Trigger Strategy is now Tentacles
Episodes
105: We've rebranded... Trigger Strategy is now Tentacles by Crown & Reach
07 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Hands up, who else loves a spot of brand-flavoured navel-gazing? Two years ago we picked the company name Trigger Strategy Group in a last-minute...
104: Snakes in a cave, or why biases aren't bugs
18 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In which we sit in the garden, roast gently in the sun, and talk about cognitive biases, Panglossian optimism, Russian roulette, snakes on planes, and...
103: Competence, control, and consequences
10 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
You were hired to fix it. You did! Customers are happier. The company made millions. Your reward? They shut it all down.We sit on a garden bench and t...
102: Road Signs, Rapid Prototypes, and Productive Confusion
26 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
While sipping homegrown bay leaf tea, we explore how road signs, surprises, and deliberate confusion can unlock better thinking.From missing signs und...
101: What's NOT emergent?
13 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We often talk about things being emergent in business, strategy, and life at large. The problem is, emergence can be kind of a pain to wrap your ...
100: Done 100 Thing!
22 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We made it to 100!Corissa and Tom look back over the year and a bit of podcasting and talk about what they've learned, some anecdotes, and some highli...
099: Setting stable signals in a chaotic context
08 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We talk about signals. Specifically, how can you settle on success signals when your wider context is always changing? We talk about a small example: ...
098: Product Market Procrastination
03 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
With one exercise, we can't predict whether your startup will succeed, but we can reliably predict if you're going to fail through procrastination.In ...
097: Can you persuade a non-unfolder to try unfolding?
23 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A lovely, meandering conversation about the nature of success, the binds we often put ourselves in and more.Along the way, we touch on maverick musici...
096: Estuarine vs Multiverse Mapping
11 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this one, we answer a question:"I recently attended your Intro to Multiverse Mapping event and really enjoyed it. I'm also looking into Dave Snowde...
095: Enshittification
04 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Corissa and Tom talk through some examples of enshittification and the opportunities hidden within!Linky GoodnessCory Doctorow and EnshittificationAda...
094: Honest Prioritisation Matrix
29 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We discuss the Honest Prioritisation MatrixFor some reason, the podcast description space here doesn't like images, so you can see it in this article ...
093: On being intentionally confused
23 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
“How wonderful that we have met with a paradox. Now we have some hope of making progress” – Niels BohrIn this episode, we answer a question...
092: Twenty Twenty (Meta) Four
05 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Brief notes today. This is kind of a wrap up of 2024 but not like others.TL;DR: a garden decking disaster becomes a meaningful framing for rearchitect...
091: Antifragile Prioritisation
26 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A lot of tech companies have bought into the idea of Build > Measure > Learn.But the "Build" bit always takes longer than anyone's anticipating,...
090: Should changing your mind mean changing your past work?
20 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
If you're someone who puts ideas out into the world, how do you manage the fact that you change your mind over time? What if someone comes across an a...
089: The dance of feedback
13 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
"Every student is looking for a great teacher. What a lot of students don't realise is that every teacher is looking for a great student." – Ro...
088: Complex isn't the same as complicated
06 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
"We often give building a house as an example of something in the complicated sphere. But then we talked in recent episodes about the nightmare build ...
087: How big things get done (part 2)
03 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
More thoughts from How Big Things Get Done while on the way to brunch.(You'll need to have listened to part 1 for some of the references in here.)The ...
086: How big things get done (part 1)
01 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Tom finally read this book about mega projects and was surprised to find how relevant it was to the kind of work we do.Including: stories of the Bilba...
085: High on agency?
19 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
“grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” – t...
084: Isn't the SenseMaker collector negatively biased tho?
13 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Surveys are almost always biased in several ways, notably both the way questions are asked but also sample bias: who in the population even answers su...
083: Unfolding ideas over ideating features
05 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
It's a rain-soaked chat this time as Tom and Corissa wander through Bournemouth in a downpour.We tackle a thought-provoking LinkedIn question from WP ...
082: 2D Comparison
29 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Jamie asked: "anyone got good exercises for evolving your brand (and in particular visual identity) in-house? Did I remember you (Tom & Coris...
081: Alignment alignment alignment
16 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We talk about alignment. Especially, we talk about relaxing our beef with the word alignment, and embracing the reasonable desire for alignment.00:00&...
080: What the heck's goin' on in tech?
08 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The world of digital/tech is going through "a moment" just now at the end of 2024.And we've launched a project to share and explore diverse perspectiv...
079: Speculative use cases
04 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We talk about a question posed in Innovation Tactics Slack - about a stakeholder who’s skeptical that design research can help with genuine innovati...
078: Criticisms of selling before building
01 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In the last episode, we introduced Rob Snyder's framing of finding your repeatable case study instead of building your tech product.This time, we step...
077: Do you have to spend years in the Pain Cave?
27 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Welcome to listeners who've been referred by Rob Snyder of Path to Product Market Fit!In this episode, we talk about Rob Snyder's core ideas for found...
076: Surviving survivorship bias
25 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Survivorship bias is unavoidable. By default, we see what survives and not what doesn't. This is OK but it creates the risk that we take the wrong les...
075: Effectual thinking vs causal thinking
20 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We recorded this one on a whim and we didn't have our microphone with a little hat on it, so the wind noise makes a guest appearance. Apologies – re...
074: Self-deception, secret strategies and non-violent communication
17 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A live thinking through of the next chunk in our series of articles about the Vision Chasm – that gulf between the glorious future people are talkin...
073: Brat summer for billionaires
13 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
All credit to friend of the pod Pete Shaw for the "Founder mode sounds like brat summer" observation.Founder Mode triggered a beefstorm on LinkedIn, s...
072: Granularity part 2 – Snowmobiling
10 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, we zoom back in time to a situation when a load of meetings were frustrating people at this one company. Tom used Snowmobiling with a...
071: Granularity part 1 – decomposing people via ASHEN
13 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Today, we start by adding some corrections to terminology we used in episode 70, which will be confusing if you haven't listened to that one. But it d...
070: Lobster dinner with a toddler
10 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Q. What do these three situations have in common? Taking a friend for a lobster dinner, business strategy workshops, and personal coaching. A. They al...
069: The alignment problem (not the AI alignment problem)
06 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In which we coin the word "bungus" ...If you've ever complained about misalignment, or rallied people with the cry that "we need to get aligned", then...
068: Modest visions vs sci-fi visions
02 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In which Corissa and Tom explore more nuances and wrinkles to do with vision and strategy, with examples, metaphors and practical tips.Trigger Strateg...
067: Coping with "I'll know it when I see it"
30 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Tom had a coaching call with someone who had been on the hook to run a one day workshop. A one day workshop that was expected to both work as a team b...
066: Feeling the edges of the Vision Chasm
26 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This is one of our "thinking about things in real time" episodes. Tom & Corissa talk through the next part of the Vision Chasm blog series. For ne...
065: The inherent bigness of ideas
23 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
When something that starts small becomes bigger and bigger, we can lose sight of what we were trying to do in the first place. We talk through some ex...
064: Problems get replaced by better problems
19 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Tom & Corissa talk about how understanding and tackling problems requires more than just a linear approach, like is often inferred through somethi...
063: Good stress / bad stress
16 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We talk about the good and the bad sides of stress. We tend to treat stress as a negative, but sometimes stress is helpful, and sometimes you want to ...
062: When good research is seen to create waste
12 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We explore the story of a classic zombie project: where the team had the evidence they needed to know that a project was doomed, but carried on with i...
061: Tumbling into the Vision Chasm
09 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Strap in for some high-quality sleep deprived thinking out loud.We talk about the standard approach towards vision and strategy in organisations, and ...
060: Chesterton's vestigial doorman
05 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Today, we talk about the appendix, fences, SaaS for lawyers, putting Shoggoth in a box ... and more.Some links we mentioned:Why aren't smart people ha...
059: How can I help someone to "get" it?
02 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This one's quite focused on business and building products ... OR IS IT?In this one we respond to a question that Tom's received from several people r...
058: Reflections from UX London
28 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This is kind of a follow-up to our previous episode that was recorded before the UX London conference. With the whirlwind of travel and baby-care, thi...
057: But who's this talk really for?
25 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This is one of those where you walk along with Tom and Corissa while we're trying to figure something out. This time, Tom's giving a conference talk n...
056: Technical language – a doorway or a barrier?
21 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Tom saw a discussion on LinkedIn about why Cynefin hasn't caught on in some scenes. One take was that it's the "academic, technical" language that put...
055: Existential despair in the chasm
18 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Spoiler alert: when I shipped an idea in an hour it did not meet the pivot triggers I'd set for the probe. That was one of a whole array of probes we'...
054: The unofficial rules of the road
14 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Corissa recently re-learned to drive and noticed links between the stresses on the road and the stresses in the office. So we talked it through. We to...
053: Smell the roses
11 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Short little punchy one today: we bumped into one of our dad friends, who told us a lovely story about a parenting moment that was also a great exampl...
052: OMF: Opportunity, Method, Format
07 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Tom has a challenge: to convince Corissa that something called "Opportunity Method Format" is actually interesting and useful. We talk about examples ...
051: The MVP Death Spiral
04 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Of course it makes sense to build only exactly what customers will value – the Minimum Viable Product. Unfortunately, it's not quite that simple in ...
050: Rumination, instinct and the fundamental attribution error
31 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
HALF WAY TO DO 100 THING!One night, Corissa messaged Tom:"It’s often unhelpful to get trapped in simple stories, but how do you know when to trust y...
049: To SWOT or not to SWOT?
28 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In SWOT analysis, you list your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.Maybe you love it? Maybe you hate it? We've been in the second camp f...
048: Conceptual Models
25 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This one's definitely designer-centric. And it's pretty hard to explain without visuals, but we give it a good go.Tom talks about the shift that conce...
047: Shifting the evolutionary potential of the present
17 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this one, we talk about complexity in parenthood and in business. In both cases, there are plenty of people willing to sell you "the way" in their ...
046: Enabling constraints
14 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Some constraints are limiting, some are enabling. But what's the difference? What if most constraints are both at the same time? (Depending to some de...
045: When stories are helpful delusions
10 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Our jumping off point today was a video from YouTuber Caroline Winkler about making friends as an adult. She instructs us to tell ourselves that when ...
044: The one with the bees
08 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Important note for this episode: scientists have recently discovered that humans are in fact not exactly the same as bees. But we don't let that stop ...
043: Do 100 Thing
07 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Wanna be a YouTuber? You have to make a lot of videos. Wanna be a blogger? You have to write a lot of articles. Wanna be a startup founder? You have t...
042: Helping to euthanise a startup
30 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In which we talk about how energy gradients affect the chances of a strategy succeeding, and imagine people pushing concrete wheels around. Tom shares...
041: Nuance, absolutes and shiny suits
25 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Can you get through life without ever oversimplifying something? If not, when is it OK? And what does that have to do with parenting, politics and pol...
040: Why isn’t [Role] doing what I think they should?
20 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We talk about a post that Tom saw in Reddit: a Product Manager complaining about the designers they worked with (shock horror!). The underlying vibe o...
039: Bounded Applicability
10 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
How come your favourite methods don’t always work? We know one-size doesn’t fit-all, and we know that it depends on context … but *how* does it ...
038: Creativity, innovation and a flawed coffee machine
08 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
How do you know if you're being creative or innovative? Does it even matter? We talk about art, business, feathers, and Corissa's fury with an underpe...
037: How Capable Leaders Navigate Uncertainty and Ambiguity - an annotated reading - Part 6
29 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We made it! The sixth and final episode in the series where we read through prompts from an article and talk about what they mean to us. In this episo...
036: How Capable Leaders Navigate Uncertainty and Ambiguity - an annotated reading - Part 5
26 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The fifth and penultimate episode in the series where we read through prompts from an article and talk about what they mean to us. In this episode, Ac...
035: How Capable Leaders Navigate Uncertainty and Ambiguity - an annotated reading - Part 4
25 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The fourth in the series where we read through prompts from an article and talk about what they mean to us. In this episode, Both/And, Intervene Safel...
034: How Capable Leaders Navigate Uncertainty and Ambiguity - an annotated reading - Part 3
21 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What do leaders who are skilled at navigating complexity know how to do? What do they do differently? What would you observe if a leader had these ski...
033: How Capable Leaders Navigate Uncertainty and Ambiguity - an annotated reading - Part 2
14 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What do leaders who are skilled at navigating complexity know how to do? What do they do differently? What would you observe if a leader had these ski...
032: How Capable Leaders Navigate Uncertainty and Ambiguity - an annotated reading - Part 1
13 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What do leaders who are skilled at navigating complexity know how to do? What do they do differently? What would you observe if a leader had these ski...
031: Probabilistic Parenting - is it a thing and how does it map onto work?
10 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We talk about boundaries, commandments and socialisation. If right and wrong isn’t always set in stone, how do you encourage people to think creativ...
030: We need to talk about “mindsets”
02 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We talk about the fallacy of mindset, and the inevitable failure when you focus on trying to change someone’s mindset. We also consider what you can...
029: Communication is lossy - and that’s OK
25 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What’s in your head is perfectly clear, but then you have to use a string of words to communicate it to others. And the words can trigger different ...
028: Ship an idea in an hour?
21 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Tom compulsively makes Multiverse Maps in Miro during meetings - and it seems to help people clarify things and take action. Why not put an offer out ...
027: Are you rushing to tie your shoelaces?
14 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
“Slow is smooth; smooth is fast” - we talk about this Marine mantra and how it relates to tunnel vision vs. expanded awareness in our personal and...
026: Is your marketing funnel killing your offer?
14 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A Hard Test is when you strip away all the accoutrements of what a product or marketing set up “should” look like, so you can distil out the absol...
025: Change, ready-ing and a caterpillar with wooden wings
10 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What if the theory of change we often try to impose on ourselves and our organisations is actually counterproductive? Is actually blocking what needs ...
024: Should CEOs be making day-to-day decisions?
09 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
There’s a view of leadership that puts the CEO at the helm, steering the ship with their decisions. This view is becoming seen as “zombie leadersh...
023: Creating Customer Conversations
05 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Today, we talk about a course that Tom is putting together in collaboration with Dave Grey’s School of the Possible. It’s very much us figuring th...
022: Disconfirmation Bias - do this innovation tactic live with us in under 15 minutes
01 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What’s the biggest risk you need to tackle for an idea you’re working on right now? Today, we walk you through a quick exercise that will reveal t...
021: The perils of “should”
31 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Do you should all over yourself? Do you have unconscious rules for what other people should be doing? Today, we look at where “should” turns up in...
020: Product discovery depends on you building a model (of your coherent theory of value)
31 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Off the back of an excellent coaching call, we share one thing we’ve found that makes all the difference for UXRs (and product people in general) wh...
019: North Star Metrics and Framework - are they “dumb”?
30 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In today’s walk, we respond to a question about Cedric Chin’s feisty claim that the “North Star Framework is dumb”: (https://www.linkedin.com/...
018: a blustery annotated reading - A/B testing ain’t for settling your disagreements
29 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Warning: we lost the little foam hat off the microphone, and this makes wind noise much more audible than usual. If you can cope with the audio, you’...
017: You can’t leap directly from data to actionable insights - a live annotated reading
28 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We’re trying something different in this episode. Tom reads out one of his old articles and we discuss our questions and issues as they arise. The a...
016: Signals, Stories, Options - how to avoid getting trapped by simple stories
27 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Corissa interviews Tom about the Signals Stories Options framework that appears (as “Anatomy of an Insight”) in his Innovation Tactics card deck...
015: Continuously discovering beef on Linkedin
26 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Everyone knows you should stay out of social media beefs, so we’re going against all common sense and wading in. This showdown between two camps has...
014: Emergent Properties, Self Care and Leaf-Cutter Ants
17 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What’s an emergent property? We take a tour through this sometimes confusing aspect of complexity theory, sharing some practical examples. Ant hills...
013: How experiences shape us
16 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We share small experiences from our careers that fundamentally changed the way we think about the world. Topics include tacit knowledge, retrospective...
012: Psychological safety is an emergent property
16 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Psychological safety has been a bit of a buzz term for years, since Google’s internal research. We talk about what it means in different companies, ...
011: Make stand ups useful with coherent pitches
16 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Stand ups are common in tech companies, but are often inefficient and confused - often little more than “busyness theatre”. Leaders need to know w...
010: Rules, norms, heuristics and a stacking block toy
16 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
When do you need to follow the rules and when should you break them? When are rules not rules? We share some experiences from our pasts and talk about...
009: Using Pitch Provocations to poke the market - Part 3
16 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We get practical about how to create your pitch provocations fast and how to write them effectively. Then we talk about what’s next - testing the ma...
008: Using Pitch Provocations to poke the market - Part 2
16 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We pick up from where we left off last time, and talk about what you do once you’ve got some signals from your pitch provocation sessions. Also: how...
007: Using Pitch Provocations to poke the market - Part 1
16 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Many founders think “figure out how to build it, then figure out how to market it” but in our experience, it’s much more effective to move the “...
006: OKRs, moon landings and oil fires
16 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Following on from Tom’s Substack pieces about OKRs, we talk about some of the issues with OKRs, when they can work, and what to do if you’re in a ...