Hi, I’m Daryl.

I write about management, leadership and the practical business of getting things done through other people.

I’m the author of Arrive: Stop guessing.  Start managing.  A practical guide for people who have found themselves responsible for a team and are wondering what on earth they are supposed to do next.

I also write the Monday Management Morsel, a short weekly email with one practical management idea you can read in under five minutes and use before Friday.

Most of what I write comes from experience rather than theory.

I’ve spent much of my career leading teams, products, programmes and major pieces of change across government and the private sector around the world. I’ve had some great successes, made plenty of mistakes, worked for some brilliant managers and survived a few spectacularly bad situations along the way.

This site is where I share what I’ve learned.

You can find me on X and LinkedIn.

How My Work Will Help You

Most people don’t become managers because they studied management.

They become managers because they were good at something else.

Then suddenly they get promoted and are now responsible for people, performance, priorities, budgets, meetings, stakeholders, difficult conversations and delivering results through a team.

The skills that got them promoted into management are practically useless in their new role of managing the people doing the work.

Nobody hands them a manual.

I’m much less interested in management theory than I am in what actually works on Tuesday morning when you have seven meetings, three unhappy stakeholders, and someone in your team has just handed you another problem.

That is the standard I try to apply to everything I write:

Can you actually use it?

If the answer is no, it doesn’t belong here.

About Me

Here are a few things that might help explain where all of this comes from.

I’ve spent much of my career delivering complicated things.

I’ve led teams, technology programmes, digital products and major transformation initiatives across both government and private sector organisations.

Much of that work has involved complicated environments with competing priorities, senior stakeholders, suppliers, tight deadlines and plenty of ambiguity.

In other words, a good training ground for management.

I learned management mostly by getting things wrong.

Like many managers, I was promoted because I was good at my job.

That did not automatically make me good at managing people.

Some lessons came from great leaders who showed me what good looked like.

Others came from difficult roles, bad decisions, failed approaches and moments where I walked away thinking, I am definitely not doing that again.

Those lessons eventually became the foundations for Arrive.

I believe management is a practical skill.

Leadership matters.

Vision matters.

Culture matters.

But managers also need to know what to actually do.

How to structure their week. How to run a one-to-one. How to prioritise. How to delegate. How to make decisions. How to handle conflict. How to communicate upwards. How to create accountability without becoming unbearable.

Those are learnable skills.

And learning them can make management considerably easier.

I write for the manager I used to be.

The person who has just been handed their first real management role and is privately wondering whether everyone else knows something they don’t.

They usually don’t.

If I can help you avoid a few of the mistakes I made, then I have done my job.

When I’m Not Writing About Management

There is quite a bit more to life than management.

I live in New Zealand and, whenever possible, I would rather be near the ocean.

Surfing.

Probably my favourite way to completely forget about work.

I spend an unreasonable amount of time thinking about surfboards, surf trips, swell forecasts and how to arrange life so I can get into the water more often.

Travel.

I love travelling, particularly when it involves somewhere warm, interesting food and the possibility of a wave somewhere nearby.

Some of the better management lessons I’ve learned have also come from working with people and organisations in very different environments.

Technology.

I’m endlessly curious about technology, digital products and new ways of working.

I enjoy figuring out how tools can make work simpler and occasionally disappear down rabbit holes learning software that I definitely did not need to learn.

Family.

Most importantly, I’m a husband and father.

Work matters, but I’ve become increasingly convinced that being successful at work while being miserable everywhere else is a very poor trade.

Where to Start

If you’re new to management, I’d start with Arrive.

It is the guide I wish someone had handed me when I first became responsible for other people.

If you’d rather start smaller, you can read a free chapter and see whether you like my approach.

And if you just want one useful idea each week, sign up for Monday Management Morsel.

Five minutes.

One practical management idea.

Use it before Friday.