March First

Hello Reader, We'd like to invite you to a free online panel on community-centred foresight — how communities imagine, plan and build their own futures. Tank's Dimitri Antonopoulos will be joined by Mark Paterson (Erada Advisory, co-author of the Hidden in Plain Sight report), Alison McLean (Hay Shire Council) and Andrew Taylor (Regional Circularity Co-operative, Bega Valley). The conversation will cover three different approaches to community futures and hear insights from Tank's work on the...

The Weekly Journalof Creative Leadership Since 2016 I Once Imagined Tomorrow Hello Reader, One of my favourite things to do is spend time in my local cafe early in the morning as the sun rises and the day begins. A small espresso bar around the corner from my house has become the place where I meet my dearest friends, and settle after my early morning training sessions as the day begins. Open plan, the menu as sparse as the concrete fittings, and the sounds of the early morning; nothing more...

The Weekly Journalof Creative Leadership Since 2016 Where Are The Designers? Hello Reader, I've often read that empathy is going to be this century's primary skill when it comes to success as a leader, yet we're over a quarter of the way through and I'm scratching my head. Really? We thought we'd explore this topic in our next creative leadership online session: aptly titled Radical Empathy. Is empathy so overused and underrated—so familiar even—that we no longer understand what it takes to...

The Weekly Journalof Creative Leadership Since 2016 Values don't count for anything, if you do nothing. Hello Reader, This week I chose to write my essay in public. A far-right politician addressed Australia in the last few days and called for this ancient, multicultural nation to become a monoculture. She called for the further marginalisation of transgender people and used people of Islamic faith as a vehicle for fear. She was talking about my family. She was talking about my friends and...

The Weekly Journalof Creative Leadership Since 2016 Arrive with an Empty Cup Hello Reader, These words were spoken to me today: arrive with an empty cup. The person was a teacher, burger in hand, mouth full. On their lunch break. Choosing to spend an hour with us to talk about the work they're doing. Helping children be the best they can be. Thinking about the systems that judge, reward, prevent and guide those children and how unhealthy and unfit for purpose those systems are. I asked the...

The Weekly Journalof Creative Leadership Since 2016 The Sign in the Window Hello Reader, Far too often I have found myself staring blankly out the window, dwelling on what it is that I must do, to ensure the time I have is used in a meaningful way. And this has been uncomfortable for me, in the way that make us realise we have been participating in something we knew was wrong, but never admitted it, or said it out loud. It's the way of these uncomfortable things; they're so accurately felt....

The Weekly Journalof Creative Leadership Since 2016 A Fierce Hope Hello Reader, I put my book down this morning and exhaled a year's worth of hope. A few days ago we marked the end of 2025 and the beginning of 2026, and today I sense what I always sense at this time of year. A sense of reflection, a little bit of helplessness and fair bit of hope. I would've been no more than ten years old when my mother first told me how they celebrated new year's eve with her parents — 1922 refugees from...

The Weekly Journalof Creative Leadership Since 2016 The future belongs to those who lead with creativity. Hello Reader, In the Venn diagram of my working life, two circles have always sat front and centre: creativity and leadership. Their overlap has been a quiet presence throughout my career - a place of tension, nourishment, contradiction and at times, possibility. It’s inside this intersection that I’ve begun to shape a learning program that brings together my decades of practising,...

The Weekly Journalof Creative Leadership Since 2016 The Design of Belonging Hello Reader, As I ask myself the questions — wasn't it June just a month ago? — I'm sure you too are noticing the race towards the end of the year slowly begin. Like sprinters slowly approaching the starting line, shaking out their muscular frame and waving to the crowd in a symbolic gesture that says just one thing: I've got this, with a nervous smile. I don't want to be too abstract here, but I often think about...

The Weekly Journalof Creative Leadership Since 2016 A Tribe of Mentors Hello Reader, A recent conversation with a friend recently stirred something in me. It was a reminder of the quiet and powerful role the people in our lives play, in shaping who we are, and who we are not. We spoke of leadership and friendship, yes, but also of the grace that lives inside our friendships, the kind that offers not only guidance and warmth as all friendships should, but reflection, challenge and provocation....