Upton Sinclair said "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it."

But what if it goes deeper than salary? What if it's about identity itself?

In this one, we explore why clear explanations often increase resistance, how an interior designer accidentally solved the change management problem, and what executive data analysis reveals when everyone plots different insights from the same numbers.

From expert panels to Pimlico plumbers, we feel our way through the murky challenge of introducing ideas that threaten people's fundamental worldview – and discover that experience beats explanation every time.

We get into:

• The Sinclair Effect: when understanding threatens identity (not just salary)
• Why simplifying your explanation can actually make your ideas MORE threatening
• The executive data exercise that exposed beautiful chaos (everyone saw something different)
• The Winkler Constraint: how Caroline Winkler transformed her viewers' rooms with only three purchases allowed – and why
• How expertise shows up best under tight limitations
• The plumber parallel and why end customers don't care which wrench you use
• Leading with theory vs. leading with experience (and Tom's early mistakes)
• Opening portals vs planting flags, and the role of jamming
• Why the saying "consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds" can hurt your career (ask us how we know)
• How to give people what they want while accidentally also giving them what they need (but without being manipulative about it)

"You can't just not give people what they want. Then you are a blocker."

References & links

• Upton Sinclair - "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it"
• Jen Briselli and Kyle Godbey's "Field notes from the swamp" https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL89SttTTcPTGDdRlcQTcEqz4Ra9z2w0le&si=FC6O6zfbLCzykKm8
• Cynefin framework / complexity science (Dave Snowden)
• Caroline Winkler - YouTube interior designer https://youtu.be/ZvHM_VCybN0?si=CIPObJld8IM4Mc-X
• Venkatesh Rao - "Portals and flags" concept https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2014/06/25/portals-and-flags/
• Eleanor Roosevelt - (possibly apocryphal) "Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds"
• Pivot Triggers (Crown & Reach)

When have you fallen over by leading with theory? When have you enabled an experience that let things shift by themselves? Drop us a line: tentacles@crownandreach.com

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Can "insights" be pre-packaged? Should they be?

In this one, we wade into the murky distinction between polished agency deliverables and raw, messy data exposure. From a bank that knew what it wanted (and just needed to show due diligence) to clients who fundamentally changed direction after reading customer transcripts, we explore when different approaches can actually work.

Along the way we talk about how the iconic Rowan Atkinson Barclaycard campaign (UK only, we think) had absolutely nothing to do with the original brief – and how frequently that's the story of projects and innovation. We also mention AI because that's still a thing, and we reference "decision-based evidence-making" and how it's more common than you might think.

This one's for anyone who's sat through a glossy presentation questioning whether the conveniently self-serving story is justified, and for anyone who's tried to synthesise insights for others and been left wondering why it doesn't seem to make a dent.

Including but not limited to:

● How a beloved Barclaycard ad campaign was thrown together in a last minute panic after the pitched idea fell apart

● Gary Klein's chef's kiss definition of insight: "an unexpected jump to a new story you can't unsee"

● The cost of pre-packaged, pre-masticated insights – if it's too easy to swallow there's no chewing needed

● Why you can't know what counts as an insight in someone else's company

● Decision-based evidence-making vs. evidence-based decision-making

● The intense 7 hours of workshopping that "changed everything" for our client

● How we use AI to clean transcripts (take out the ums and ahs) but not to generate insights ... because it can't

● Why "disintermediation" might be the most important move in strategic research, though it's not an easy one to pull off

● When glossy agency work actually serves the purpose perfectly

● The opportunity cost that isn't about money, and why senior teams avoid the hard work

Links & references

• Book "Why Does the Pedlar Sing?" by Paul Feldwick (advertising/creativity)
• Gary Klein – insight definition
• Jonathan Korman – "decision-based evidence making" quip (though we think he credits someone else)
• Genchi Genbutsu – Toyota principle of "go and see"
• Pitch Provocations – our research method, message us for more!
• Multiverse Mapping – our mapping method
• 4U Framework – our meta-methodology

Questions, stories, or strongly-held opinions about research methods? Pop us a message: tentacles@crownandreach.com

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Is your very job dissolving? You're not imagining it.

As festive redundancy season rolls around (you've noticed the seasonal pattern too, right?), we explore how the boundaries around professional roles have been blurring and melting, and what that means for anyone who feels like their job identity is slipping away.

Using the corollary of music – from vinyl singles through to algorithmic playlists — we map that to knowledge work. How do patterns of democratisation, "AI", and evolving business models play into what a job even is?

And we look at how these cycles always create new opportunities from the mess. The big question is how to reposition yourself if the ground keeps shifting.

Including-but-not-limited-to:

● The bundling and unbundling pattern: from singles to albums to MP3s to playlists, and how it applies to your career right now

● "Mandatory entrepreneurship" and the pressure to become self-employed even when you'd rather just do good work (hat tip Lex Roman)

● How roles like designer, engineer, and product manager are blurring beyond recognition

● Why jack-of-all-trades is hot again (and what that means for specialists)

● Democratisation that scales quality vs. democratisation that cuts costs

● How to joyfully remix your own job: what do you actually like doing and what would you happily leave behind?

● Henrik Karlsson's musician story: what your role "ought" to mean vs. what you actually want to do

● Practical strategies for increasing your luck surface area (without becoming a hustle bro)

● The grieving process that comes with career rebirth

For anyone who's wondering why their carefully-built expertise suddenly feels less solid than it used to, and what the heck is next.

References:

• John Harvey Jones - The Troubleshooter - at Morgan Cars https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtDA714SdgQ
• Henrik Karlsson's musician friend https://www.henrikkarlsson.xyz/p/constraints
• Episode 043: Do 100 Thing https://shows.acast.com/triggerstrategy/episodes/043-do-100-thing
• Visakan Veerasamy's Do 100 Thing https://www.visakanv.com/blog/do100things/
• Mandatory entrepreneurship concept from Lex Roman https://www.linkedin.com/posts/lexroman_were-you-forced-to-become-an-entrepreneur-activity-7371539212074004480-8Z7R
• "There's only two ways to make money in business: One is to bundle; the other is unbundle." - Jim Barksdale, former Netscape CEO
• Corissa's Ultrabangers playlist https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3FFiwdRsFjMXYvye4lbzE4?si=9242add1c657441c

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Tom got AI to critique his sales call. The feedback was detailed, line-by-line, technically correct... and basically useless.

In this episode, we dig into the surprising limitations of LLMs that most people don't seem to be talking about. Not the obvious media fluff about hallucinations or training data or taking everyone's jobs, but the deeper constraint: they can't reorient.

We start with our experiment using an LLM to critique one of our client discovery calls, which led to an observation about what's missing. We talk about what happens when AI conducts research interviews, why care home robots are increasing the workload they're supposed to decrease, and the crucial difference between "reading all the books" and actually understanding what matters.

This isn't anti-AI. It's about being clear about what these tools can and can't do, and why that matters for anyone doing customer research, strategy work, or trying to understand real human problems.

Including-but-not-limited-to:

• Why the AI critique of Tom's sales call was technically brilliant but fundamentally unhelpful
• Boyd's OODA loop and the missing "orientation" capability in LLMs
• What happened when someone showed up to a research call... with an AI interviewer
• The emotion gap: why LLMs can't follow the rich seams of energy in a conversation
• Why LLMs don't know when to pivot and when to push
• Japanese care home robots that create more work than they save, and the babysitting idiots effect
• Venkatesh Rao's "it's read all the books" theory of LLM usefulness (and when it actually works)
• How our "expert panel" AI prompt is useful for critique—if you keep your critical thinking switched on
• Why pattern-matching to words isn't the same as understanding context
• You heard it here second? Active inference models: the next wave beyond LLMs?

If you'd like a copy of our experimental "expert panel of dissenters" prompt, email us at tentacles@crownandreach.com and remember the risk: it requires your critical thinking.

References

• Ben Ford ("Commando Dev") on No Way Out Podcast https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/agentic-ai-thinks-like-boyd-the-ooda-upgrade-llms-cant-touch/id1663685759?i=1000734032438
• Venkatesh Rao https://substack.com/@contraptions
• John Boyd's OODA Loop and Snowmobiling
• JP Castlin's Strategy in Praxis https://strategyinpraxis.substack.com/p/the-only-one-writing-and-ai
• Dave Snowden's Ritual Dissent - https://cynefin.io/wiki/Ritual_dissent

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Q. When do teams want certainty the most?

A. Exactly when it's least available!

Not a joke. Just true. This time we look at the patterns of peak uncertainty: those make-or-break moments when an organisation desperately wants a clear plan but is operating in conditions where rigid plans are most likely to fail.

We bang on about our Go to Market Sprint offering and the uncertainty-native methods behind it, especially Pitch Provocations. The fun of being deliberately wrong to discover what might actually be right.

Including-but-not-limited-to:

• The peak uncertainty paradox: why the moment you most want a clear plan is when plans work least
• Three patterns of peak uncertainty (and why all consultants wish they'd been called earlier)
• Pitch Provocations: testing with words on a page to surface hidden market constraints
• Why "I know it when I see it" is both valid intuition and a political safety net
• The art of being deliberately wrong in the right way
• How to make the mess explicit (and why that's actually helpful)
• The vision chasm revisited ... and why emerging direction beats fixed vision
• Why teams get stuck waiting for clarity while leadership waits for signals
• The cucumber gets pickled more than the brine gets cucumbered ... plus reading labels from outside the jar
• Meeting teams where they already are instead of trying to change how they work

"We're not gonna persuade people to work in a different way. We're gonna meet you where you are... and do the bit that you don't wanna do."

References:

• Pitch Provocations method (episodes 007-009 for introduction): https://shows.acast.com/triggerstrategy
• Episode 061: Tumbling into the Vision Chasm: https://shows.acast.com/triggerstrategy/episodes/061-tumbling-into-the-vision-chasm
• The "Four U" model: Unpack, Undergo & Unfold Uncertainty
• Multiverse Mapping: https://multiversemapping.com
• Crown & Reach's Go to Market Sprint – email hello@crownandreach.com

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What do post office doors that won't open and door handles that scrape your knuckles have to do with product strategy?

Something, it turns out.

We start with Corissa's baffling post office experience (like in any good panto, the button is behind you!) and we tumble into the world of Norman Doors, affordances, and why bad design persists even when everyone knows it's bad.

We turn the lens on our own home, where knuckle-scraping door handles have been annoying us (and our guests) for 3 years. Why haven't we fixed them? And what does that tell us about organisational decision-making?

This one's about the hidden complexity in "obvious" problems, the seesaw between pain and cost, and why sometimes the best solution is the one you didn't consider at first.

Including-but-not-limited-to:

• Why adding more signs doesn't fix bad design
• The economic systems that create Norman Doors in the first place
• How we got trapped thinking we had only two solutions (spoiler: there were more)
• The seesaw principle: pain of current situation vs. cost of the fix
• Why visitors (to your home or product) spike your awareness of problems you've learned to ignore
• Manufacturing constraints vs. relaxing stories to see more options
• The "replace just the worst handles" strategy and why mismatched might actually work
• When to burn the boats (or remove all the door handles) to force a resolution

All in all, a v v Crown & Reach conversation about design, constraints, and decision-making. Recorded while walking, naturally.

References:

• Norman Doors (Don Norman, The Design of Everyday Things)
• Affordances and signifiers in design
• Chesterton's Fence principle
• Platform Incentive Gravity – episode 122 https://shows.acast.com/tentacles/episodes/68bc47099a81ed86f1aeafa1

Tell us about your knuckle scraping doors and bodged remote controls - tentacles@crownandreach.com

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You've got a brilliant idea. Everyone agrees it could work. So why has it become the project nobody wants to hear about anymore?

We dissect our Pitch Provocations method and package it up as a Go To Market Sprint that compresses 12 months of market learning into 3 weeks.

We use a real agency case study to work out how to explain what we do (and realise we forgot to check how the story ended). This is strategy consulting behind the scenes: the wrestling match between method names and outcomes, the challenge of writing your own testimonials, and the uncomfortable question of whether "go-to-market" really means anything much to anyone.

Plus: an unexpected musical interlude courtesy of a mobility scooter with a sound system.

Some of the stuff we talk about:

• How good ideas turn into millstones and what can break the cycle
• Why traditional market research creates reports nobody acts on (and what works instead)
• The 12-month learning compression: how Pitch Provocations actually delivers on this promise
• Micro-projects vs. mega-builds: throwaway experiments that people actually want to do
• Customer interviews as enjoyable therapy sessions (both sides enjoy them)
• Why Go To Market means different things to a startup founder vs. a corporate messaging lead
• The estate agent's gambit: give away an 80-page instruction manual and see who still hires you
• How to get teams generating their own ideas instead of nodding politely at yours
• You can't write the ending of a case study if you don't know how it actually turned out
• Common sense thresholds: when does a micro-project stop being micro in your context?

The bit about us being bad at this:

We struggle in real-time with packaging our own work, forget to follow up on crucial details, and can't quite nail whether we're selling a method or a result. It's real, it's rambling, and if you've ever tried to explain what you do for a living, you'll recognise the feeling.

For consultants packaging expertise, product teams sick of "build first, ask later," and anyone who suspects their next big project might quietly become the thing everyone dreads discussing.

References:

• Pitch Provocations (Crown & Reach) - intro in episodes 007-009: https://shows.acast.com/triggerstrategy
• Multiverse Mapping - https://multiversemapping.com
• The "4U" framework: Unpack, Undergo & Unfold Uncertainty
• Ritual Dissent (Dave Snowden) - https://cynefin.io/wiki/Ritual_dissent
• Innovation Tactics deck (Pip Decks) - https://pipdecks.com/products/innovation-tactics

Contact:

tentacles@crownandreach.com

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