About Empathy Blog

When Hamish Falconer, the UK's new chief Brexit negotiator under Andy Burnham's government, described his EU reset mission in The Guardian on 10 August 2026, he made a striking distinction: negotiating with the Taliban had been an adversarial exercise, but negotiating with the EU was a negotiation 'with friends, with whom we share our values'. Same negotiator, radically different operating logic. That contrast is exactly what most PMOs miss when they try to run distributed ex

Every PMO leader has seen it: a steering committee opens with a 40-slide dashboard, and closes without a single clear decision. The data was there. The decision was not. In a context where business confidence is under pressure globally — Business Today reported on July 19, 2026 that India Inc's Business Confidence Index dropped to 44.6, its third-lowest reading since 2011, with 69% of companies putting capital investment plans on hold — executives cannot afford steering meeti

In May 2026, Thierry Breton defended in Les Echos his proposal for a constitutional 'golden rule' capping France's public deficit at 1% of GDP. His argument is striking for any PMO leader: a rule is not a straitjacket, it is a frame that restores trust and unlocks decisions. Most PMOs face the same paradox. Either they drown projects under steering committees, status reviews and approval loops, or they let portfolios drift because nobody knows who decides what. Governance is