"Geoff" has been running critical parts of every business on a Byzantine spreadsheet empire for 20 years. Every IT department wants to regulate him. Who's right? (Trick question: you need both.)

In this episode, we feel our way through the murky territory of protocols—from life-saving surgical checklists to shadow IT empires built by people like Geoff, who just want to get their jobs done without asking permission. What we discovered: protocols aren't the enemy. Neither are the people who break them. You need both, and—whether you like it or not—you're going to get both anyway.

Fascinations:

• Why giving someone just enough control over how they wash dishes is a vital part of management
• The novel "tracer dye" method for tracking shadow IT (and why Geoff will quickly find a way around it)
• How a 19th-century doctor was ejected from the medical community for [gasp!] suggesting surgeons wash their hands
• How expert oil rig workers can land helicopters in storms through tacit knowledge no checklist could capture
• The difference between a checklist, a flow chart, and knowing when neither will save you
• How social norms function as soft protocols (and why London Tube etiquette is more fragile than you think)

This one's for anyone who's ever tried to bring order to chaos — and for anyone resisting someone else's attempt to do the same.

Links and references

• Venkatesh Rao – "Summer of Protocols" / protocolization concept
• Vaughn Tan – "boring tiny tools" concept https://vaughntan.org/bttparadigm
• Ignaz Semmelweis – 19th-century physician who pioneered handwashing
• Atul Gawande – Author of The Checklist Manifesto
• Dave Snowden – Cynefin framework / oil rig helicopter story
• Gary Klein – Expert intuition and pattern recognition
• Procrustes – Greek mythology (innkeeper with the "one-size-fits-all" bed)
• Chick sexing – Example of tacit knowledge that can't be articulated
• Social protocols – Norms like cheek-kissing customs across cultures
• Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) / Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) – Technical protocol examples

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At the start of 2025, we faced a question: should we pack in our business and get [gasp] proper jobs? Our old brand felt like rotten decking – layers of horrible surprises with no clear foundation.

But instead of quitting, we found an octopus, embraced distinctiveness over differentiation, and built something we're actually excited about.

In this year-in-review, we trace a tangled thread from near-shutdown to genuine transformation, exploring what worked (uncertainty bubbles, relationship-driven growth, really good sandwiches) and what didn't (cold outreach, content marketing as a silver bullet, biscuits). Along the way, we workshop potential themes for 2026: bubbles, relationships, or possibly giant fluffy hats.

Including but not limited to:

• Why Byron Sharp's evidence-based marketing vindicated our octopus obsession (distinctiveness > differentiation)
• The brutal realisation: thought leadership doesn't automatically convert to clients ... so what does?
• "The only thing worse than having a struggling business is having a successful business that you hate running"
• How our iterative approach to website messaging revealed insights no "big bang rebrand" could surface
• "Uncertainty bubbles" - presenting external certainty while protecting internal space for emergence
• Why we'll never do much cold outreach, even though it works for others, and what we're doing instead
• The hot seat moment that changed Tom's career: when someone just picked up the phone instead of planning

This one's for anyone building something that doesn't quite fit the playbook, wondering whether there's a way to grow without becoming someone you don't recognise.

Links and references:

• Byron Sharp (marketing researcher, Ehrenberg-Bass Institute)
• Dolly Parton: "Figure out who you are and then do it on purpose"
• Adrian Tchaikovsky (author, Children of Ruin - source of crown & reach octopus metaphor)
• Ehrenberg-Bass Institute (evidence-based marketing research)
• Distinctiveness vs differentiation (branding principle)
• Uncertainty bubbles (concept from Tom's Deel masterclass)
• Safe-to-fail probes (complexity/Cynefin principle)
• 4U Framework: Unpack, Undergo and Unfold Uncertainty
• Granularity, disintermediation and iteration (our hidden facilitation principles)
• Innovation Tactics (Tom's Pip Decks card deck - 50+ methods) https://collabs.shop/yxzsjg
• Decking metaphor episode (our previous year-in-review)

What's your theme for the year? Did anything in this episode trigger a thought for you? tentacles@crownandreach.com

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What if the reason you can't find the right name for your experiments is because you're asking the wrong question?

In this one, we tackle a deceptively simple question from friend-of-Tentacles Matti about behavioural scientists, voting SMS messages, and which Cynefin domain they're playing in. This spirals into a wonderfully messy exploration of why simulation has limits, why "safe to fail" needs better words, and what ice hockey can teach us about working in uncertainty.

Including-but-not-limited-to:

• Why the person who thinks they can predict things in complexity is the most wrong of all
• An ice hockey metaphor that might finally make Cynefin dynamics click (featuring goosebumps, but not just because it's cold)
• How Multiverse Mapping deploys simulation for coherence testing, not fortune telling
• The liminal zone between complicated and complex – and why most "experiments" live there
• Why you can't measure a system without changing it
• The profound difference between "conditions and consequences" vs "cause and effect" thinking
• Why "poking reality" might be better than probes, scouts, or bets (or why we still can't decide)

This one's for anyone who's tired of treating complex human behaviour like it's a physics problem – and anyone who's wondered why their "experiments" keep failing even though the logic seemed sound.

Links and references:

• Matti J Heino (posed the question about voting SMS)
• Dave Snowden (Cynefin framework, Ritual Dissent)
• Jen Briselli (ice hockey player and fellow complexity wonk) https://medium.com/topology-insight/head-up-feet-moving-b56e60867190
• Wayne Gretzky (Canadian hockey player, "skate where the puck is going" quote)
• Ursula Le Guin (author, Earthsea series, concept of "true names")
• Sun Tzu (conditions and consequences thinking)
• Cynefin Dynamics https://cynefin.io/wiki/Cynefin_Dynamics
• Liminal Cynefin https://cynefin.io/wiki/Cynefin_Domains
• Tom's bounded applicability diagram https://triggerstrategy.com/pitch-provocations
• Multiverse Mapping: https://multiversemapping.com
• Matthew principle / Matthew Effect ("to him that has riches, more will come")
• Schrodinger's cat / superposition
• Episode 131: Safe to Fail Boops: A Pragmatic Critique of Business Experimentation (mentioned as previous episode)
• Why Does the Pedlar Sing? (on advertising, branding, and fame)

Find out more about us and our work at crownandreach.com

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