or hyphens, wtf. I am using Australian english6:34 PMMost companies older than seven years are fortunate simply to survive. Very few scale. Even fewer exit well. Exit is not an event. It is the final exam of how the company was built. Companies that command premium valuations are Built to EXIT: deliberately constructed to be predictable, transferable, and independent of the founder. Buyers don't pay for potential. They pay for reliability.

Every January, we confuse ambition with progress. Most resolutions fail not because we lack discipline, but because heroic effort doesn’t scale. Sustainable change works the same way great businesses do: clear long-term direction, fewer priorities, and disciplined routines that compound over time. High performers don’t rely on motivation. They design rhythms that protect energy, sharpen judgement and make progress inevitable.

Using AI as a thought partner can sharpen how leaders reflect, prioritise and plan. This guide shows how to use structured prompts to clarify long-term direction, choose one life area and key relationship to focus on, and translate insight into simple, sustainable routines. Designed for busy founders and CEOs, the prompts turn thinking into action without over-engineering or overthinking the process.

Great companies don’t hide from hard truths. They build systems, rhythms and cultures that drag reality into the light early and often. This article breaks down how leaders can confront the brutal facts with clarity, discipline and confidence, and use them to build a stronger, more resilient organisation.

I recently sat down with Blake McLean, UTS Sports, Exercise and Rehabilitation Associate Professor and Head of Performance R&D with the Oklahoma City Thunder, 2025 NBA champions. We discussed his research, which focuses on both player and non-player performance, and how it applies to organisational performance. Blake is also a keynote speaker at the CEO Summit 2026.

If you’re familiar with the Flywheel concept from Turning the Flywheel, you’ll remember when author Jim Collins sat down with Jeff Bezos and the Amazon team. It was the early 2000s, before Amazon Web Services existed, when Amazon was purely a product and e-commerce business.

NSW’s Innovation & Productivity Council (IPC) has released a timely blueprint on how to move from supporting startups to enabling true scale ups. In the "Scaling Ambition: Enabling the next generation of globally competitive scaleups" report, IPC identifies three levers — fund-the-funder, capability development, and structured internationalisation — as practical tools to help more hardware based startups to scaleup and reach global relevance.

Scaling is harder than starting. That may sound strange if you’ve already battled through the chaos of building your first product, finding customers, raising funding. But the crunch comes later. Research shows 97% of new firms never make it past $5M in revenue. Only 3% keep scaling . Why? Because growth always hits a constraint.

Monthly team meetings, when done well, are vital for aligning leadership, fostering collaboration, and driving progress toward goals.

Let's face it, there are never enough resources or hours to do what everything we want to do. Do you ever find yourself saying "if only...

Scaling climate tech in Australia requires addressing vulnerabilities at five different stages - referred to as the 5 valleys of death.

Get your organisation "match fit" using Scaling Up Tools One of the best things about the Scaling Up are the Tools. Practical exercises...

As the End of Financial Year looms in Australia, we get ready to begin the whole cycle again. What will be different about your...

During scaling, founders/CEOs often face trade-offs as they balance becoming more efficient with the increasing pressures of a larger...

Opening the black box of scaling in digitalized firms towards a scaling process framework. After three years of effort, we are delighted...

The Hedgehog Concept: Connecting Strategy and Execution for Business Growth In the pursuit of business growth, execution plays a pivotal...

This week I have used some downtime to review both my personal and business aspirations, outcomes and plans for this calendar year. Every...

This is the third article in a series on Getting the right people in the right seats during Scaling. See my previous articles on How to...

Continuously improve your enthusiastic re-hire rate Are all highly skilled and capable Talent valuable? Some have deep skills and incredible expertise. They get the job done. Maybe they break a few rules and make a few enemies along the way. But the results are there. They speak for themselves. But they can lead to team dysfunction, persistent problems and long-term drop in capabilities of your business. In my previous article “ How to get the right people in the right seats

As the founder/CEO or leader of a scaling organisation, one of the best things you can do for your business (and your life!), is to...