Insights

Notes between the books

Short pieces on the things Andrew is asked about most: potential, leadership, the long middle of a career, and how to keep going when nobody is clapping.

Cultivating your inner garden
Personal development

Left alone, a garden brings out only useless weeds. Ploughed, sown, weeded and cared for, it teems with crops that feed us. Your life is the same — and the ploughing is not somebody else's job.

Andrew Obara 3 min read

Browse

All articles

All Personal development Leadership Management Entrepreneurship Success stories Epigrams
The world seldom cheers excellence
Leadership

The world seldom cheers excellence

The people doing the best work are often the least applauded. Here is why that happens, and what to hold on to when it…

2 min read

Epigrams

Twelve lines for a hard week

The epigrams readers ask me to repeat most often, with a note on where each one came from.

1 min read

The manager who could not delegate
Management

The manager who could not delegate

He was the hardest worker in the building and the reason his team never grew. A conversation I have had more times than I…

2 min read

From incognito to ISO certified
Entrepreneurship

From incognito to ISO certified

What I actually learned building a consulting firm in Kampala from nothing in 1997 — including the parts I would not repeat.

2 min read

Success stories

The junior officer who became a director

Over 27 years I watched several people walk this road. The pattern is more ordinary than you would expect, and more demanding.

2 min read

Accept that you are different
Personal development

Accept that you are different

Most of us spend years trying to be a slightly worse version of someone else. The way out begins with an uncomfortable admission.

1 min read

Management

What I got wrong about motivation for twenty years, and what finally changed my mind about all of it

I spent two decades trying to motivate people. It turns out I was solving the wrong problem, and the right one was less flattering…

1 min read

Personal development

The quiet hour

I have kept an hour at the start of the day for about thirty years. Not for exercise, not for correspondence, and emphatically not…

2 min read

Reader Forum

Join the conversation

Readers ask Andrew questions, share what a chapter changed, and argue about the hard parts. Andrew reads every thread.

Go to the forum