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What do you see?

October 30th, 2026

What feelings and thoughts arise when you look at this picture?

What would you see, feel and think if you looked at this picture for an hour?

That’s the experiment I set myself recently when I visited The National Gallery in London. I selected this picture ‘semi-randomly’ and looked at it for an hour. My only criterion was not to sit in front of a really ‘famous’ picture (to avoid getting in the way of other visitors).

The idea is borrowed from, Jennifer Roberts, professor of History of Art and Architecture at Harvard University. At the beginning of her course, she asks students to look at the same picture for three hours. I only lasted 60 minutes, as I’d arranged to meet someone for a drink. I ascribe my prioritisation of pints over paintings to my Scottish heritage. 60 minutes was enough to prompt an array of observations and questions though. For example, I noticed the painter, Claude-Joseph Vernet, had signed his name on one of the trunks that had been salvaged from the wrecked ship that’s at the bottom left of the painting.

I noticed that there was black smoke coming from a suburb of the town that’s visible in the distance and wondered whether a different disaster was raging there. I was struck by the fact that the dog had not run away and wondered what it was looking at in the distance.

The more time passed, the more incongruent the picture seemed to me. On reflection this is because I associate storms with being at night and in cold, wet weather. Here, a storm is raging in the middle of the day and the people are lightly dressed. Indeed, one guy in the bottom right is in his underwear. What’s that all about?!

I also noticed two guys watching the scene from the nearest ship. They seemed very passive. I wondered whether they knew people on the wrecked ship and whether they felt helpless or ambivalent. It also appeared that a distant boat had been struck by lightning. This seemed particularly unfair, as the lightning’s trajectory was going in the opposite direction to the ship and then had very abruptly changed direction.

I wondered whether the people below the lighthouse could and would help those shipwrecked and, given the direction of the wind, whether any of the ships would survive. Could those that had made it to the shore, get off the beach? In time, parts of the cliffs looked more and more like human faces. Also, I noticed there were very small flecks of paint in the clouds which caught the light. Was this an attempt by the painter to signify rain?

I could go on. The above is a small fraction of what crossed my mind.

In an age when speed is often considered ‘of the essence’ and it’s implicitly considered advantageous to do more, this exercise is a reminder that less can be more and slowing down can add richness, insight and value to an experience. Doing the exercise also illustrated the assumptions people can make: several fellow visitors asked me in-depth questions about the picture and artist and advice on what other pictures to view. They assumed I was knowledgeable about art. Those who know me will attest to how wrong that assumption is!

mch’s Short-Listed Application for the National Sustainability Awards

July 28th, 2026

mch is delighted to have been short-listed for, ‘Company of the Year’, at this year’s National Sustainability Awards. Below is an edited extract of our short-listed application:

Summary

At first glance, mch: positive impact is a people development firm. Its vision is to help individuals, teams and organisations fulfil their full potential, so that they can have the positive impact they want to see in the world. It achieves this vision through quality, effective and timely training and mentoring; with both focusing on better managing and leading yourself and others.

However, providing great training and mentoring to clients is only one of four equally important aspects to mch’s business operations. The other three are:

• Treating people well: those who work for and with us
• Having a positive impact on wider society
• Working in partnership with nature

mch was founded in 2005 and attributes its sustained success to continually seeking resonance and harmony between these four aspects of business.

mch operates throughout the U.K., conducts work in mainland Europe and has one full-time employee.

For mch: positive impact, interdependence is at the heart of sustainability. Through partnering with nature, we enable leaders to have a positive impact on the world, whilst also using business to change society for the better and providing a great place to work.

Partnering with the Environment

The Formal

mch has signed up to The Better Business Act. This means the company has formally changed its articles of association, so that it is legally bound to consider the environment and wider society when it makes business decisions.

The Quirky

mch is proud to have a garibaldi fish and a wildflower meadow as two honorary company directors. mch created the meadow and in an example of repurposing for sustainability, the tonnes of gravel that were covering what is now the meadow have been given to others (including a local sports club) for their driveways.

When faced with both strategic and operational issues, it is hoped that better decisions will be made, simply by asking;

“What is best for the wildflower meadow?” Or “What would the garibaldi fish prefer?”

Strategic Impact of Partnership

The Concept of Enough

Nature seeks balance and so a fundamental consequence of being in partnership with nature is continually striving for resilience and enough, not efficiency and continual growth. mch considers this countercultural approach was key to weathering the global financial crisis in 2007-9 and COVID in 2020-21.

The concept of enough extends to mch’s training work, as it is yet to use artificial intelligence to design any of its training materials. Gaining consistently excellent feedback without using it is enough. In doing so, mch’s digital carbon footprint is reduced.

Saying No

Occasionally, mch has refused work. It has done so because, after conducting due diligence, it is not convinced the client is operating sustainably.

Being Selective

A key commitment mch has made to its partnership with nature is not to fly for work purposes. This has necessitated ceasing to work in Australia and The Middle East.

Investing Wisely – Pensions and Banking

mch believes that where business chooses to spend and invest its capital is key to sustainability. A detailed review of mch’s ethical pension in 2024 prompted a two-year search to find a more appropriate one and mch plans to share its findings with other businesses to coincide with Ethical Finance Global 2026.

Since its foundation, mch has changed its banking provider three times in search of ever more ethical banking.

Rethinking Value and Communicating the Realities and what is to be Gained

Whilst the above strategic implications of partnering with nature illustrate challenges for businesses, mch has tried to espouse the benefits too. For example, in taking the train to Denmark for work, rather than the plane, mch highlighted that you can;

‘Have breakfast in Belgium, lunch in Germany (together with a haircut) and supper in Denmark.’

This richness would be impossible by flight.

Such insights, together with the following topics have been shared:

• International Travel by Train rather than Plane
• mch’s four-fold approach to business and how it can be measured.
• Doughnut economics.
• Calculating your carbon footprint.
• The Better Business Act.
• The concept of enough.
• Highlighting world recycling day, what you can do and its impact.

• Individual vs collective action and how environmental problems are often ‘wicked’.

  Standard Practices of the Partnership

  “The world is moved along not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker.” Helen Keller

mch uses 100% renewable electricity to power its office. It measures and offsets its carbon emissions, including for cloud computing. It also adopts the 6R approach and indicative examples include:

Recycling

• Recycling printer cartridges and redundant electricals, often raising money for charities in the process.

• When overseas, bringing back all items that can be recycled in the UK, but not in the country in which mch is working.

Repair

• mch’s two work bags are 25 and 15 years old respectively. Both are still operational on account of being repaired frequently.

Reduce

• mch switches off utilities and equipment when not in use and printing is kept to a minimum.

Reuse

• mch staff travel with a reusable cup, a carrier bag and a paper bag. The latter avoids using the ones provided in food shops for the 1-2 minutes between selecting a food item and then eating it. • mch has used both second-hand laptops and phones.

Refuse

• mch refuses new phone upgrades, only replacing such equipment when they no longer function.

Rethinking

• mch helps other businesses rethink their approaches to sustainability.

Selected Impact

Since 2005, mch estimates that relative to the average company, it has used:

• 40% fewer new phones

• 20% fewer new laptops

• 500 fewer paper bags

Enabling Leaders

Through its leadership development work, mch is increasingly encouraging leaders to become more sustainability-minded. This can be through training, or by delivering development opportunities in nature. It can also be through the contracting process e.g. negotiating to travel by train, rather than plane.

mch recognises that it can be easier for businesses to partner with nature from the very beginning. Consequently, mch is developing a pro bono initiative to help entrepreneurs leaving university to consider sustainable practices.

Changing Society for the Better

mch considers that sustainability is intrinsically linked to equity and so for the last six years, it has donated over 10% of its pre-tax profits and donated over 400 volunteering hours/employee towards a more just and equitable future.

It also believes impact is amplified through collaboration and so is actively engaging with the likes of The School for Moral Ambition and People, Planet, Pint, whilst supporting the campaigns of Oxfam and the work of On Purpose.

Accountability and Transparency

mch has published social responsibility reports since it was founded in 2005. These include how it provides a great place to work and its broader stakeholder engagement.

Persuading Organisations to Invest in Development

May 14th, 2026

Recently, I participated in a Chartered Institute of Fundraising podcast focusing on professional development. In addition to exploring emotional intelligence in depth, I made my aversion to the term; ‘soft skills’, known, not least because they are often the hardest to develop, the strongest aides to resilience and the ones most likely to keep you employable in a world of AI.

We also discussed how individuals could persuade their organisations to invest in their professional development. One approach I didn’t have time to raise was what I term the ‘pragmatist’s thought experiment’. To keep the maths simple, let’s assume a charity has a team of three fundraisers. It is quite possible that due to staff turnover, three, perhaps even four recruitment cycles will be required in this team during a three year period. Let’s assume that there’s a training course costing £1,500 per person, which each of the three fundraisers in the team would like to go on. On the basis that the team is performing well, I think you only need to believe two things for it to make sense to fund all three training course places:

(i) The motivation to learn and the sense of feeling valued could reduce the number of departures from 3-4 to 2-3 during the three-year period.

(ii) Each round of recruitment costs the organisation £5,000 (a quick google search suggests this is a very conservative estimate).

On this basis, even if the training does not make the fundraisers better fundraisers, investing in the training would save the charity money: £4,500 spent on training, £5,000 saved on recruitment equals a net saving of £500. If the training only makes each fundraiser 1% better at fundraising and you only see this benefit in the final year, training will increase the charity’s income by several thousand pounds (based on annual fundraising income of at least £300,000, which again is very conservative).

I’m always wary of equating an outcome (in this case reduced staff turnover) to a single variable (in this case development opportunities). In my experience, no amount of training can withstand poor management or a toxic culture. Anecdotally though, there does seem to be a strong correlation between organisations continuing to invest in staff, even in tough financial times, and long-term organisational performance. If anyone has any hard data to back this up, please do get in touch. It would be great to have my anecdotal hunch confirmed and it could help others to get the development opportunities they need.

Another point I wished I’d stressed in the podcast is that some of the most valuable development opportunities come without any financial participation fee – becoming a charity trustee being a prime example. Another is simply allowing staff to read books/listen to podcasts during work time on topics they’re interested in developing.

If you’d like to listen to the full podcast, click here.

I need a hug

May 7th, 2026

Currently, I’m developing a three-day development programme in nature for leaders wanting to improve their relationships and the ways in which they transition through life. In an age of fervent technology use, I believe how we transition between our roles and responsibilities and through periods of time (e.g. day to night, week to weekend) is becoming increasingly important. I also believe nature can guide us with these transitions and in areas where technology still falls short of humans – being capable of the vulnerability needed for trusted relationships. Relationships with others and relationships with our self. I’ve intentionally used relationships in the plural when it comes to the self, as I believe each of us is a ‘poly-person’: we are composed of multiple characters.

The importance I place on relationships, transitions and nature has been influenced by many experiences. However, a recent podcast conversation about a sabbatical I took last year reminded me of a key one: a 10-day silent course.(1) No talking, no technology, no reading or writing materials, no exercise (apart from walking) and no leaving the venue. Instead, a routine which started at 5am and incorporated up to 14 hours of meditation, with the deceptively simple instruction to focus purely on your breath. Although around 150 other people were in attendance, an instruction was given to behave as is if you were alone.

Despite taking all these external distractions away, this was no retreat for my mind. In an example of us being ‘poly-people’, many different ‘Marks’ were expressing their views and wanting to be heard. Here are just a few:

Wee Marky (my inner child)

This poor fellow (who’s pictured) just wanted a hug from a particular person who loved him and whom he loved.

Sparky (my chimp(2))

Sparky couldn’t stand it. It was what he imagined prison, a cult and the army to be like and he has never had a desire to experience any of these.

Free Range Mark (my high sensation seeker(3))

Free Range Mark was bored. He amused himself by creating fantastical daydreams. In one, I was a professional footballer who spoke fluent Basque, gave 97% of his wages to charity, lived in an old people’s home, took the tram to training wearing a blazer and had an altercation with a fellow player (Roy Keane) because he accused me of lacking commitment!

Don’t tell the organisers, but at one point I played a game of how many leaves I could catch from a falling tree in five minutes. I was just so desperate to play.

Berocca Mark (me on a good day)

My best-self was conflicted. As a trainer, I understood why the rules existed and why it was delivered in a particular way, but I had concerns about duty of care. Distractions can be an effective coping strategy and some of our ‘poly people’ can exist in or close to the subconscious. When you remove so many distractions, it can be difficult to predict how these people will react. I heard several people sobbing in the communal meditation hall, suggesting the ‘poly people’ of some were in real distress.

I also felt tension at a values level. A central premise of the course was that it would help participants achieve greater equanimity in relation to their thoughts and feelings, which would allow them to have a more positive impact on society. This appealed to my values of service, quality and relationships. The amount of meditation did not appeal to my value of balance though; nor did the restrictions appeal to my value of fun.

On reflection, some of my difficulties with the course stemmed from the way I transitioned from my ordinary world into ‘course world’. I was certainly more considered in how I transitioned back. Also, I may have been more receptive to the course if my life circumstances at the time had been different.

Whilst many would consider this an extreme experience, my multiple selves are still very active back in my ordinary world and managing them is key to my contentment. Furthermore, how I manage transitions, whether they be time or task related, also have a massive impact on how I perform in my multiple roles of father, partner, son, brother, friend, mentor, trainer and facilitator. Consequently, I’m so looking forward to the prospect of helping others to get to know themselves as ‘poly people’ and manage both their multiple selves and their transitions in life.

(1) To listen to the podcast, click here.

(2) Prof Steve Peters’ work provides context to the ‘chimp’, and an overview can be found by clicking here.

(3) More information on high sensation seeking and high sensitivity can be found by clicking here.

How Much Would It Take For You to Bring This Back from Overseas?

January 28th, 2026

[Picture: Showing approximately 30 items of paper, cardboard and plastic]

On a recent volunteering trip, I brought back the above recyclables from France. Would you have done the same, or would you have had to be paid to do so? If so, how much would you need to have been paid?

Pause for a moment to answer. If you like, you can select your amount by CLICKING HERE and then view what others have selected by CLICKING HERE.

By explaining the motivations behind my actions, this article will consider the concept of ‘wicked problems’ and the mindsets that can arise when facing them. It also aims to provide a useful perspective on crises.

Agency Being at the Root of a Crisis

My volunteering centred on assisting people who are seeking asylum from conflict and persecution. Such a situation often prompts me to consider the interplay between individual and collective responsibility. When is an issue an individual problem? When is it societal? Or is it invariably a mix of both?

As the waste bin at my lodgings started to fill up, I considered this interplay within the context of the environmental crisis. I use the word ‘crisis’ intentionally, as I find the word’s etymology helpful. Crisis stems from the Greek, ‘krisis’, which means, ‘turning point’, or ‘decision’. I find this meaning helpful when it comes to the damage humans are causing to the wider environment, as it signifies a degree of agency. We can decide to take a different turn, so our actions are more resonant with a sustainable future.

mch’s_ Four-Fold Approach and its Directors

mch’s ‘Four-Fold’ Approach to Business aims to give equal importance to the following four aspects: client service, our people, the environment and broader society. A practical application of this approach is that I used train, ferry and bike as my means of transport to and from volunteering, as these forms have the lowest carbon footprint.(1) For a business like mch, decisions relating to modes of transport are some of the most environmentally impactful it regularly has to make. Consequently, it makes sense to prioritise consideration of the environment in such decisions. However, I am not mch’s only Director. As mentioned previously, a Garibaldi fish and a wildflower meadow are also nominal Directors. For more information on these Directors CLICK HERE. Increasingly, they have advocated for prioritising the environment in other decisions. One of these is recycling.

In Calais, France, where I was volunteering, recycling locations for cans and bottles were ubiquitous. However, I couldn’t locate anywhere to recycle paper or plastic. Knowing that such options exist back home, I decided to keep all the recyclable paper and plastic that I was consuming and recycle it when I returned.

My decision to bring back my recyclable waste made me reflect on whether the decision was the most impactful. If recycling is important, would my time have been better spent writing to the local authorities in Calais asking them to expand their recycling provision? Alternatively, should my focus have been on not purchasing items with such packaging in the first place? Or should it have been on all of the above?

Mindsets, Wicked Problems and Clumsy Solutions

From my coaching work, I’ve become aware of the loaded nature of the word, ‘should’. If you take the view that we are composed of many ‘parts’ or ‘characters’, invariably the parts of ourselves that use the word, ‘should’, are not our best selves. The parts that use, ‘should’, often view the world from a perspective of fear, inadequacy and/or scarcity. I call these parts of myself my saboteurs, or alternatively my chimp.(2) Whilst their intent is positive, to the extent that their motivation is to keep me alive, they often inhibit my ability to thrive. In my case, they often surface when levels of ambiguity and complexity spike. They become appealing to listen to because they provide a (false) certainty/definitiveness with respect to my actions; what I should do.

If I recognise this, provided my saboteurs/chimp are not too strong, I can accept and be at peace with the fact that I am likely to be dealing with a ‘wicked problem’.(3) A wicked problem is one which has no definitive answer, no matter how much you analyse, experiment and reflect. The best you can hope for is a ‘clumsy solution’, one which comes from remaining playful and curious and experimenting with a variety of ‘semi-answers’. In my case, I’m comfortable with my decision. My fellow Directors, the Garibaldi fish and the wildflower meadow, are not the most talkative, but I generally get an intuitive sense they’re comfortable with the company’s actions too.

I’d be interested in your views though, so please do share what you’d do by CLICKING HERE and if you want to find out what others think, CLICK HERE.

Footnotes and Signposts

(1) The term ‘carbon footprint’ was developed by two academics, William Rees and Mathis Wackernagel in the 1990s. Interestingly, it was popularised by the petrochemical company BP. I find it curious that a framework encouraging individual responsibility for environmental impact was promoted by a company whose core operations unavoidably have a massive impact on the environment.

(2) For more information on the concept of saboteurs and chimps I’d recommend the work of Sharzid Chamine and Steve Peters respectively.

(3) For an in-depth exploration of wicked problems and clumsy solutions click here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281357989_Wicked_problems_and_clumsy_solutions_The_role_of_leadership