Tentacles - the podcast from Crown & Reach

OR: Swimming in sauce. From LinkedIn rants to airfield-based barbecue ... we talk about why adaptation beats detailed planning. When your carefully planned day out becomes a disaster, do you stick to the plan or pivot? We start with LinkedIn beef about scrappy MVPs, detour through a failed town visit with a toddler, and end up at an airfield watching planes while eating incredible brisket. This me...

Remember that dress? The one that had the entire internet at each other's throats about whether it was white and gold or black and blue? Turns out it reveals something profound about how our brains work—and why getting your team aligned on a vision might be the wrong goal entirely. We dive into the viral dress phenomenon and explore what it teaches us about prediction, perception, and the challeng...

Glittery bags of words, scatterbrained tutors, or random concept triggerers? In this one we feel our way through the murky reality of AI tools—reaching our tentacles beyond all the silt that's been stirred up in the hype and panic. We think we've found some interesting nooks and crannies. We kick off with yet another "oops, used AI without checking" message that we received, then we share thoughts...

What does a failed lettuce shipment from a Steinbeck novel have to do with your AI strategy? Everything, as it turns out. In this one, we're doing it, we're stepping into the world of AI adoption. I mean, surely someone should start talking about this AI thing? Ahem. We talk about why a bunch of what companies are doing with AI is ruinous efficiency theatre – and what they oughta learn from a hapl...

Why doesn't your company put the effort into things you KNOW would make a difference? We feel our way through the murky waters of organisational priorities – from our own dance school advertising disasters to years of consulting war stories. We talk through why even successful initiatives get shut down, how to influence up without planting flags, and what executives are really thinking when they s...

What do falling trees in a scientific experiment have to do with failed startups, toddler tantrums, and why some ideas thrive while others collapse under pressure? We start with a tale from the Biodome, and then try to connect the lessons to growth, resilience, and the need for stress. Why trees in paradise kept toppling over ... and why the same well-meaning mistake topples new products and servi...

Stop eating frogs. A lot of people think strategy happens in boardrooms with flip charts and important people saying momentous things. In this episode we argue that you're doing strategy when you decide what to do with your next three hours. (It's very strategic of you to spend 22 minutes listening). We introduce the strategy ladder — or is it a cargo net? — a way to think about how your influence...

We've just published the video from our first-ever Multiverse Mapping Live! session, and this podcast episode is the debrief we had straight after we finished recording. We recorded it while wandering through the woods, complete with a crumbling walkway and the occasional navigational hiccough. Some stuff we talked about Tom was sweating bullets the whole time, but thankfully it didn't come across...

Cover up! It's sunny out. When uncertainty feels impossible, most teams freeze. In this episode Tom and Corissa unpack a three-phase cycle that's powered by getting it wrong first. They unpack their "Unpack, Unleash, Unfold" framework through real examples - from a messy logo redesign to a heart rate variability app that nobody could figure out how to use. We also float across the vision chasm bet...

Why do successful projects always end up radically different from how they started? And why do failed projects stick religiously to their original plan? In this episode, we cast our tentacles over three critical but overlooked manoeuvres: unpacking, unleashing and unfolding . (NB. we only explicitly label unpacking and unfolding in the podcast). Referencing articles by the brilliant Adam Mastroian...

What do lumpy compost, underwhelming basil, and internal influence have in common? Tom's Pip Decks deck, Innovation Tactics, contains a popular card called Seeds vs Soil. At time of writing, the concepts of gardening were purely theoretical to him. But now we've dipped our toes into the complex world of home horticulture, we thought we'd revisit the tactic, and share some stories of failure, "fine...

This time on Tentacles, we do something a little messy and dangerous: we put our own method through itself. That’s right: Pitch Provocations is being pitch provoked. It's one of our experimental working-out-loud conversations, that's sometimes insightful and sometimes ridiculous. Can you compress 12 months of strategic learning into 3 weeks? Why most “market research” just creates more ideas, not...

What counts as a “stupid idea”? The "out there" one that makes everyone look at you funny, or the safe, respectable one that slowly kills your business? We took a break from rebrand logistics and wandered up and down the road talking about how people and teams judge ideas. Teams often close the filter way too tightly for fear of having no filter at all . We talk about the hidden risks of focus and...

We were going to record a proper episode when we discovered that Coriss'a Otter.ai app had already done the job, while in Corissa’s pocket, mid toddler-wrangling. This micro-episode is a dramatic reading of the resulting auto-transcript. We think it's a deeply serious and often moving window into the age of AI. No notes. Find out more about us and our work at crownandreach.com Hosted on Acast. See...

Why is it so hard to start something — whether it’s a blog post, a new product, or a strategic shift? In this episode of Tentacles , we read out a note from Henrik Karlsson about the fear and freedom and unfolding in first drafts. We see how this links with journaling, testing app loops, multiverse mapping, design sprints, and what poultry farming can teach us about intuition. Learning in public,...

How do you know what to build when you're surrounded by opinions, uncertainty, and the seductive chaos of a big idea? In this episode, we tackle a listener’s question about testing product ideas, avoiding overbuild, and learning fast—without fooling yourself. Along the way, we revisit an obscure PlayStation metaphor, share painful lessons from financial services UX, and lay out a practical path to...

Hands up, who else loves a spot of brand-flavoured navel-gazing?  Two years ago we picked the company name Trigger Strategy Group in a last-minute scramble for our first client project. The name has, shall we say, one or two issues. (On the upside, it was a perfect example of Hard Test Easy Life: if you can make something work despite its flaws, you know you might be onto something.) But it w...