Pedro Silva's Blog

A former line manager once told me that there is always a higher mountain to climb. When you think you have reached the top, that’s when you see the next one in front of you.

I think about that quite often. There is always another project that needs attention, another deadline approaching, another presentation that could be improved. Finishing one thing rarely creates the sense of completion we expect. Usually it simply reveals what comes next.

In meetings with people from different teams, the person who knows the most about one subject is often not the one who moves the conversation forward.

One person understands the technology, another knows the customer, and someone else knows what can actually be done. Each view is useful, but incomplete. The conversation moves when someone can see how they fit together.

This is where I believe generalists add value. Experience across different areas helps them spot patterns and connections that others may miss. What looks like an unfocused path can become useful when the problem is too broad for one area of expertise.

In feedback conversations, I often notice how quickly the past takes over.

A manager points to something that went wrong. The other person disagrees, apologises or explains the context. What was meant to be useful becomes a quiet negotiation about who understood the situation correctly.

Marshall Goldsmith suggests a different approach: feedforward. Instead of judging what already happened, ask what could be done differently next time.

The distinction sounds small, but it changes the conversation. Feedback can feel like a verdict, even when it is carefully delivered. Feedforward treats improvement as something still available. There is less need to defend a decision that cannot be changed.

I used to think that avoiding an average life required unusual talent.

Now I’m sure it begins with something simpler: not copying the default.

If I make the same choices as everyone around me, I should not be surprised to get similar results. The same education, the same career moves, the same habits, the same approach to investments and risk. None of those choices is necessarily wrong. They are simply unlikely to lead somewhere different.

A short and thought-provoking talk from Conor Neill on one less obvious drawback of intelligence: it makes our excuses more convincing.

He argues that progress depends less on intelligence than on turning what we already know into action.

It is a good reminder that sometimes we need to intentionally persuade ourselves to take action.

This week was a good reminder that impact does not always come from a single big achievement. More often, it comes from creating momentum across many interconnected initiatives.

Over the past few days, I had the opportunity to contribute to brand planning, omnichannel strategy, AI adoption, capability building, and cross-functional collaboration across multiple teams and markets. While each activity may seem small in isolation, together they help move the organisation forward, strengthen alignment, and create the conditions for future success.

The core leadership virtues include wisdom to discern the proper strategic path, sincerity that builds trust, humanity that recognizes the dignity of all stakeholders, courage to make difficult decisions, and discipline to maintain consistent standards.

via Sun Tzu and the Art of Business

I keep hearing people ask AI questions they have not tried to answer themselves. A difficult email arrives, and before deciding what they think, they ask the machine how to respond. A choice appears, and the first instinct is to prompt it rather than think it through.

The tool is useful, but the order matters. When AI becomes the first step, it removes the part where a view begins to form.

For years, I thought I was building trust by letting my team know which decisions I disagreed with. Reading Serve Up, Coach Down, I realised that what felt like transparency was quietly undermining the very decisions I expected my team to support.

Nathan Jamail makes a distinction that I will always remember. Before a decision, my job is to contribute honestly, challenge assumptions and bring my best thinking. Once the decision is made, my job changes. My team no longer needs to know how hard I argued. They need someone who will help them succeed within the chosen direction.