership
People & Leadership
Three Decades, Countless lessons. Lasting Value
The FM Skills Gap: Retain Expertise. Develop Capability.
Some of the Most Valuable Conversations Happen Over Lunch
What creates lasting customer value — understanding what matters, listening carefully and focusing on outcomes rather than simply delivering the contract.
Why closing the FM skills gap isn't just about recruitment — it's about retaining expertise, transferring knowledge and developing broader capability.
Making time for informal conversations can create the space for insights, ideas and discussions that might otherwise never happen.
Beyond the Workplace
People & Leadership
Beyond the Workplace
What Travelling by Bike Has Taught Me About Curiosity
Some of the Best Insights Aren’t in the Reports
Field Notes: What Everyday Experiences Can Teach Us
Slowing down and experiencing places differently can change what we notice — and influence the thinking we bring back to work.
The earliest warnings and opportunities rarely start in a report. Being visible and making time for informal conversations can reveal what the numbers miss.
From transport and hospitality to the smallest service interactions, everyday encounters can reveal a surprising amount about customer experience, operations and value.
FM & Operations
Customer & Value
Beyond the Workplace
What is Facilities Management?
Walk the Journey, Not the Building
I've never been so well informed...
Explaining FM to a five-year-old was surprisingly simple. Explaining the full breadth of a profession that touches almost every part of working life is rather harder.
When the measures said the service was performing well but the customer said otherwise, walking their journey revealed what the usual checks had missed.
Everything I needed was there. I just had to remember to go looking for it. A reflection on dashboards, communication and customer confidence.
People & Leadership
People & Leadership
FM & Operations
What Am I Missing?
Are We Preparing First Aiders For Everyone?
When Good Technology Fails
When someone’s reaction seems out of character, it can be easy to make assumptions. Sometimes stopping and looking again reveals what we’ve missed.
Women are less likely than men to receive bystander CPR. It made me question whether workplace first-aid training really prepares us for everyone.
A digital reception pilot was technically sound but failed in practice. A reminder that good solutions only work when they work for the people around them.
Customer & Value
Customer & Value
Customer & Value
The Watermelon Effect
Sometimes More Choice Gives People Less of a Voice
Are We Asking The Right People
When someone’s reaction seems out of character, it can be easy to make assumptions. Sometimes stopping and looking again reveals what we’ve missed.
Giving people a voice doesn’t have to mean giving them a blank canvas. Sometimes a few genuine, deliverable choices lead to better decisions and more meaningful involvement.
Customer feedback matters. But if it influences how a service is judged, who we ask deserves just as much thought as the questions we put in front of them.
FM & Operations
People & Leadership
Customer & Value
The Other Side of Trust
A Few Weeks to Go
What if the Opportunity is Already There?
A recent hotel stay reminded me what it feels like to be on the other side of the trust we work so hard to maintain in facilities management.
What do you focus on when you join a project just weeks before go-live, with decisions already made and little time left to influence the outcome?
What if the commercial opportunity is already there? A CAFM implementation revealed assets we were maintaining but not charging for correctly.
Not every conversation needs to start with a brief.
If something here has sparked a thought, or you'd like to continue the conversation, I'd be pleased to hear from you.