BlueSky Development AG

17/09/2026

What do you do when the thing you most want to get rid of is also the thing nobody else will take?

Daniel had spent years quietly owning a job nobody had ever given him. His team fed an internal market indicator into a company-wide dashboard. It started as a side task, a number nobody paid much attention to. Then finance leadership tied that number to sales targets and bonus calculations across the whole company, and overnight a task nobody wanted became a number everybody watched.

His team hadn't changed anything about what they did. The scrutiny had.

He and his manager had asked finance to take it over more than once. Every time, the answer was no.

When we talked it through, he had two options he wanted to put on the table. Keep pushing finance to take it over, which is what he actually wanted. Or scale his team back entirely and let finance run it the way they do for every other division, which he knew was a long shot.

Two options. I asked him what happens with two options.

He thought about it and said, someone wins and someone loses.

That's the whole problem. Two options is an argument. Three options is a choice.

So I asked him for a third. Something so unappealing that nobody would seriously consider it, precisely so the middle option, the one he actually wanted, would look like the reasonable compromise. He found it quickly once he had the frame.

Three options. One his team would clearly do extra work for. One nobody with any sense would choose. And one that was actually reasonable, sitting quietly in the middle, waiting to be picked.

He was no longer asking them to choose between yes and no. He was asking them to choose the direction that already looked right.

So the next time you're building a case for one specific outcome, are you walking in with two options, or three?

I'd love to hear how this resonates with you.

14/09/2026

14/09/2026

Spotted on the Jelmoli scaffoldinh

14/09/2026

Good morning Zurich

11/09/2026

Have you ever been told you're too much, too blunt, too strong, too emotional, by someone who meant it as criticism?

One person at my Leadership Roundtable yesterday described exactly that, alongside the gap between the values their company claims and what it actually does. Another wondered aloud if it's imposter syndrome, since they don't feel they have all the tools or background for the calls they're making anyway. A third, independent now after years inside big corporates, said they just miss having anyone to think it through with.

Ninety minutes together, and by the end the whole conversation had shifted. I recorded a short recap above, walking through what came up and why.

I run these Roundtables regularly. If you'd like a seat at the next one, send me a message.

Does any of this resonate with you?

09/09/2026

I spent the weekend in Crans-Montana at the Omega European Masters. My husband loves to volunteer, which is four days on his feet. I love to watch, which is a couple of hours of work from the Airbnb and then the rest of the day wandering from hole to hole. It works out.

If you have never been, the course sits high above the Rhône valley with the Alps stacked up behind it, and on a clear September day it is close to absurd. Sun, thin bright air, the smell of warm pine, and players walking the fairways while the mountains do all the work in the background. I could have watched it all day, and more or less did.

Going into the final round, the man leading the field was Paul Casey, a Brit who lives over in Zug. He had said after Saturday's round that whatever happened on Sunday, all of his prize money would go to Fondation Beloved, the fund for the victims and families of the tragic fire here on New Year's Day that killed 41 people and injured another 115, most of them under the age of 20.

He said it before he knew whether he would win anything worth giving away.

He started Sunday three shots clear. Then Thriston Lawrence, six behind when the day began, went out and shot a 62.

They finished level. It took four extra holes to separate them, all played at the 18th. On three of those both men missed their birdie chances, with dozens of cameras and hundreds of spectators watching. On the fourth, Lawrence nailed it.

Lawrence has won here three times in five years now. The last man to win this one three times was Seve Ballesteros, who redesigned the course and has his name on it.

And Joel Girrbach finished tied for ninth, the best of the Swiss. In that field, on this course, quite something.

What I keep thinking about is how much the two of them seemed to be enjoying it. A title going back and forth between them, and not an ounce of edge in it anywhere. Just two very good players in the sun, going again, and again, and again. The volunteers, four days in and long past done, went with them.

And Casey came second. He paid up anyway. The whole runner-up cheque, a little over USD 400,000. Down in the village there is a wooden pavilion where people have been leaving things since January. Photographs, flowers, candles, teddy bears, paper butterflies. You walk past it on your way up to the golf.

Good on you, Joel. Good on you, Thriston. And good on you, Paul.

08/09/2026

Who do you think out loud with?

Not the person you tell the decision to once you've made it. The one you think it through with while it's still a mess.

Not your team, who are watching you for certainty. Not always your boss, because that conversation becomes a performance review in disguise. Peers are often quietly competing for the same next role. And the people who love you at home want to help, which is its own kind of pressure, and they don't know the politics of your particular corridor.

So you carry it. You look composed in the meeting, you make the call, and mostly you are right, because you are experienced. But mostly right, alone, is an exhausting way to lead, and it is not the same as thinking clearly.

On Thursday morning I'm running a BlueSky Leadership Roundtable. A small group of senior professionals, one honest conversation, real issues, nothing to buy. People tend to arrive carrying a question they have been turning over for months, and leave with it in a different shape.

It's this Thursday, 10 September, 8.30 to 10 CEST, and it's free. It's by application, because a conversation like this only works if the room is right.

If you'd like to be there, you can apply here: https://programs.blueskycourses.com/roundtable

06/09/2026

Final day of the Omega European Masters DP World Tour in beautiful Golf-Club Crans-sur-Sierre Crans Montana
I love to watch. Hubby loves to volunteer. Leading the field after around 3 is Paul Casey, a brit living in Walchwil, Switzerland, who promised to give any winnings to Fondation Beloved for the victims and families in Crans Montana from the New Years Eve devastating tragedy. Good on you. Kind of hope you win, now.