December 2025 wrap-up

What have I been doing and learning this month? This blog post triples as my notes, a status update, and a way to share the things I found interesting this month.

Highlights

This has been an odd month. Light on work, but heavy on reflection. I've assembled a rather daunting reading list thanks to the book recommendations from the various events (see the notes below). I've also been mulling career choices, and gradually inching towards decisions . . . which I'm not quite ready to share. But changes are coming.

ZingTrain: Intentional Leadership Online Event

ZingTrain is a leadership and ethical business training provider. It grew out of Zingerman's group of food businesses, which features in Small Giants, a book about businesses that succeed while doing things differently. Every year ZingTrain runs a one-day online event, usually themed around a leadership topic.

I've been most years since they started doing the online event, and usually find it inspiring and energising.

Introduction - Katie Frank

A gentle reminder to not get caught up in endlessly doing more, buying more, more everything.

What if you're already doing enough?

Community & Civility - Dr. Christine Porath

My note: this talk was amazing. So much information, so much expertise, and some really surprising stats in the mix.

Key question: who do you want to be?

Incivility:

A caveat that it's subjective and in the eye of the beholder to an extent.
Workplace issues have real health consequences . . .
. . . and real financial costs for businesses: when people feel disrespected at work, 66% cut efforts, 80% lost work time, 12% left their job. People who experienced incivility perform about a third worse on cognitive tasks. Even witnessing disrespect had an impact: 25% worse performance, 45% fewer ideas. It creates an environment where people are more self-focused and less other-focused, which affects collaboration.
My note: Dr Porath shared a bunch of tests they did to establish the effects of incivility, as well as specific examples.
Disrespect is like a virus: We pass it on through our behaviour. And we're usually not aware of its impact, even though it affects our emotions, performance, and how we treat others.
In a workplace like healthcare, the performance impact of incivility can have real consequences for patient outcomes and safety.
Incivility is on the increase, both in workplaces and outside work.
Number one cause: people feeling stressed
~50% of people felt they would be put at a disadvantage if they were nice at work
She recommends Adam Grant Give and Take
The number one reason for talented people to derail from their careers is bullying leaders. Number three is arrogance and aloofness in leaders.
In actuality, civility does pay.
Civility doesn't mean no disagreement. You can be candid, you can give negative performance reviews.
People who are seen as civil are 2x more likely to be seen as leaders, and perform 13% better. People are more likely to share information and collaborate with you if you behave with civility.
It is incredibly rare for people to feel a sense of community at work. When people feel a sense of community, they're much more engaged (74% more), more likely to stay (81% more likely to stay).

Are you civil?

95% of people believe they are self-aware. In actuality, 10-15% are. So essential first step: we have to fix our blindspots. (relevant quiz by the researcher)
Self-awareness makes teams more effective, leads to better relationships. Employees are happier when leaders are more self-aware.
How: ask for feedback, work with a coach, conduct a team tune-up, connect with your loving critics, make time for reflection, take care of yourself.
Recommends Marshall Goldsmith What Got You Here Won't Get You There (chat also recommended How Women Rise)
A practice you can introduce: eye contact and smile when within 10ft of a colleague. Say hello if within 5ft.
Recommends Doug Conant Touchpoints. Shows how small interactions have an impact.
Cycle to civility:
Recruiting: recruit for this, keep the bad out. De-energizers take out far more than energizers can put in.
Coaching: teach civility
Scoring: it's hard to measure. But if you're saying it matters, find ways to measure it and reward it.
Practising: enhance, give correction, discipline.
The civility of your organisation will impact your customers. It filters down.

So: who do you want to be?

Her books: Mastering Community and Mastering Civility

From the Q&A:

How to recover or protect from incivility: thriving is the antidote to incivility. If you can get yourself to focus on your thriving, you can protect yourself against the impacts of incivility to an extent.
How to combat incivility in our wider communities: neutral mindset (what's the next step, don't fixate on the jerks). Focus on what you can control and how you can move yourself forwards. Be intentional about what you're taking in (news, music, people around you etc.).

Fun is a Strategy - Steve Carse

My note: I made notes during the talk, so I have decided to include them, but I was underwhelmed by this, to put it mildly.

He had a lot of fun with running his own business. But when he started to hire his first employees, he realised they weren't having fun.

Opening questions:

Have you made an effort to improve your health?
Have you made an effort to improve relationships with family and friends?
Have you made an effort to improve your relationship to work?
Have you made an effort to improve your co-workers' relationship to work?
My note: how much can we control our co-workers? I take his point though.

Some stats:

In 2023, only 33% of USA employees were engaged at work.
A recent HBR survey found only 37% of managers reported engagement as an organisational focus.
Businesses in the top quartile for employee engagement are 23% more profitable than those in the bottom quartile.

We've been programmed to think work has to be a sacrifice.

Fun = engagement, curiosity, lightheartedness.

Carse had repeatedly pursued fun work options in his 20s: frizzbie reselling, EverQuest items on eBay, sports journalism etc. But then decided he needed to pursue a non-fun but 'serious' (higher-earning) job. Fun became something that happened on weekends. Started a blog about how disengaged he was at work. Eventually made redundant and started his popsicle cart business.

Seven principles for a fun business:

Work on your epic story: people understand and relate to stories. And make sure you share it.
Work on patience: if you're constantly focused on the next thing, you'll have a hard time enjoying your current thing.
Work on team: everything is more meaningful when you are doing it with folks you care about.
Work on play: being silly breaks down barriers, increases productivity, and makes work feel less like a chore.
- My note: I hate enforced fun. I could see ways this could go wrong.
Work on ownership: people support the ideas they help to create.
Work within the tension: it never gets easier. The work is never done. Growth happens when you are challenged.
My note: he suggests a certain amount of willingness to tolerate vacation interuption as something you should have (an indicator of engagement and fun). This was the point where I fully noped out of this talk (I'd been feeling a little off about it for a while).
Pride compounds over time: wear the shirt.
- My note: sure. But enforced pride doesn't work.

This was a lightweight talk, especially in contrast to the first. There were corporate hipster vibes. Slightly disappointed to see this at ZingTrain.

Communication That Connects in Times of Change - Stacie Barrett

My note: this talk was very bought-in to a large enterprise's message. I felt a little cynicism. But it was a well-done talk with interesting walkthroughs of real examples.

Stacie Barrett

In times of change, we need to communicate more, not less. It's ok to not have the answers, but it's important to create space for conversations and questions.

Start with why: the 'why' needs to be compelling, aligned with your org, and delivering something to your audience.
Design a desirable future.
In our current world, leadership may not feel the need to communicate. It's an employer's market, people are clinging to their jobs. So leadership doesn't feel the need to make effort. But there's a difference between people staying, and people thriving.
You won't be growing and innovating as a business if your people aren't thriving.
You'll be stuck wherever you are.
Communicating a desirable why can help people thrive.
Domino's example: back in 2010 set the goal of being the number one pizza brand. At the time, seemed ridiculous. Required huge change and investment. Big asks of the franchisees. They came up with an image to show how big the task was, how long the road, and the light at the end. They created a compelling story of a shared journey to the goal.
Be transparent: acknowledge the challenges and difficulties honestly. This means listening to your teams.
Make space for questions, especially your detractors.
At the same time, find your champions, embrace their energy.
Most people aren't detractors or champions. You need to make sure you don't lose sight of these people. Talk one on one. Give everyone space (not everyone will speak up in front of the team or company).
Provide training and support. Don't expect people to muddle through change alone.
Get your team involved.

The Domino's example expanded:

Domino's admitted the brutal facts: they were known for service, but they were last on taste. This became the 'why': you don't want to work for the company with memes like "we make our pizza and our boxes from the same material"
Domino's is franchised: this meant a lot of franchisees has bought into the old product. They needed to be brought along with the overhaul of the pizza.
GTM strategy included openly saying the old product was bad, which was scary. No going back when you do that.
Franchisees got behind the training. Customers loved the honest advertising.

Another case study from COVID:

Domino's stayed open as they sold food. Had to adjust operations to support safety.
The 'why' became feeding people so they could stay home, providing a sense of normalcy, and donating to healthcare workers.
They innovated under pressure.
Increased communication and shifted to webinars to deliver more information, answer questions, and provide connection to leadership.
Staff engagement actually improved during COVID.

Return to office:

'Because I told you so' is not a compelling why for a return to office.
Culture happens in person is a stronger story.
My note: nah 😅
If you're asking people to return to office, make time in the office meaningful.
Support the team through the change: provide mental health support.

AI rollout:

A good story: everyone has their own AI assistant. Use your human-ness for the human stuff.
That's much better than just 'do it or be fired'
Again, support people through the change.

Start with the why -> Be transparent -> Listen to lead -> Support and empower

Watching

The Marketing Meetup: How the brain understands 'value for money' (and what marketers can do about it) - Phil Barden

Webinar recording

How behavioural science can help brands during the cost of living crisis.

Principles in this talk work for B2C and B2B.

Close behind price, people want assurance of quality and value (video has some good graphs). Value for money is the most important driver of buying behaviour.

Value for money != cheap.

How does value perception and willingness to pay work?

When we see a product there's activation of the brain's reward system. This is activated when we see something we value highly. When this part of this brain is activated, there's a high probability that action will follow. When we see price, this activates the brain's pain system. This is activated when we experience things like physical pain or disgust. You can predict purchasing based on the levels of activation in each system.

Value = expected reward - expected pain

Value opportunities wheel: Price, Struggles, Functional jobs, Social jobs, Emotional jobs

Pain: money, time, waste, cognitive load, irritation, effort, struggles

Price: What matters is the expected pain. This expectation can be shaped by how we visualize the price. Note: watch the video - loads of examples and data.
Struggles:
- Remove small barriers and restraints. Instead of asking 'how can we get people to do X' ask 'why aren't people doing X' / 'how can we make it easier to do X'.
- Avoid cognitive overload. Note: again, loads of great examples in the talk.
- Avoid waste

Reward: assigns value to choices based on current goals and needs. Behaviour driven by expected value. Value expectations are based on associations that develop over time.

Behaviour is goal-based:

Social-emotional
Functional
Features

We can map different aspects of social-emotional goals to different brands. Note: the amount of info being packed into this talk was incredible, and at this point I slightly gave up trying to note-take. These notes are a shallow out line, go watch the video!

Key points:

Consumers are willing to pay more for brands high in relevance and distinctiveness.
Winner takes it all: the favourite brand is almost literally a no-brainer decision (the brain activates less, it burns less energy in the decision making). The brand that is the preferred brand has a huge advantage.

At this point I went and ordered Barden's book, 'Decoded', and accepted I wasn't going to have detailed notes from the talk. Soooo many examples. I love when people bring evidence. He also recommended another book, 'Change for Good', which uses behavioural economics for good.

The Marketing Meetup: Presentation and Q&A - Rory Sutherland

Webinar recording

Short presentation at the start:

Most important discoveries don't happen intentionally. Breakthroughs are often anomalies. We need to be careful of over-reliance on data. Data gives us averages, which hides what is unusual.
If something makes sense, investigate it further.
How he explains his fame: he accidentally grew the category. He repackaged himself/marketing for non-marketing audiences.
There's a lot of marketing that isn't performed by marketers. Marketing is a pervasive part of human behaviour. Marketing experts should have a voice in product, pricing etc.
Sutherland sells how marketers think, not what they do.
Marketing has come to mean 'the things that marketers do', which is far too limiting. Instead, consider marketing as integral to every business decision.
Sell how you think, not what you do
He recommended Roger Martin's approach. This seems like a relevant blog post by the guy: Generating Creative Strategy Possibilities
You need mess. There is an optimal amount of mess, inefficiency, and wasteage.

During the Q&A:

Fat tailed industries: ones where the outliers provide the majority of the value. e.g. film industry: a few breakthrough successes bankroll the rest of it. Marketing is fat tailed (per Nassim Taleb). A small amount of what marketers do delivers most of the value.
Marketing doesn't get credit for long term successes. e.g. campaigns that succeed for years. Finance use thin tailed maths to measure a fat tailed activity.
Finance have been successful at spreading their way of thinking across companies.
My note: Rory Sutherland's annoyance at finance, procurement, and similar, was cathartic to see.
What do marketers most commonly misunderstand about human perception and decision making? Our emotional response to information is dependent on the form in which it's presented.
Things change too fast to map out too much. Life is a tradeoff between planning and opportunity. Don't plan so tightly you block opportunity. Check out Serendipity: It Doesn't Happen by Accident.
Be t-shaped. Be widely curious and have a parallel domain with some overlap with your current domain.
Thoughts for 2026: founder-led and family-owned companies are going to be a great place to work, because PLCs will get ever more short-term and finance-led. Try to end up somewhere focused on building value, not cutting costs. PLCs will use AI as an excuse to cut headcount, other companies are free to use it to augment humans instead.

Reading

Obvious Adams by Robert R. Updegraff

Out of copyright and available free Obvious Adams from the Internet Archive

A short and amusing read about a fictional marketing genius in the early 20th century.